Reviews

Les Misérables: The Arena Spectacular

Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg. Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Original French text by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Additional material by James Fenton. Adaptation by Trevor Nunn and John Caird. Presented by Cameron Mackintosh, and Nick Grace Management, in association with Live Nation Australia. ICC Theatre Sydney from 1 May 2025, then Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne from 14 May and Brisbane Entertainment Centre from 28 May 2025

Photograph above by Danny Kaan.

Guys and Dolls

Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser. Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. Directed by Rp Van Der Westhuizen. Koorliny Arts Centre, Kwinana, WA. May 2-20, 2025

Guys and Dolls is a Golden Age Musical presented with the production values, finesse and polish we have come to expect at Koorliny, with intelligent and tender direction from Rp Van Der Westhuizen, one of the finest of Perth’s young directors. 

Wrong Turn at Lungfish

By Garry Marshall and Lowell Ganz. Galleon Theatre Group. Domain Theatre, Marion, SA. May 2-10, 2025

Galleon Theatre Group are based in the Domain Theatre in Marion. This intimate space suits their latest offering perfectly. The action takes place in one room for the entirety of the play. A hospital room, designed by Rosie Aust, Kym Clayton and Michael Ralph and dressed by Elaine Latcham, provides a large performing space for the action to follow.

Broke and Alone in Brisbane

Written and performed by Ciarán Sammon. Creative direction by David Padget. Brisbane Powerhouse Graffiti Room. 1 – 4 May, 2025

Ciarán Sammon may be broke and alone in Brisbane, but he’s rich in talent and absolutely in his element onstage. In this tightly crafted hour of stand-up, Sammon delivers a show packed with punchlines, personality, and a refreshing sense of purpose.

Death & the Maiden

Ensemble Q – Sundays by the Lake Series, Advanced Engineering Building no. 49, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4 May 2025

The first of Ensemble Q’s Sundays by the Lake performances was well worth the trip out to the University of Queensland. The concert took place in the stunning building no. 49 which has a glass wall so you can look out across the stage to the lake, trees and wildlife beyond. It was the perfect setting for the melancholic themed program, featuring works by two composers who tragically died young, but who continued to compose even in the face of cruel and final illness.

Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony

Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Conducted by Roderick Cox. Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. 1 – 3 May, 2025

Image: Roderick Cox

Tchaikovsky’s last symphony is so emotive and its ending so funerial and tragic that myths soon began that it was his own suicide note or a requiem for himself or, as suggested later, for a male lover – the composer died of cholera just nine days after the St Petersburg premiere.

It didn’t help that Tchaikovsky subtitled his work as the Pathétique Symphony, which translates from Russian as passionate, in French for solemn, and then the English started calling it The Pathetic!

St Kilda Tales

Text by Raimondo Cortese. Music Jack Bochow. Victorian Theatre Company and Brisbane Music Festival. Theatre Works at Explosives Factory. 1 – 10 May 2025

How to describe St Kilda Tales without defining it, assigning a genre, or putting it in a box?  Musical Director and musician Alex Raineri, the Brisbane Music Festival Artistic Director, seems to call it a rave – and he asks how we can push the boundaries of rave.  Here, rave music runs end to end of this nearly two-hour production, across and over the drama on stage.  And how to describe that?  It’s a montage, or a series of snapshots, or a series of tableaux of St Kilda people, street scenes, chance and not so chance encounters.  As a

IRL

By Lewis Treston. Presented by The Other Theatre, in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre. KXT on Broadway. April 25 – May 10, 2025

Lewis Treston from Brisbane has written a tender and off-the-wall story of online teenage love and the horror they face leaving the anonymity of screens to come out in real life (IRL).

The Beep Test

By Conor Neylon (Music & Lyrics) & Jackson Peele (Book & Lyrics). Theatre Works and Neylon & Peele. Theatre Works, St Kilda. 30 April – 10 May 2025

What began in 2019 as a ten-minute musical sketch has evolved and developed into fifty-five minutes of great, sustained music theatre entertainment.  Clever, witty songs – that advance the story.  Intricate, inventive and energetic choreography.  Sharp and economic character development.  Touching reveals.  And great performances.

Manon

Score by Jules Massenet. The Australian Ballet. Choreographer: Sir Kenneth MacMillan. Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House. April 30 - May 17, 2025.

Manon is a fascinating anti-heroine, an alluring schemer with an eye for diamonds, desperate to escape poverty in eighteenth century France, and fickle to her great love as she’s pimped by her brother to arrogant aristocrats.  Not your usual heroine of classical ballet!  She ends up back in rags in a Louisiana swamp. 

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