Reviews

Theatre has a wonderful capacity to transport you to another world. In the case of Ghost Stories that world is London’s West End. Outside the weather was icy cold, the scenes inside were often dark and foggy, the drama had a few very British frights and a few British laughs.

Leaving the production I was almost surprised to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I half expected to spot a double decker bus and a bobby.

This play is a warm hug on a chilly winter’s night. With a backdrop of the wonderfully idiosyncratic Alice Springs Beanie Festival, Head Full of Love is about the unlikely friendship between a traditional Aboriginal woman living with renal failure in the absolute poverty of an Alice Springs town camp, and an older white woman running away from Sydney and her family.

Playlovers' Gruesome Playground Injuries is billed as "an unsentimental non-linear anti romance" by Rajiv Joseph. This shortish two-hander is beautifully presented and makes an entertaining evening.

Director Kristen Twynam-Perkins takes a Brechtian approach to the production, and between scenes we watch as the actors transform their characters with changes of ages, emotional state and in the case of the character Doug, creating a variety of bizaare injuries. The characters appear at various ages between 8 and 38.

Hannie Rayson’s plot revolves around three sisters, reunited after a number of years, and the turmoil that has arisen from a novel written by one of them, Meg, which has been based on this dysfunctional family – of course, the names have been changed. This book has been short- listed for the prestigious Booker Prize much to the family’s chagrin.