Reviews

FROM THE FIRST evocative chords of any big band performance, you are somehow transported back to an earlier – and gentler – time.

Movie soundtracks use this ploy significantly well, and when they want to take you back to the 1940s, you are instantly “there” with only a few key chords from a big band.

The Stokes Nicholson Big Band was formed in Townsville 32 years ago specifically to perform that beloved music of a bygone era, but - as this performance more than demonstrated - the repertoire has definitely not been frozen in time.

Mel Brooks’ The Producers (the musical which won the most Tony Awards of all time) is a super-polished, pristine and delightful affair brimming with A-List performances and production values only a long-standing behemoth like QMT and director Nathaniel Currie can achieve.

The story of the formation of the United Ukrainian Ballet is one of sadness and tremendous grit. The company is only 6 months old. Many of the dancers escaped the war in Ukraine and have been living in The Hague as refugees.  The female dancers came first.

Attending this play is an opportunity to engage in an expressive, innovative meditation on life. It is an episodic collection of theatre games and character explorations held together with string and a guitar.

The playful mood is set with the four actors engaging in childhood games using string. This segues into a lecture on String Theory and diverges from there. Space, time and distance and their relationships are foregrounded.

There is a strong movement element which adds perspective to the mime and word-based episodes.