Reviews

Melville Theatre’s Brassed Off is a unique production, with Melville Theatre Company working with Challenge Brass Band, under the leadership of Blake Seglar, to provide the brass band of the story. Sitting nicely in accidental repertory with Koorliny’s Billy Elliot, which covers similar theme, this is a strong production whose reputation has preceded it, with the production largely sold out before it opened.

Commissioned by David Hallberg and the Australian Ballet and choreographed by Frances Rings, Flora is jaw-dropping. It seems almost pointless to review this wonderful piece because there are only so many ways you can say that something is brilliant.  However, lets dive into the thesaurus and see what we come up with.

Play On! is a fast-paced farce, a zany play-within-a-play, taking audiences behind the scenes of a beleaguered community theatre. They are trying desperately to put on a new play, despite maddening interference from the novice playwright who keeps revising the script.

Number 18 Eden Avenue is a big, old, historic house. It’s the family home of Sophie who’s a dance teacher, her daughter Poppy who’s nearly 16, and Sophie’s mother Honoria, who’s a little bit eccentric … and confused. There’s a boarder who works at the local post office and raises plants in a greenhouse at the bottom of the garden in his pare time. And a cat that inhabits the ballroom.

There is also a teenager called Simon, who lives next door … and a newly arrived boarder called Gilford, an aspiring actor from the country.