Comedy Festival reviews upcoming

Here are the shows I am currently booked to review in Comedy Festival:

Velvet, Cabaret/Circus featuring Marcia Hines, March 24. (Review to hit blog and H-Sun Comedy Fest review site today.)
Wil Anderson, Thurs March 25 (Review running March 26)
Justin Hamilton Hoot, Sat March 26 (Review running March 27)
Umbilical Brothers, Sat March 26 (Review running March 27)
Tripod 101 Hits, Sun March 27 (Review running April 1)
Ongals, Wed April 6 (Review running April 7.)  
Twins - Rhonda Burchmore & Trevor Ashley, Fri April 8 (Review running April 1) 

I may also do:
Putnam County Spelling Bee, Thurs March 31. 
K
 

Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical, March 17, 2016 ****

MUSICAL THEATRE

Book by Dennis Kelly, Music & Lyrics by Tim Minchin

Based on Roald Dahl’s book
Produced by Royal Shakespeare Company & Louise Withers, Michael Coppel & Michael Watt
Princess Theatre, Melbourne, until July 31, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****

This review also online at Herald Sun Arts on Thur March 17 & in print on Fri March 18, 2016. KH

Matilda The Musical bounds onto the stage in Melbourne in a flurry of books, bullies, battleaxes and boofheads.

Featuring Tim Minchin’s cunning music and lyrics and Dennis Kelly’s book, the musical is based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 children’s novel about five year-old Matilda Wormwood (Ingrid Torelli), a child prodigy with an alarming intellect and a remarkable interest in reading classic novels.

Matilda’s crude, neglectful and stupid parents (Marika Aubrey, Daniel Frederiksen) loath her braininess and send her to be tamed at the hellish Crunchem Hall, a Dickensian school run by the thuggish Miss Trunchbull (James Millar) who believes all children are maggots and are guilty of – well, everything.

Minchin’s ingenious, witty lyrics illuminate characters and nimbly advance the narrative while his tunes include chants, anthems, big choruses and forlorn ballads.

Two standout songs are Miracle (My Mummy Says I’m A...), the rollicking opening chorus, and Revolting Children, a boisterous, hilarious routine in which the children join forces and rebel.

The School Song is also enhanced by Peter Darling’s audacious choreography and Matthew Warchus’ direction, with kids clambering acrobatically over a prison-like iron gate.

Matilda’s obsession with books is embodied in Rob Howell’s eye-catching design comprising enormous bookshelves and giant building blocks decorated with letters and musical notes.

Ingrid Torelli is a wonderfully precocious sweety-pie as Matilda, and she effectively captures the poker-faced restraint of this neglected, unloved girl who is determined to be a champion of books, justice and honesty.

 Ingrid Torelli as Matilda

The Distance, March 10, 2016 ***

THEATRE

Written by Deborah Bruce, by Melbourne Theatre Company
The Sumner, Southbank Theatre, until April 9, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on March 10, 2016
Stars ***

Review also published online in Herald Sun on Fri March 11, 2016 and in print thereafter. KH

 Nadine Garner, Susan Prior, Katrina Milosevic- photo Jeff Busby

 

The MTC production of The Distance almost didn’t make the distance on opening night when a technical problem plunged the stage into darkness only 15 minutes after the show started.

In the shadows, the adroit and audacious cast, while maintaining their characters and near-faultless UK accents, quipped about blackouts and, ‘Should we start from the beginning?’ until a disembodied voice announced the hitch was fixed.

It seemed appropriate in a play in which the characters’ lives and loves are riddled with hitches, the central catastrophe being Bea’s (Susan Prior) sudden return to England from Australia where she has abandoned her husband, Simon (Martin Blum), and her two boys under five.

The Distance, by UK playwright Deborah Bruce, challenges the assumption that all women take naturally to mothering and Bea’s closest friends – bossy, new mother, Kate (Nadine Garner), and single mum, Alex (Katrina Milosevic) – will not accept Bea’s decision.

The performances are accomplished, despite the limitations in Bruce’s writing and Leticia Cáceres’ direction.

The domineering Kate, rather than the more obvious Bea, becomes the pivotal character and Garner’s dynamic energy makes this bullying, judgmental, incessant talker more sympathetic than could be expected of an initially dislikeable character.

  Nadine Garner, Susan Prior, Katrina Milosevic- photo Jeff Busby

Lugares, (Places) Impro Melbourne, Feb 28 2016 ***1/2

At Club Voltaire, 14 Raglan St, North Melbourne 
Sundays at 7:30pm, Feb 28th to March 20, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Sun Feb 28
Stars: 3&1/2

 Jenny Lovell & Amy Moule - Grotesquely grinning, giant, moulded plastic Santa’s head 

I saw Lugares on its first night and had a hoot.

This improvisational format takes a story from an audience member then expands, illuminates, elaborates and improvises it into a one hour show that wanders to all kinds of places.

 On opening night, the audient told a childhood tale about spending time in her dad's garage where she and her friends lay down in an old, wooden trailer, tipped it back and pretended they had gone to parts unknown in space.

What followed was a series of episodic scenes, songs, monologues that ranged from the wildly entertaining to the gently amusing.

A highlight was the ensemble’s depiction of the grotesquely grinning, giant, moulded plastic Santa’s head (Jenny Lovell) that becomes grafted onto a dad’s head (Rik Brown) at Christmas. 

A dramatic, final monologue (Patti Stiles) paid tribute to dads who have passed away; it made even the cynical teary.

Performed by members of Impro Melbourne, the show will be a different kind of hoot each week, so get along.
KH


Media Release:
'Lugares (Places) is directed by Patti Stiles (International Theatresports™ Institute and Impro Melbourne’s co-Artistic Director) and features members of the Impro Melbourne Ensemble and very special weekly guests. The Spanish translation of ‘places’, Lugares is the result of collaboration at the Wurzburg International Improvisation Festival in Germany between Patti Stiles, Felipe Ortiz, Michael Kennard and Jim Libby and the show was further developed in Bogota, Colombia. Impro Melbourne is proud to debut this show in Australia.' 
 

Tickets: $15 full | $10 conc. online and $20 full | $15 conc. at the door
 www.impromelbourne.com.au

Violet, March 5, 2016 ****

MUSICAL THEATRE

Music by Jeanine Tesori, book and lyrics by Brian Crawley, based on The Ugliest Pilgrim by
Doris Betts, by Blue Saint Productions
Chapel off Chapel, until March 20, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****

Samantha Dodemaide & cast. Photographer: Ben Fon

It is 1964 and an American televangelist and sham faith healer dupes a naive, young woman into believing that he can heal her horribly scarred face.

From the age of 15, the titular Violet (Samantha Dodemaide) suffers not only the facial disfigurement caused by an axe blade but also the accompanying bullying and ridicule of people in her small and bigoted North Carolina town.

In this spirited musical, the unsophisticated Violet embarks on a road trip to the Oklahoma chapel – really a TV studio – of the television Preacher (Jordan Pollard), seeking healing, a new face and a new sense of identity.

The talented ensemble, under Mitchell Butel’s assured and witty direction with playful choreography by Amy Campbell and evocative design (set by Simon Greer, lighting by Ross Graham), captures both the absurdity and tragedy of Violet’s quest.

The tight, six-piece band under Martine Wengrow’s accomplished musical direction, delivers a musical feast (music by Jeanine Tesori) that ranges from bluegrass and country tunes to gospel and soul numbers.

Dodemaide embodies Violet’s fragility and her feistiness and, through her impassioned performance, makes us ‘see’ Violet’s scarred face although the actor displays no actual facial disfigurement.

In Brian Crawley’s libretto (based on The Ugliest Pilgrim by Doris Betts), Violet is the pivot of the narrative and Dodemaide sings the role with commitment, passion and pain.

As Young Violet, Luisa Scrofani brings another layer to Violet’s character, providing both her childhood backstory and vocal harmonies.

Picnic At Hanging Rock, March 2, 2016 ***

THEATRE

Adapted by Tom Wright from Joan Lindsay’s novel, by Malthouse Theatre
Merlin Theatre, Malthouse, March 2 until March 20, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars:***
 This review is also online at Herald Sun Arts and in print on Fri March 4, 2016

This stage adaptation of Joan Lindsay’s compelling 1967 novel, Picnic At Hanging Rock, initially captures the enigmatic quality of the story that became part of Australian mythology after Peter Weir’s 1975 film version.

On a hot, St. Valentine’s Day in 1900, four schoolgirls and their mathematics mistress visit Hanging Rock for a picnic but only one hysterical girl returns after the others vanish while climbing the harsh, craggy rock.

In Tom Wright’s script directed by Matthew Lutton, five schoolgirls narrate this unfathomable tale in Lindsay’s evocative, impeccably crafted prose and conjure a parade of characters from the school and neighbouring town.

The five actors inhabit multiple characters, a device that heightens the sense of mystery and alienation and accentuates the illusive nature of Miranda, the fair-haired, ethereal beauty who leads the expedition up the Rock and whose name echoes hauntingly in our memory of the movie.

On a bare stage made even starker by Paul Jackson’s lighting, Lutton does not attempt to depict the Rock itself but paints with words locations such as the prim, English-style boarding school and the savage Australian landscape.

At the start, the performers address the audience directly but, as the baffling disappearance unfolds, they transform into various characters.

These include the preposterously haughty headmistress, Mrs. Appleyard (Elizabeth Nabben), Michael, an Englishman enamoured of Miranda (Amber McMahon), Sara (Arielle Gray), Miranda’s acolyte who missed the picnic, Albert (Harriet Gordon-Anderson), the earthy local boy, and Irma (Nikki Shiels), the dizzy heiress found unconscious on the Rock.

Taxithi – An Australian Odyssey, March 3, 2016 ***

By Helen Yotis Patterson

At fortyfivedownstairs, March 3 to 20, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars:***
Full review also online at Herald Sun Arts today and in print later. KH

 Maria Mercedes

Floods of hopeful Greek women of all ages migrated to Australia in the 1950s and 60s and Taxithi – An Australian Odyssey weaves their personal stories among the spirited songs of their distant homeland.

Writer, Helen Yotis Patterson, collected tales told by her Yiayias (grandmothers) and other Greek immigrant women whose intimate stories were previously untold or unrecorded.

Joining the warm and ebullient Yotis Patterson on stage to illuminate the lives and music of these myriad women are the inimitable Maria Mercedes and newcomer, Artemis Ioannides, all three of whom celebrate their own Greek heritage.

The narratives include those of angry exiles, unwilling proxy brides, knowing mothers, abused wives, hopeful girls, educated or unschooled women and deprived immigrants seeking the promised ‘streets paved with gold’ in Australia.

The performers, directed by Petra Kalive who shares their Greek background, deliver stories, inhabit characters and perform songs with sincerity, commitment and skill.

Yotis Patterson has a rich, bold vocal tone and feisty but motherly persona, Mercedes brings dignity, elegance and a subtle, emotional vocal delivery while Ioannides performs with youthful energy and a light-footed physicality.

Saturday Night Fever, The Musical. Feb 13, 2016 ***1/2

MUSICAL THEATRE

Written by Robert Stigwood assisted by Bill Oates, featuring songs by The Bee Gees and others, produced by StageArt
Chapel off Chapel, until Feb 28, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 13
Stars:***1/2 
NB The writer's credit (above-Stigwood) is taken from the program for this production. It does not match the credits for the original stage production. KH

Mike Snell as Tony Manero

Saturday Night Fever celebrates infectious, hip-thrusting 1970s disco music but also reveals a grim underworld that lies beneath the shiny nightlife of disenfranchised youth in Brooklyn, New York in 1979.

This production, directed by Robbie Carmellotti, is based on the West End revival (2013-14) that incorporates dialogue and songs from the 1977 John Travolta movie of the same name, simplifies the set design and features the dancers playing instruments.

The great strengths of this production are Luke Alleva’s sweltering, disco choreography, The Bee Gees unbeatable disco hits and the thrilling harmonies and rousing chorus arrangements by musical director, Tony Toppi.

The repertoire include Gibb brothers’ tunes, Jive Talkin’, Stayin’ Alive, You Should Be Dancing, Night Fever, More Than a Woman, but also the pulsating Disco Inferno (The Trammps) and Boogie Shoes (K.C. and The Sunshine Band).

Tony Manero (Mike Snell), Italian stallion heartthrob and disco dance king at Brooklyn’s 2001 Odyssey Nightclub, is obsessed by winning the club’s disco dance competition to cement his reputation as Brooklyn’s best dancer and prove to his parents and himself that he is not a bad-boy ‘loser’.

Snell is an accomplished dancer with a tuneful, upper register that suits the peppy, disco style and he captures Tony’s audacity and vulnerability, although he lacks the smooth sensuality and machismo of Travolta’s Tony.

Lungs, Feb 11, 2016 ****

THEATRE
By Duncan Macmillan, Melbourne Theatre Company
At Fairfax Studio, Art Centre Melbourne, until March 19, 2016

Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 11, 2016
Stars:****

 Kate Atkinson, Bert LaBonté, Pic Jeff Busby 

Relationships between couples can be sufficiently fraught even without the added stress of making decisions about the wisdom or ethical considerations of bringing a child into an over-populated and polluted world.

In Duncan Macmillan’s play, Lungs, we witness an apparently secure, loving couple (Kate Atkinson, Bert LaBonté) confronting their various hopes and fears about conceiving and bearing, let alone raising a child.

When the man (LaBonté) tentatively raises the idea of a baby, his partner (Atkinson) firstly questions the appropriateness of starting this conversation in IKEA, then pours out her suppressed anxieties and ethical dilemmas about putting more children on the planet.

As this smart, modern, hipster couple, Atkinson and LaBonté (two of my favourite Australian actors) are simultaneously adorable and annoying, hilarious and tragic, believable and impassioned.

They deliver Macmillan’s whip-smart, rapid-fire dialogue with impeccable comic and dramatic timing, commitment and an intense connection and collaboration as the couple.

As the highly educated, nervy and maddening woman, Atkinson vibrates with electric energy as she yammers anxiously and unremittingly, leaving LaBonté’s quieter, more circumspect, slower-reacting partner unable to interject, make his point or even think straight while she rants.

The Village Bike, Feb 7, 2016 **1/2

THEATRE

By Penelope Skinner, by Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre 
Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, until March 5, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Feb 7
Stars: **1/2

Ella Caldwell & Matt Dyktynski Photo Jodie Hutchinson

The title of The Village Bike does refer to a bicycle for getting around an English village, but you’d be right in thinking it also refers to a woman who spreads her sexual favours around town.

Playwright, Penelope Skinner, may be called a ‘leading, young, feminist writer’ in the UK, but this play seems to celebrate much that is the antithesis of feminism.

Becky (Ella Caldwell) is a young, newly pregnant schoolteacher living in an English village with her annoyingly doting husband John (Richard Davies) who, to Becky’s increasing and hormone-fuelled frustration, now avoids sex with his wife in case it harms the baby – or Becky.

When John repels her advances, Becky first assuages her physical desires by watching pornography then starts to look longingly at Mike (Syd Brisbane), the daggy plumber, and Oliver (Matt Dyktynski), the bloke who arrives to sell her a bicycle.

As her sexual needs take over, she becomes reckless and dives headlong into – well – let’s call it ‘bike riding’.

The production, directed by Red Stitch ensemble member, Ngaire Dawn Fair, has a frenetic energy that overwhelms the dialogue, characters and even the messages about the battle between individualism and fidelity, conformity and freedom.

Parts of the second half of the show are less frantic as Becky indulges her desires, seduces a couple of the locals and seems happier at home with her husband – for a while.

Although Skinner gives them some funny dialogue and interactions riddled with expletives, her characters are two-dimensional and dislikable and, while she deals explicitly and graphically with issues of sexuality, her exploration of desire, love and freedom lacks depth and subtlety.

Caldwell immerses herself in the fraught world of Becky but she plays her with a relentless, disturbing and, ultimately, distracting edge of desperation that blocks any sympathy or understanding of her psychological chaos.

Ghost The Musical, Feb 6 2016 ****

MUSICAL THEATRE

Book & Lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin, Music & Lyrics by Dave Stewart & Glen Ballard

Based on the 1990 movie, Ghost, by Bruce Joel Rubin
Regent Theatre, Melbourne, until March 13, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****

Rob Mills & Jemma Rix

In a spectacular display of technical wizardry, tear-jerking songs and tragic romance, Ghost The Musical exploded onto the stage at the Regent Theatre last night to an enthusiastic, opening night crowd.

Bruce Joel Rubin’s book is a theatrical re-imagining of his Oscar-winning screenplay for the 1990 movie, Ghost, but it is Matthew Warchus’ inventive direction that makes this production remarkable by bringing together comic and tragic narrative threads, characters, original songs and startling illusions.

This fantasy romance set in New York City, explores the powerful emotional connection that links lovers, Sam Wheat (Rob Mills), a banker, and Molly Jensen (Jemma Rix), a sculptor, even after Sam’s death.

After a romantic dinner, Sam and Molly are mugged and Sam dies of his injuries but he remains caught in the netherworld between life and afterlife trying to communicate the truth about his murder to the grieving Molly.

Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics’ fame) and Glen Ballard’s songs reveal the characters’ inner worlds in a repertoire of styles ranging from power ballads to pop and rock, blues, soul and gospel, all played by a tight, seven-piece band.

Rix’s Molly is a sincere, sympathetic character and Rix’s expressive voice, bright timbre and impressive control and vocal range bring emotional depth to the heart-wrenching song, With You, and to Suspend My Disbelief and Nothing Stops Another Day.

Her voice blends enchantingly with Mills’ warm tones in memorable love duets including Here Right Now, Three Little Words and their final reprise of Unchained Melody (by Hy Zaret, Alex North), the song that featured in the movie’s famous pottery wheel scene.

 Jemma Rix

Ghost The Musical MEDIA CALL pics Fri Feb 5, 2016

MEDIA CALL PHOTOS

I will review Ghost The Musical tomorrow night, Sat Feb 6, for Sunday Herald Sun. I'm seeing a preview tonight as well as the opening night.

Here are some pics from Media Call in Melbourne at Regent Theatre today.

All photos by Joe Calleri.

 Rob Mills & Jemma Rix

 Jemma Rix & cast

 Wendy Mae Brown & chorus

At right: Rob Mills, Jemma Rix

North By Northwest, Feb 1, 2016 ****

Adapted by Carolyn Burns from screenplay by Ernest Lehman (film by Alfred Hitchcock)
Produced by Andrew Kay & Liz McLean
State Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne, until Feb 13, 2016
Reviewer: Kate Herbert on Mon Feb 1
Stars: ****

 Matt Day & Amber McMahon

Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest is a witty chase movie blended with a spy thriller and a naughty romance and this stage adaptation successfully captures its tone and style.

Carolyn Burns’ clever script adaptation and Simon Phillips inventive direction create a deliciously entertaining and often goofy production that is a shrewd merging of cinematic and theatrical techniques.

The production is exciting, funny, imaginative and seamlessly directed by Phillips and is staged on a flexible, abstract set of stark, metal scaffolding (Simon Phillips, Nick Schlieper) that provides multiple locations when combined with cinematic rear projections.

In a case of mistaken identity, Roger O. Thornhill (Matt Day), an innocent but rakish advertising executive, is wrongly accused of murder and flees New York pursued by a ruthless spy, Phillip Vandamm (Matt Hetherington), who is smuggling government secrets out of the country.

Burns’ script balances the saucy suggestiveness of Hitchock’s style with original screenwriter Ernest Lehman’s acerbic dialogue, wry and playful humour and more restrained sensuality.

Day’s privileged and smug Thornhill echoes but does not imitate Cary Grant as he wryly delivers the abundant smart-alec quips, and he embodies some of Grant’s easy elegance, sense of entitlement and safe sensuality that is more cheeky than provocative.