Reviews

Sydney Festival is again using the soaring grandeur of the Town Hall for its most immersive theatrical highlight.  After starring as a beachscape, a tennis court and a Wild West town, it’s now a huge oval link, spinning with the young, mainly female Sydney Roller Derby League skaters, warming up for the derby which ends this kinetic, multifaceted new show.

The dozen skaters are also speedily moving the central platforms on which the country town story of Mama Does Derby unfolds.

A young man in the buzzy foyer said to me as he was leaving that it was the best show he had ever seen.

Maybe he doesn’t see a lot of theatre, but it certainly was a thrilling night of entertainment - even an audience participant was so good I thought she was a plant. 

Set at an Irish wake, there was not much mourning taking place – think more like Riverdance on speed.

The creators tapped into the Irish tradition of having a raucous time at a traditional farewell.

THERE ARE very few contemporary musicals that engender such consistent affection from audiences and this has got to be the best of them.

Essentially, you have to love Abba to really get your maximum enjoyment out of it. But even if you don’t, there’s plenty to appreciate in this silly, fun, and frivolous show - filled with Abba-solutely fun music that everyone knows.

Written in 1924, Turandot was Giacomo Puccini’s very last opera. Set in China, it tells of the icy princess Turandot who seeks to avenge the barbaric humiliation of her ancestor Lou-Ling by cruelly executing any suitors that cannot answer three esoteric riddles. And Calaf, the exiled Mongolian prince, who falls in love with her, and despite all advice, determines to win her.