Reviews

Musica April 2024: Amos Roach

La Mama Courthouse, 349 Drummond Street, Carlton. Performance and Livestream April 1, 2024

Amos Roach generously shared his strong cultural identity as a proud Djab Wurrung/Gunditj Mara and Ngarrindjeri man through music, song and dance. Amos issued a warm invitation to explore and engage with ancient songlines and connections to Country. He moved through his opening dance, the songs of his parents, Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach, his own compositions and his extraordinary Yidaki (Digeridoo) playing with a serious joy.

Thalia Joan - That’ll Do: The Glamour Of Giving Up

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Dove Club. Level 2/322 Little Collins Street, Melbourne. March 27 – April 14, 2024

Thalia Joan bursts into the room with a megaphone, in a clinging, glamorous evening dress and comfy shoes and launches into her self-deprecating, ironic, carefully observed, and utterly relatable 45 minutes of sharing about her life. While many topics are touched on, growing up with a mother and grandmother, work and issues with a boss, ex-boyfriends and the differences in generations; the core of the show is her response to an internet quiz the algorithm sent her to identify whether she is giving up.

The Rocky Horror Show

Book, Music, Lyrics Richard O’Brien. Rocky Horror Company. Director Christopher Luscombe. Theatre Royal, Sydney. Opening Night: April 3, 2024

Richard O’Brien calls his creation “a celebration of wonderful rainbow joy and toe-tapping happiness” – but he knows it’s really much more than that. It’s brazen and boisterous; cheeky and colourful; loud and lively! And though I was probably one of the oldest people in the audience at last night’s opening performance, I was just as hyped as any of the other excited Sydney siders who packed the Theatre Royal to celebrate fifty years of The Rocky Horror Show.

Elvis – A Musical Revolution

Book by Sean Cercone and David Abbinanti. Presented by David Venn Enterprises. Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide, 3-28 April 2024 (and then to Perth and Gold Coast)

In 1968, Elvis-mania was fading fast – teenagers screamed instead at the Beatles, the radio stations blasted Dylan and the Stones, rather than Presley. Exhausted from a schedule of acting in one cookie-cutter movie after another, Elvis was depressed and most thought that was how he would fade away from the music industry. Instead, he worked around his hardline manager, ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker and rewrote a Christmas TV special to relaunch his career.

Hannah Gadsby - Woof!

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Playhouse, Arts Centre, 100 St Kilda Rd, Southbank, Melbourne. 28 March - 20 April 2024.

Hannah Gadsby deals with anxiety in an amusing and endearing manner in this show. Gadsby’s acquaintance with this emotion is legendary and they demonstrate that comedy is a powerful weapon against it. Gadsby has a whole range of new worries that plague their vibrant and sharp mind. This show has a very stream of consciousness style, expressing a very calm and often bemused outlook to current global and personal woes.

Cloud Nine

By Caryl Churchill. Theatre Guild Student Society (TGSS). Little Theatre, Adelaide. April 3-6th 2024.

Cloud Nine is a play by Caryl Churchill who is arguably the most successful and best-known socialist-feminist playwright to have emerged from Second Wave feminism. Premiering in 1979, it deals with almost every contentious, debated or regretted issue in human existence, and thus, is complex and challenging for any company to perform. Set in two acts, the first is set in colonial times. The second act is firmly in 1980. It is about relationships between women and men, men and men, women and women.

Blackbird

By David Harrower. Solus Productions. Holden Street Theatres, SA. April 2nd – 13th, 2024

Scottish playwright David Harrower’s traumatic tale Blackbird premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2005, before moving onto London’s West End in 2006. A story of forbidden love and obsession; it poses more questions than it answers, which makes it all the more compelling.

Grease the Musical

Book, Music and Lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, John Frost for Crossroads Live. Directed by Luke Joslin. Capitol Theatre Sydney. Opening Night: Tuesday April 2, 2024

Producer John Frost worked on the first Australian production of Grease in 1972 tearing tickets for patrons – it was a darker version of what is staged now and surprisingly closed with a few months.

Years later he had his arm twisted to bring Grease back, but with Guy Pearce in the lead role of Danny it became a hit, spurring him to revive it no fewer than eight times.

Every Single Thing In My Whole Entire Life

Written & performed by Zoë Coombs Marr. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Melbourne Town Hall, Powder Room. 28 March – 21 April 2024

Worried about memory lapses – triggered significantly when she could not remember the word ‘Alzheimer’s’ – Zoë Coombs Marr decided to track her entire life.  That is, from ‘Before Me’ all the way though to ‘After Me’.  She kicked off with a Miro board (knowing acknowledgement and chuckles from the audience) and used the Rudolph Steiner system of seven-year periods for the stages of her life.  Colour coded.  This chart is projected on a big video screen.  (Unfortunately, anyone more than ten rows back can&rsq

Cool & Smart & Friend

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Trades Hall, The Meeting Room. 31st March – 7th April 2024

Improvised theatre is a hit and miss affair and anyone heading off to an improvised show needs to be prepared for both heady heights of verbal and physical gymnastics and drear silences and stuck narratives. Therein lies its charm.

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