Reviews

Popular Hollywood rom-com The Wedding Singer transitions happily into a cheerful musical comedy, mostly following the film, with odd nips and tucks to plot and characters.

The Hills Musical Society’s new home, after 40 years facing off the numerous challenges of a very basic multi-purpose community centre, presents the exciting new challenge of creating theatre in a showroom style RSL club auditorium primarily designed for rock bands and floor shows.

We are no strangers in Australia to the difficulties, sometimes traumatic, of reconciliation between indigenous and settlers. However, we cannot even begin to understand, even in these last days of Mandela, what the African continent has gone through in its attempts to redistribute power. Lara Foot is a fine playwright, but violence is merely back-story in this exquisite and delicate play about grief, healing, surrogate love and reconciliation between an aging white South African Woman and a young native boy.

The world of cabaret is very competitive and for a show to have a return season speaks volumes. And this show was good!

A two hander for Fem Belling and Tod Strike, with a jazz trio led by Warren Wills, everything about the production had class. Fem and Tod were both superb. Their voices were capable of a huge range of styles, they danced well and their timing was exemplary. I was amazed that Tod was new to the production.

That the Youth Theatre productions (more than 90 shows altogether) grossed almost as much as Main House shows with more than double this number of performances in 2012, surprised me.

But interpret these data carefully: access to the theatre is easier on weekends and weekdays. Nearby Suncorp Stadium is home to more football events every year; their fans grab parking spaces early making BAT less attractive to evening theatregoers on footie nights.