Reviews

It would be difficult not to love Playlovers' A Man of No Importance. Billed as a 'heartwarming Irish musical' it is certainly that and more. It is a beautiful production with an enormous heart.

Very much an ensemble production, every performer is involved at almost all times — and all performances are excellent. Central character Alfie Byrne is played outstandingly well by David Gardette. Alfie is an awkward, unlikely and unassuming hero and David wins the audience's affection in an exquisitely sung, consummately acted performance.

Farce was once the mainstay of popular theatre but, like most things, it was sidelined by more deep and intense, navel gazing, drama. Fortunately, Community Theatre recognised its entertainment value, and some of the best farces of the late 20th century grace the stages of our amateur theatres on a regular basis.

Heidelberg Theatre Company has a gem of a director in Chris Mclean, and he, in turn, has mounted a gem of a production in Marc Camoletti’s Don’t Dress For Dinner.

We were teased by the pre publicity into thinking that Geoffrey Rush (King Lear) would strip down on stage – revealing his crown jewels in public for the first time since jumping on that trampoline in the movie Shine. It would spoil the experience for me to reveal if this was false advertising or not.

What was naked for the whole production was the stage. First black in the first act. Then a  brilliant foggy blinding white in the second, as a metaphor for having everything taken away from you.

Quartet is set in a home for retired opera singers and at times feels a little like a cross between Sex and the City and The Golden Girls with its sexy and funny themes, interspersed with operatic music.