Terms and Conditions Apply | Play on Stage
The play is witty, funny and has some great dance moves. Unsurprisingly, as Day, Dombay and Hosie are each credited as co-creators and writers, the artists are well-cast and portray each of their characters as believable twenty-something housemates.
Saint Joan | The Island of Misfit Players
The Island of Misfit Players have approached Saint Joan with a level of respect and earnestness that felt refreshing to me; with no urge to modernise or reimagine the script, what they have achieved is an excellent, straightforward adaptation of the play while still maintaining a very personal stamp on their interpretation.
The 39 Steps | Woodward Productions & Neil Gooding Productions
Ian Stenlake is a great choice for the role of our unsuspecting hero, Richard Hannay. Lisa McCune is a talented actor: charming as the foreign spy, highly amusing as the farmer’s wife, and fabulous as Hannay’s love interest. Casting The Umbilical Brothers is a great idea; the duo is an experienced comedy partnership, which means that Collins and Dundas are very capable of improvising and working hard to see if they can each ‘corpse’ their fellow artists.
The Natural Horse | Salad Days Collective
The Natural Horse is a deeply strange play, in more ways than one. A dark comedy about an ex-Soviet family and their struggles with the American dream, it's a work with a lot of lofty concepts and low-brow comedy, much of which is achieved with a scrappy heart that I appreciated.
Daydreamer | The Travelling Rose Theatre
Director / scriptwriter, India Rose has assembled a stellar cast to deliver her powerful autobiographical unflinching script that addresses what it means to live with this unseen disability. All in a mere sixty minutes.
A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry) | Joshua Hinton
A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen made for heartwarming theatre. Its soulful unfolding is a testimony to the transformative power of stories, especially the ones we relish and rely on for the sustenance of our selfhood.
The Platypus | Soft Tread Enterprises
A black comedy tackling the complexities of family, relationships, housing, and child rearing, The Platypus utilises its genre-bending format to unpack our cultural biases and ask uncomfortable questions.
BATSHIT | Leah Shelton
BATSHIT is, well, batshit. It’s a theatrical fever dream, giving a little burlesque, a little verbatim, a little mixed media, and a lot of comedy.
Back to Bilo | Belloo Creative
Back to Bilo’s painstaking efforts in amplifying the refugee story with so much attention to detail are praiseworthy. It is a necessary Australian story. One that needs to traverse terrains and timelines across the continent to the enduring hum of humanity.
Trophy Boys | Soft Tread & The Maybe Pile
It’s not always easy to balance sharp political and social commentary with genuinely entertaining theatre, but Emmanuelle Mattana’s Trophy Boys manages to do just this, delivering a show that’s just as laugh-out-loud funny as it is emotionally biting and politically urgent. Making its Brisbane debut at QPAC after a string of sell-out seasons and critical acclaim in Australia and the US, this queer black-comedy offers a gripping interrogation of the pervasive cultures of misogyny and toxic masculinity in private boys’ schools (and beyond).
Dance Nation | THAT Production Company
Without spoiling too much, this standing-ovation production will make you LOL, cringe, and maybe even gasp at the frankness of its language and topics. The terrific cast brought chaos, vulnerability and teenage angst to the stage, making every scene hilarious, heartfelt, and impossible to look away from; I even found myself memorising some of the lines after watching. In the end, this production was an unforgettable reminder of just how brilliantly messy growing up can be.
The Visitors | Moogahlin Performing Arts & Sydney Theatre Company
The Visitors is a must-see show; a relevant, funny, moving and thought-provoking piece that is First Nations storytelling at its finest. The Visitors reminds us of the importance of understanding our own histories, and is a provocation to encourage discussions about how we live today, and how Australian communities deal with visitors, migrants and refugees.
The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek | Cut & Run Productions
While many of the themes and ideas explored in The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek are heady and complex, its greatest quality is its humour - many moments had me cackling, and much of this is thanks to the excellent performances of its main cast.
Dear Son | Queensland Theatre
In a world where toxic masculinity and domestic violence have ripped families apart and fractured family relationships, Dear Son amplifies a long overdue need for change. Change that should allow a Blak man the rite of a safe passage to talk openly and honestly about what’s really going on inside himself. But more urgently, to heal the painful damage of the past.
DragSpeare | Jo Loth & Anne Pensalfini
This show challenges your expectations from the very beginning. It was set in a theatre pretending to be an RSL pretending to be the theatre again. The cast plays men, playing women. There were enemies playing lovers and lovers playing enemies and frames within frames within frames … DragSpeare is going to challenge you and give exactly what you need all in one big ball of smouldering pouts, puns, gender fuckery and song.
Blushing | Zen Zen Zo
Sometimes it felt like the two acted as friends, or sometimes lovers, in other scenes I felt as if they were reflections of self and shadow self., hidden desires pushing up through layers of societal expectations, repressions and social niceties. The chorus swung in and out and around the two as they journeyed through different trials of purity and expression, emancipation and repression.
Yoga Play | La Boite Theatre
In this world of consumerism gone mad, Yoga Play highlights the (laugh out loud) paradox of the practice of yoga between the West (California) and the East (India) using satire to bridge the gap between ludicrous and rational.
Round the Twist the Musical | Queensland Theatre & QPAC
If you are not at all familiar with Round the Twist, just go along for the magical ride--particularly if you are looking for a pantomime alternative. Round the Twist The Musical will entertain your age 7-11 grandkids with plenty of fart and smelly feet jokes…and you can all delight in the guy getting his girl, and cheer when the bullies/baddies are defeated.
Eat Slay Zombie | Alinta McGrady
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where zombies rule and the only form of communication for the remaining survivors is via TikTok, Eat Slay Zombie is a highly entertaining romp led by three contagiously charismatic actors.
Winona | Ebony Rattle
Shared cigarettes, discussions of what medication they’re currently taking, and manic depressive episodes define the relationship, and Rattle and Robinson’s rapport throughout the work keeps the duo both believable and elevated in a way that astounded me from a purely technical level.