Reviews

Step out on Brisbane’s lower Edward Street these days and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been beamed up on Broadway, dropped on a steamy sidewalk somewhere near the Iridium Club. There’s a new basement Jazz bar, 24/7 kebab kiosk, and late-night coffee. And it’s all staggering distance from the Metro Arts Theatre, a hub of the city’s thriving community arts scene, including Underground Broadway’s current micro-run of This is our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan.

Three Australian men wake up in big trouble in a jail cell somewhere in Asia after a night they can’t remember. The simple but striking set gave the production immediate credibility. The concrete floor and wall were set off against a bright yellow sun peering through the steel bars in the window. The sound scape too was effective – perhaps the only thing missing was the smell of a stinking jail hell-hole, but mercifully the audience was left only to imagine this.

Smoking with Grandma is a ‘mixed media’ work from Hong Kong, involving a warm and loving relationship between a Chinese grandmother and grand-daughter.

You enter the darkened main studio at the Bakehouse Theatre, and the mood is sombre and intriguing. On a screen up-stage is film footage of single wafts of smoke, whilst the stage floor is lit from a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling, under which is single wood chair.

Acclaimed cabaret performers Amelia Ryan and Michael Griffiths have teamed up for this year’s Adelaide Fringe to pay homage to Australian treasures Olivia Newton-John and Peter Allen.

Sashaying down the winding staircase with maracas in hand and wearing a floral shirt was Griffiths, who looked comfortable camping it up as he sang the opening bars of “I Go to Rio”. He was accompanied by drums and bass and it took only moments for the audience to start singing along.