Reviews

Vibrant, energetic, engaging and exhilarating, The Hamlet Apocalypse resonates strongly with a youthful audience.  It is a visually stunning, adventurous, invigorating offering imbued with a generous spirit by Director/Designer Steven Mitchell Wright.  However it is not without significant problems.

Intriguingly it opens with the actors introducing themselves, their characters and presenting a crystalized thought in relation to their work on the play.

Armistice marked the end of the Anzac Centenary period and there could not have been a more fitting tribute, a special theatrical event commemorating the centenary of Armistice and Australia’s involvement in war and peace over the past 100 years.

Using archival photos, official war artist paintings by McCubbin and Dobell, poetry by Kenneth Slessor and Les Murray, pop songs and specially commissioned music, the program was not only enlightening, but also very emotional.

Based in Yorkshire, North England on Christmas Eve and then Christmas Day, Gordon Steele’s black comedy allows us to share the Christmas festivities with the Bauble family and their young neighbours.

An argumentative, dysfunctional family, the audience is privy to the petty quarrels that have consumed the Festive Season for many years, which becomes a bit tedious by the end of the show.  The script is witty but often predictable.

Play 1 of the Ayckbourn trilogy begins at 1 o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon and Play 3 finishes at nearly 10.30 on a cool evening. I am quite ready for Play 4. Written in the early 1970’s in a rush of creativity, these three plays — designed to be seen in any order — stand as the peak of the author’s achievements (and he’s written over 80 plays), a brilliant, Chekhovian comedy of family manners. See them and be amazed.