KATE HERBERT -RADIO REVIEWS -ARTS WEEKLY-3MBS SAT- 21MARCH-2026

 Kate Radio reviews 21Mar2026

 

 

   

In this radio review spot on Arts Weekly on Saturday 21 March 2026, I talk to Nick Tolhurst about Little Absences by Grazia Marin, and about Maureen Hartley’s Life Achievement Award at Victorian Green Room Awards 2026.

 It's about 7-8 mins.

Little Absences REVIEW 19 March 2026 **1/2

THEATRE

Written by Grazia Marin

At Chapel off Chapel until Sat 21 March at 2pm & 7.30pm

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **1/2 (2.5)

This review is  published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 21 March, 2026. KH

L-R: Piera Dennerstein,  Janet Watson Kruse-Image by Bernard Peasley

The premise and intention of Grazia Marin’s play, Little Absences, has great potential for a short play with a small cast, and some elements of this first season are successful. In an ageing population, many of us are faced with the declining health of parents and grandparents. It is a confronting and challenging experience.

Chris (Janet Watson Kruse) is an older woman suffering escalating dementia, but fiercely denying the increasing problems she has coping with living independently and alone. She struggles with basic tasks such as feeding and washing herself, keeping her house clean and the fridge stocked. However, she does manage to keep a secret stash of alcohol that she hides from her attentive, worried daughter, Jenny (Piera Dennerstein).

 

Chris has another precious secret that she keeps hidden even from her daughter: as a young woman she had some success as an emerging writer, particularly of poetry. In her demented state, she craves the creativity of the written word but wrestles with memory, language and the capacity to frame and retain an idea. It is heart-breaking to watch her struggling to retrieve that creative state – perhaps almost as distressing as watching her struggle with her alcohol abuse and inability to do the most basic activities.

 

Kruse is committed and immersed in this fraught but determined character, capturing her frustration and intermittent confusion. Dennerstein embodies the despair and concern of the daughter who respects her mother‘s wishes to be left alone but knows that her intervention is inevitable. An unexpected visitor, Alex (Veronicka Devlin), a young writer who crashed her motorbike nearby, provides some perspective and triggers Chris’s memories of her own writing.

 

This production, directed by Elnaz Sheshgelani, runs two hours with interval, but needs some vigorous and astute editing to reduce it to perhaps 70 minutes. The dialogue is unnecessarily repetitive, there are some logical inconsistencies, and the structure needs some reshaping.

 

The play lacks dramatic conflict and has limited dramatic tension and dramatic action. Most of the action is described rather than being “Now“ action. It needs more compelling revelations and stronger turning points in the narrative. All these issues make the play more like an extended monologue interspersed with some character interactions.

 

The daughter and the visitor’s roles could serve the action better, but perhaps more interesting would be having an actor to play various roles from Chris‘s past: her husband Frank and Eduardo, the exotic lover from her youthful sojourn as a writer in Spain. This actor could also play the visitor.

 

It is  clear that Chris didn’t like her husband Frank, so it is surprising that she chooses to use him as her invisible confidant. It might be more interesting to see her savaging him in her memory with a real actor playing the character.

 

A flashback to the sensuality of her youth with Eduardo might add an interesting scene. The memories and dreams are captured only by a few slides, scenes of locations and characters and this could provide a visual background to other scenes, rather than being a distraction or interruption.

 

The fact that Chris was a successful writer when she was young, is insufficient. Perhaps there could be clear revelations about Frank’s extramarital affair and dysfunctional marriage.

 

Here’s another idea: Jenny’s song, based on Chris’s poem, Little Absences, could begin the play and punctuate it until we become aware, at the end, that it is a eulogy. This might give the piece a dramatic shape and a clear structure. The daughter could then become a kind of narrator, thus avoiding Chris having to constantly explain to us what she’s experiencing as a dementing, but determinedly independent woman.

 

However, much of the latter part of my review is dramaturgy, and my role here is to be reviewer and critic. There’s certainly potential in Little Absences but, at this stage, neither the script nor the production have fulfilled that potential.

By Kate Herbert

 

Cast

Chris - Janet Watson Kruse

Alex - Veronicka Devlin

Jenny - Piera Dennerstein

Creative Team

Writer - Grazia Marin

Director - Elnaz Sheshgelani

RADIO REVIEW Arts Weekly 3MBS Sat 7 Mar 2026 - La Mama Theatre’s program 2026

      

KATE HERBERT-3MBS-SAT-07-MARCH-2026  

In this radio review spot on Arts Weekly on Saturday 7 March 2026, I talk to Nick Tolhurst and Phillipa Edwards about La Mama Theatre’s new program of theatre events and I talk briefly about Moongazing that I saw On Demand (on screen).

Click the link nelow to listen. Its about 7 mins. 

 https://youtu.be/mfjmECA4iYc

La Mama Program 2026

Program 2026 Summary

La Mama Program 2026

Currently playing:

Back to Te Maunga -Courthouse

Some Secret Should Be Kept -La Mama HQ

Moongazing & Saints -On Demand

 

1.    La Mama Presents: Feb, March, April, May

Productions: 1 month block, 2 shows per month -one show at La Mama & Courthouse,

Education (March & May) selected productions)

On Demand  season to follow all 8 shows (Feb – May)

Support: Robert Salzer Foundation.

 

2.    Play: Scratch, Explorations, Immerse: June, July, Aug

Scratch- a live platform for performance makers to test new ideas in front of peers and community

Support:  Cybec Foundation

Explorations- Artists are given three nights of public presentation (both venues)

Immerse - deeply focused 12-week practice-led program for 16 mid-career writers

Support:  Cybec Foundation, John T Reid Trusts, and the City of Melbourne Multi-year Arts Grants Program in partnership with Arts Centre Melbourne and Regional Arts Victoria.

 

Partnerships:

 

3.    Hope Punk Climate Festival: 1-20 Sept (TBC.)

storytelling and skills development in climate advocacy and action,

Support: in partnership with Learning Experiences Program Science Gallery Melbourne and Griffith University's Performance Ecology Research Lab (P+ERL)

 

4.    Melbourne Festival of Puppetry: 21-27 Sept

Support: City of Melbourne and Arts Centre Melbourne.

 

5.    Melbourne Fringe Festival at La Mama

October

 

6.    Cultural Conservation in Action: November: First Nations-led month. Directed by Glenn Shea.Conservation of our First Nation's story, songs and dances

 

7.    Faradays:  December

Party month: music, poetry, cabaret

A Carlton takeover

Support: Local Business Partnerships.

Moongazing (Online) REVIEW 4 March 2026 *** (3)

THEATRE ONLINE

Written by Maki Morita

At La Mama Theatre, La Mama On Demand until Tues 10 March 12.00am (Stage season finished 1 March)

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: *** (3)

This review is  published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 7 March 2026. KH

Anna Fujihara image Darren Gill

Moongazing, written by Maki Morita and directed by Ari Angkasa, is elusive, visually striking and more felt than understood. It drifts between waking life and digital dreamscape, exploring what guidance means in an age of disembodied voices.

 

A young Japanese-Australian woman (Anna Fujihara) is tethered to her online adviser (Sean Yuen Halley), a kind of Siri-of-the-future; a sleek, insinuating presence that offers affirmation, correction and algorithmic comfort. Fujihara, as the young woman, is tightly coiled, perpetually mid-scroll, her body pitched forward over her phone. Her performance is considered, albeit too evenly pace and emotionally muted, with the character’s interior life more suggested than fully revealed. Halley’s digital oracle’s calm cadences  are faintly menacing and tinged with control.

 

Hovering at the edges of the woman’s flickering world is a mysterious woman older than the hills (Yumi Umiumare), a dreamlike mentor who may be ancestral memory, alter ego or moon spirit.  

 

Umiumare’s stylised Butoh movement is slow, sinewy and exquisitely controlled and provides the production’s beating heart. Each gesture unfurls with ritual deliberation: a hand tremors, a spine curves, a foot roots to the earth. Umiumare doesn’t so much enter a scene, as seep into it. Her presence feels elemental, in contrast to the slick, oily digital patter.

 

Yumi Umiumare - image Darren Gill

The design is spare is shaped by evocative lighting that bathes the stage in lunar washes and pockets of shadow that breathe with the performers. Pale light halos Umiumare’s white-painted form, while cooler, sharper tones delineate the technological realm, subtly reinforcing the play’s thematic divide.

 

Angkasa’s direction emphasises this visual and physical quality, although the dramaturgy occasionally wanders, the pace and rhythm lack variation and scenes accumulate, rather than building dramatic tension or action. Its central metaphor resonates: the moon as guide, algorithm as false prophet. Certain images in this production linger: a body folding and unfolding like a tide, a pale face lit by an unforgiving light. It is a meditation rather than a manifesto.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Cast
Anna Fujihara
Yumi Umiumare
Sean Yuen Halley

 

Creative Team
Writer: Maki Morita
Director: Ari Angkasa

 

Yumi Umiumare - image by _Darren_Gill

KATE HERBERT -RADIO REVIEWS Arts Weekly- 3MBS SAT-21-FEB-2026

  

 

In this radio review spot on Arts Weekly on Saturday 21 Feb 2026, I talk to Nick Tolhurst and Phillipa Edwards about two productions: Cluedo at Comedy Theatre and The Book of Mormon that returns to the Princess Theatre, Melbourne.

 

Kate Herbert Radio Reviews Arts Weekly 21 Feb 2026

The Book of Mormon REVIEW 12 Feb 2026 ***** (5)

MUSICAL THEATRE

Book, Music & Lyrics by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez & Matt Stone

At Princess Theatre until 31 May 2026

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: ***** (5)

This review is  published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 21 Feb 2026. KH

Nick Cox, Sean Johnston, The-Book-of-Mormon_credit_Daniel-Boud

 

The Book of Mormon is a wickedly hilarious, irreverent, scandalous and shocking musical that is South Park on steroids. This is a gleeful assault on organised religion – more specifically, Mormonism and its peculiar history, religious text, missionary practices, cultural colonisation and – well – everything, really.

 

On the stage, the chorus of white-shirted Mormons is relentlessly grinning, terminally perky and super-camp! From the first brazen door knock in the song, Hello!, The Book of Mormon announces its missionary zeal — and this razor-sharp Australian cast answers with blistering comic precision and vocal confidence.

 

Created by Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez, this award-winning juggernaut remains as outrageously transgressive as ever and this Australian production is polished to a high sheen. The ensemble is a single, sharply pressed organism; every raised eyebrow, every snappy turn and door-slam is performed with military / missionary precision.

 

The pairing of the stitched up Elder Price (Sean Johnston) and goofy, incompetent Elder Cunningham (Nick Cox) provides stark comic contrast. Johnston’s clarion tenor soars with self-regarding confidence in I Believe, and he balances arrogance with boyish conviction. Cox, by contrast, makes Cunningham’s shambling doctrinal improvisations feel dangerously spontaneous. Cox’s elastic physicality and beautifully judged hesitation turn absurdity into an art form. Their chemistry drives the evening with polished certainty colliding with chaotic invention.

 

Paris Leveque  brings luminous warmth, disarming sincerity and unaffected grace as Nabulungi. As Mafala Hatimbi, Simbarashe Matshe balances dignified authority with dry humour, anchoring the African village scenes with welcome gravity. As Elder McKinley, Tom Struik delivers Turn It Off with bright-eyed repression and tap-dancing precision, and his crisp movement and honeyed tone transform denial into high camp bliss. The audacious ensemble number, Sal Tlay Ka Siti, sung by the African villagers, wickedly and hilariously challenges God’s mercilessness.

 

Casey Nicholaw’s choreography is deliciously ironic Broadway razzmatazz knowingly deployed for subversive ends and the co-directors, Parker and Nicholaw, put the foot firmly on the accelerator in the production. The pastel optimism of the design combined with those wide smiles and wholesome Americana, makes the show’s detonations of profanity and pageantry even more naughtily delectable.

 

More than a decade on, the satire still bites. Yet beneath the profanity and pyrotechnics is incisive socio-political commentary and a generous heart. Melbourne roared its approval. This five-star return season proves that outrageous comedy, when executed with this level of craft, still feels thrillingly alive.

By Kate Herbert

Cast, The-Book-of-Mormon_credit_Daniel-Boud

Cast

Sean Johnston -Elder Price

 Nick Cox - Elder Cunningham

 Paris Leveque -Nabulungi

Tom Struik - Elder McKinley

Simbarashe Matshe -Mafala Hatimbi

 Augie Tchantcho - The General

 Matthew Hamilton- Mission President

Creative Team

Book, Music & Lyrics  -Trey Parker, Robert Lopez & Matt Stone

Co-director - Trey Parker

Co-director and choreographer - Casey Nicholaw

Set design -Scott Pask,

Costume design -Ann Roth

Lighting design - Brian MacDevitt

Sound design -  Brian Ronan.

Orchestrations -Larry Hochman & Stephen Oremus.

Music direction and vocal arrangements - Stephen Oremus

Cast, The-Book-of-Mormon_credit_Daniel-Boud

Song List
   

 Act I

1. Hello!
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Company

2. Two by Two
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Mission President, Company

3. You and Me (But Mostly Me)
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham

4. Hasa Diga Eebowai
Mafala Hatimbi, Nabulungi, Ugandan Villagers

5. Turn It Off
Elder McKinley, Elder Price, Elders

6. I Am Here for You
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham

7. All-American Prophet
Elder Price, Joseph Smith, Angel Moroni, Company

8. Sal Tlay Ka Siti
Nabulungi

9. Man Up
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Nabulungi, Company


 

Act II

10. Making Things Up Again
Elder Cunningham

11. Spooky Mormon Hell Dream
Elder Price, Lucifer, Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, Johnnie Cochran, Genghis Khan, Company

12. I Believe
Elder Price

13. Baptize Me
Nabulungi, Elder Cunningham

14. I Am Africa
Elder McKinley, Mission President, Elders

15. Joseph Smith American Moses
Elder Cunningham, Nabulungi, Company


Tomorrow Is a Latter Day
Elder Price, Elder Cunningham, Nabulungi, Company

Cluedo REVIEW 10 Feb 2026 **** (4)

THEATRE

Written by Sandy Rustin (additional material by Hunter Foster & Eric Price) based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn

At Comedy Theatre until 15 March 2026

Reviewer: Kate Herbert

Stars: **** (4)

This review is  published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat. 21 Feb 2026. KH

Cast Cluedo: image Jeff Busby

If you recognise the classic reference to “Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead pipe”, Cluedo the show for you. This production, directed by Luke Joslin, is a riotous, breakneck adaptation of the beloved board game, transformed into a comedic masterpiece that's as witty as it is wickedly entertaining. It's a glorious romp that twists a familiar premise into something utterly fresh, proving that a classic murder mystery can still surprise – especially when it’s this funny.

 

This cleverly constructed stage play by Sandy Rustin, based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn, has a narrative much like the game. Six eccentric strangers are invited anonymously to Boddy Manor for a dinner party, only to find themselves embroiled in a rapidly escalating series of murders. From the moment the lights dim, the stage is set for a thrilling, high-paced whodunit that is littered with secrets, lies, deceptions and false identities.

 

What unfolds is a gleeful parody of an Agatha Christie locked-room murder mystery with a dash of Oscar Wilde’s drawing-room wit and the physical comedy chaos of The Play That Goes Wrong. The versatile cast embodies a collection of outrageously broad comic characters.

 

We meet the pompous, dim-witted Colonel Mustard (Adam Murphy), the disgraced, lecherous Professor Plum (David James), the seductive, scheming Miss Scarlett (Olivia Deeble), the pious, hysterical Mrs. Peacock (Genevieve Lemon), morbid, mysterious Mrs. White (Rachael Beck), and awkward, anxious Reverend Green (Laurence Boxhall).

 

Joslin’s tight and deft direction orchestrates the intricate comedic machinery with precision, and each actor delivers rapid-fire dialogue and witty quips with sharp timing, committing wholeheartedly to the fast-moving action and often outrageous slapstick physicality.

 

The undeniable star turn belongs to Grant Piro as Wadsworth the butler, and his audacious performance is a masterclass in comic technique. His solo replay of the entire convoluted narrative, a breathless recap delivered with lightning speed and flawless character transitions, is a feat of physical and vocal virtuosity that had the audience roaring. Equally delicious is his prolonged death scene, a truly theatrical and utterly hilarious display that showcases his impeccable comedic timing.

 

Cluedo isn't just a play; it's an experience. It’s a genuinely riotous evening that delights in its own cleverness and the sheer joy of performance. Don't miss this hilariously deadly affair.

 

By Kate Herbert

 

Cast Cluedo :image Jeff Busby

 Cast List:

• Wadsworth: Grant Piro
• Miss Scarlett:  Olivia Deeble
• Mrs. Peacock: Genevieve Lemon
• Professor Plum: David James
• Colonel Mustard: Adam Murphy
• Mrs. White: Rachael Beck
• Reverend Green: Laurence Boxhall
• Yvette: Lib Campbell
• The Cook: Octavia Barron-Martin
• Mr. Boddy & others: Joshua Monaghan
• Bobby & Others; Nat Jobe
• The Ensemble / Understudies:

Creative Team:

• Director: Luke Joslin
• Playwright: Sandy Rustin (additional material by Hunter Foster & Eric Price) based on the screenplay by Jonathan Lynn
• Composer & Sound: Sean Peter
• Set / Costume Designer: James Browne
• Lighting Designer: Jazmine Rizk
• Producer: John Frost & Crossroads

 

KATE HERBERT-Arts Weekly- 3MBS-SAT07FEB2026

  KATE HERBERT-Arts Weekly- 3MBS-SAT07FEB2026 

In this radio review spot on Arts Weekly on Saturday 7 Feb 2026, I talk to Nick Tolhurst and Phillipa Edwards about three productions I saw over the summer: 

Shakespeare’s Best Bits by Australian Shakespeare Company in the Botanical Gardens; 

Duck Pond by Circa, a circus show based on Swan Lake & The Ugly Duckling; 

and Anastasia the musical.

 Click this link to listen:

KATE HERBERT-Arts Weekly- 3MBS-Sat7Feb2026  

My Brilliant Career RE-POST of 2024 production ***1/2

MUSICAL

My Brilliant Career 2024 

Book by Dean Bryant & Sheridan Harbridge, music by Mathew Frank, lyrics by Dean Bryant 

Adapted from the novel by Miles Franklin

By: Melbourne Theatre Company 

At Southbank Theatre, The Sumner, until 18 Dec 2024

Reviewer: Kate Herbert 

Stars: ***1/2

This review is published only on this blog. I’ll present a radio review on Arts Weekly on 3MBS on Sat 16 Nov.2024. KH

6 Kala Gare, My Brilliant Career. Photo by Pia Johnson

Based on Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel of the same name, My Brilliant Career is a brave, new Australian musical with a vivacious lead performer in Kala Gare who shone playing Anne Boleyn in SIX the musical. 

 

This exuberant production, energetically directed by Anne-Louise Sarks, has many vibrant and engaging moments, several bold and compelling songs, and strong and compelling performances from the entire cast of multi-skilled artists.

 

The narrative, like the novel, focuses on Sybylla Melvyn, a restless, young girl who aspires to be a writer but she feels that the world conspires against her ambition. Sybylla lives on her family’s failing, drought-stricken farm and the impressive set design (Marg Horwell) transports us into the dry, desolate heart of the Australian outback.

 

Kala Gare is ebullient, audacious and full voiced as Sybylla, and belts out the songs about her ambition, dissatisfaction, her barely concealed contempt for her father, her disappointment in her mother and her delight at getting away to live with her gran. Gare makes a feast of her big leading role.

 

The exceptional versatility of the cast is a highlight of this production who are acting, singing, playing instruments and even dancing. Christina Smith is sensitive and sympathetic as Sybylla’s disheartened mother, and it is a pity she didn’t sing more than just one solo; she is a musical theatre star with a fine voice and magnetic presence.

 

The show is not without some drawbacks: the narrative and song lyrics became repetitive, and the show was spinning its wheels for the last 20 mins. It felt too long and might benefit from an edit and restructure. The character of Sybylla did not develop or change a great deal in the story.

 

Comparisons with Judy Davis in her breakout role as Sybylla in the movie of 1979 are inevitable, but this is an entertaining, ambitious and exuberant production and the writers deserve praise for bringing us a new and original Australian musical: a unicorn. Give it an audience.

 

by Kate Herbert 

My Brilliant Career. Photo by Pia Johnson

Cast

Frank/Ensemble Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward
Jimmy/Horace/Ensemble Lincoln Elliott
Ensemble Victoria Falconer
Sybylla Melvyn Kala Gare
Harry/Peter/Ensemble Raj Labade
Father/Jay-Jay/M'Swat/Ensemble Drew Livingston
Gertie/Blanche/Ensemble Hany Lee
Grannie/Rose Jane/Ensemble Ana Mitsikas
Mother/Helen/Mrs M'Swat/Ensemble Christina O'Neill
Ensemble Jarrad Payne

CREATIVE TEAM 

Director Anne-Louise Sarks
Musical Director Victoria Falconer
Choreographer Amy Campbell
Set & Costume Designer Marg Horwell
Lighting Designer Matt Scott
Orchestrator / Vocal Arranger James Simpson
Sound Designer Joy Weng
Assistant Director Miranda Middleton
Assistant Musical Director Drew Livingston
Assistant Set & Costume Designer Savanna Wegman
Additional Music Arrangements Victoria Falconer 
Voice & Text Coach Matt Furlani 
Track Producer (‘Make A Success’) Jarrad Payne
Specialist for Whip Cracking/Blanket Throw Nicci Wilks

Offsite Standby Cover Alister Kingsley
Offsite Standby Cover Imogen Moore

Stage Manager Whitney McNamara
Assistant Stage Managers Tom O'Sullivan, Annie Gleisner