Reviews and Such

OSCAR: "May I see you tomorrow? Maybe we could go to a movie." CHARITY: "Okay, but one with a happy ending. I'm nuts about happy endings." Charity Hope Valentine (Amy Orman) and Oscar Lindquist (Joshua Kirk) in Sweet Charity . Photo: Photox Here was a man, with some dreams (irrelevant), and a plan to grab a couple buddies, and go see a Friday night showing of Free-Rain Theatre Company's latest offering,  Sweet Charity . And it is very tempting to continue paraphrasing the titular tune of the show, but these reviews are hard enough to read as is. A show with many years up its sleeve, this is one that has eluded me successfully in the musical theatre canon for a while now, yet it is a title that rings a familiar bell. I had never seen it, of that I was sure. I knew that the title was the name of a character, and I could hum a couple of its tunes that I'd heard snippets of here and there, but otherwise, nothin'! It's not often I get to experience a ...

  "Well, why shouldn't I have fun?" P ictured, from left to right: Ruth (Alex McPherson), Charles (Peter Holland) and Elvira (Winsome Ogilvie) in Canberra REP's  Blithe Spirit . Photo by Eve Murray. Blithe Spirit  is a classic farce of recent interest to me, and Canberra REP's production is one I've been looking forward to for the last few months. The show in concept alone is brilliant in just how marvellously everything in it is capable of unravelling, to much of the delight of any audience subject to the chaos: a middle-aged author invites a medium into his home to inform a stereotype in his latest work, and accidentally summons a previous lover from the spectral plain, who wishes to settle some unfinished business. This show is a complete and utter all-timer, and it's not very difficult to see why. Its characters are memorable in their eccentricities, Coward's humour is memorably droll and fun, and the premise lends itself to the creativity of those...

"... but if you think it, want it, dream it, then it's real, You are what you feel." P ictured: Some of the Joseph cast and their choreographer laughing at some schmuck. Recently, I went ahead and donned my coat of blackened leather (and quickly discarded it in the car when I realised it was way too hot to be wearing that kind of jacket in this weather) and began a pilgrimage of about ten minutes length to the Erindale Theatre to catch Philo's latest production: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It's a show that needs no introduction. Andrew Lloyd Webber's stunning collection of exotic tunes transport us, the audience, throughout the Biblical story of Joseph. It's one of those shows that everyone cannot shut up about; conversely, it's one I went into knowing quite little about. I'd listened to only its score before seeing it, and it immediately dawned upon me that Joseph is a show that requires a cast and crew of fun, talented creators ...

The Sumerians had the story of Gilgamesh The Greeks had one about their war with Troy. But we Lucky we Blessed we Have the epic known as Bubble Boy! Jimmy (Rylan Howard) and the Bubble Boy ensemble. Photo: Damien Magee So. What. The. Heck... is "Bubble Boy"? That's the question I, and most likely a lot of you, asked when Queanbeyan Players announced their first show of their 2025 season. Based on the critically polarising and box office bombing 2001 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, the show is certainly an oddball pick for any theatre company's yearly debut. The musical itself is a vast improvement on the film, yet still there remained the outlandish humour, bizarre characters, and an almost infuriating dissonance between the humour that often made audiences gasp at its crudeness, paired with its almost child-like premise of exploring "the bubble that lies around all of our hearts".  However, having viewed the show for myself,...