Reviews

I came away from Friday night’s performance of Clue on Stage at Ballina Players Theatre with mixed emotions. I was elated at having seen a really funny piece of theatre. But I was also struck with an immense feeling of pride. This cast and crew have had to overcome so many hurdles to get to Opening Night. Covid, the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones. I know these folk. Many of them intimately. I know their struggles. And yet they banded together to provide entertainment for us, the audience.

And how they entertained us!

Jennifer Willison finds all the fun as well as the ‘bite’ in her production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s satire on “celebrity feminists”. She keeps the pace fast – from the opening monologue it’s clear Willison is going to make the audience sit up and be entertained.

Catherine Potter delivers that monologue succinctly, introducing Margot Mason as strong, in command, but suffering writer’s block as she attempts to begin yet another dissertation on breaking the ‘feminine mystique’.

With a career spanning five decades, a back catalogue of 22 albums selling 2.6 million copies, and garnering countless chart-topping singles and multi-platinum records globally, Ms Marcia Hines is a shining beacon of experience, sass and talent and a welcome addition to the line-up for this Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Written by one of Britain’s best known and revered playwrights, The Madness of George III tells the story of the King’s declining relationship with his eldest son, the foppish Prince of Wales (later George IV), particularly focusing on the period around the government’s Regency Crisis of 1788–89. It is a complex and challenging play that, at its best, embraces the style and language of the Regency era where extravagance in most matters, was the norm for what was then, arguably the world’s most powerful king.