Reviews

When you have two spectacular talents with great voices, a brilliant script (including the parodies of some iconic songs) and arguably more laughs than the whole of this year’s comedy festival put together, you are bound to be packed to the rafters night after night. Right? Well…no actually. And that’s a tragedy, because this is quite simply one of the funniest shows of the decade, if not the century. (Yes, I know we’re only 14 years in!)

The first performance of Christopher Hampton’s sleek, skilled, witty adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’ novel occurred 203 years after the novel’s publication in 1872.  De Laclos (1741-1803), a French army artillery officer, was posted to an island in the Bay of Biscay.  Bored and at the age of forty, he decided to write a novel – as you do.  It would be his first and only novel, but, as he wrote to a friend, he hoped it would be ‘something out of the ordinary… something that would resound around the world even after I had left it.’&

A vibrant and winning performance by Astin Blaik in the title role and snappy dance routines by Jo Badenhurst were the pluses of Savoyards production of Thoroughly Modern Millie.

For their 100th show Babirra chose one of the most technically demanding in The Phantom of the Opera. Considering they were using a smaller stage than previous productions I’d seen, this was a big ask, and they triumphed.

The show opens with the chandelier rising from the stage to the ceiling at the end of a short auction scene, as the overture commences. The chandelier swung out over the audience and upwards to a spectacular show of pyrotechnics and an ovation from the audience. It set the tone.