The Grand Electric, Sydney. 9 August, 18 Oct, and 29 Nov, 202

Reviewed : 9 August, 2026

Les Femmes are Emma Mylott, Jacinta Gulisano and Tia Gigliotti – a trio of fabulous, feisty female performers who sing and dance in a cleverly arranged and choreographed performance that is enchanting and totally exhilarating. With experience across rock, pop and rhythm and blues, these three dynamic women have devised a program that highlights their very special chemistry … not just as performers, but as entertainers.

Their singing and harmonies are exceptional. They are movers and shakers as well, their choreography as meticulously rehearsed and timed as their singing. But that’s not all! They have built the program around a narrative that is more than just music, one that gives these three clever women a chance to be a bit provocative, even a bit cynical. A chance to add a bit of sass to their songs!

They begin with songs like “That’s Life” and “When a Man Loves a Woman” that have been made famous by male voices! A sort of cheeky “top that” that shows off their range, their flexibility, their control … and their charm.

Having completely roped the audience in, they hit them a question: Can a woman have a male best friend? Is it possible to keep a relationship platonic? Answers from the audience lead to another medley. In “Feeling Good”, “Thriller” and “Footloose” they exemplify the timing and cohesion of their special collaboration, closing with an incredible rendition of “Somebody to Love” that has the audience spellbound.

Their story then moves on to their first true loves – their “dads” – and the music that played through their childhoods: Elton John, Billy Joel …  “How Wonderful Life is While You’re in the World”, “Rocket Man” “Wild World”, “American Pie” and finally “Piano Man” take the audience through a couple of decades of songs played to “My Girl” by some very ‘with it’ dads!

That’s just the first half of the program! The audience is left in awe of the individual power of each of their voices, their beautiful harmony and how well they can move – which they certainly do in the second half of the show.

A change into sparkly pants and waistcoats and some pretty jazzy choreography to “Versace on the Floor” and “Senorita”  begins a tongue-in-cheek tribute to men they have dated – “It’s A Man’s World” – and finally songs for the “good guys”, those men that have been special, men that made them feel “More Than A Woman”. This final medley includes “Funky Music” and brilliant versions of “Stayin’ Alive” and “Celebrate” which leave the audience on its feet calling for more.

And they don’t disappoint! They return to the stage with a tribute to great Australian hits including “It’s a Long Way to the Top”, “Eagle Rock”, “The Horses” and “You’re the Voice”.

They’ll be back making beautiful music at the wonderful Grand Electric for two more shows on October 19^th and November 29^th. Book early and get ringside seats so you’re up close and personal!

Firs published in Stage Whispers Magazine

Music Richard Rodgers. Book and Lyrics Oscar Hammerstein II. New Book Douglas Carter Beane. Hills Musical Theatre Company, NSW. Director Hannah Aouchan. 22 – 30 May, 2026

Reviewed : 22 May, 2026 *

Cinderella has an interesting history. The first musical version was the animated Disney film from 1950. Based on “Cendrillon”, the 1697 French version of the fairy tale by Charles Perrault, the movie won three Academy awards including best song for the Fairy Godmother’s song “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo”!

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s original script of Cinderella also followed Charles Perrault’s story. It was written for television and was first broadcast 1957 with Jule Andrews in the starring role. Several other TV productions followed.

It was not until 2013 that Cinderella went to Broadway in a revised version of the story written by Douglas Carter Beane. Beane changed the tenor of the story by adding more 21^st century themes – subversion, social activism, feminism and the power of kindness! – as well as some songs from other Rodgers and Hammerstein shows and more comedy.

A review of the original production in the Associated Press described the new story as “quirky yet heart-filled” – and those are just the right words to describe this pretty, colourful production by HMTC. Director Hannah Aouchan and her cast have found the essence of Beane’s more contemporary themes as well his almost pantomime representations of the characters.

On a picture book-style set Claire Polczynski is a sweet, gentle Ella, who despite the denigration of her stepmother Madame offers kindness and understanding to crazy Marie, a beggar, social activist Jean-Michel and a slightly bewildered Prince Topher (short for Christopher) who has returned to take his place on the throne after bring kept “imprisoned” in an “all-boys school” and “an all-boys university” whilst his regent, the Lord Chancellor,  and his off-sider Lord Pinkleton sinisterly play havoc with the economy of the kingdom.

Claire Polczynski and Deniz Dogan as Ella and Prince Topher find the initial differences in their personalities. Her strong belief in kindness and honesty despite her stepmother’s nastiness contrasts with his protected upbringing and naïve acceptance of his regent’s manipulation. Their confidence and self-assurance grow as the story and their romance unfolds in gentle duets – and carefully executed choreography.

ebastian Barons struts and pontificates as the officious Lord Chamberlain ably assisted by Theo Cuelo’s cheerful Pinkleton in the task of keeping Prince Topher unaware of the condition of his subjects – until Ella sparks his conscience.

Josephine Pinto emerges from crazy Marie’s cloak to become Ella’s fairy godmother explaining “It’s Possible” to do the “Impossible” in a cute scene where a little “gasp” moment on stage sees Ella’s “rags” turn into a sparkly white ballgown.

Kortana Blissett as Madame, the wicked stepmother, finds the pantomimic comedy in the character as well as her nastiness, especially in some tiny gestures – brushing imagined dirt from something Ella touched – and menacing facial expressions.

Ella’s stepsisters Gabrielle and Charlotte, played by Amelie Walters and Anne Beardsley, differ slightly from the original Perrault and Disney characters. Gabrielle is much kinder, influenced perhaps by her “crush” on Jean-Michel. Charlotte, whilst still more in her mother’s mould, is much more self-willed and confident. The contrast makes for some clever little comedic moments and asides which Walters and Beardsley play to the hilt – Walters with girlish geniality, Beardsley with joyful abandon – especially in the “Stepsister’s Lament”!

The very socially aware Jean-Michel is played by Lachlan Hopkins who finds the timidness in the character as well as his desire to agitate for change. With both Ella and Gabrielle’s faith in him, he voices his concerns much more confidently.

The decision to use a simple set, albeit with stairs and a balcony level, is in keeping with the style of the musical and gives Aouchan the opportunity to use different levels, which shows off the colourful costumes of the ensemble of 21 singers and dancers carefully rehearsed by musical director Gemma Rolph and choreographer Emily Taylor.

Together with her cast and the orchestra Hannah Aouchan has created “A Lovely Night” in HMTC’s “Own Little Corner” with lots of “Fol-De-Rol”. “Now Is the Time” to buy your tickets and share their happy production.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

* Opening Performance

Book Sheridan Harbridge & Dean Bryant. Music Mathew Frank. Lyrics Dean Bryant. Based on the novel by Miles Franklin.  Director Anne-Louise Sarks. Sydney Theatre Company. Ros Packer Theatre. 21 Mar – 3 May, 2026

Reviewed : 26 March, 2026

“What astonished us is how fiercely the book still speaks,” say writers Harbridge, Frank and Bryant in their writers’ notes. What is even more astonishing is how cleverly they have taken that fierce-ness into a 21st century theatrical context. All Miles Franklin’s uncompromising feminist ideals are there – belted out by a funny, “loud-mothed and gloriously self-aware” Sybylla who is determined to be the girl she wants to be.

Kala Gare has brought her Sybylla from Melbourne to Sydney in a performance that is gutsy, fiery, vivacious and completely disarming. She has the ability to reach across perceived theatrical barriers to connect personally with the audience whilst maintaining an intense relationship with the multi-talented cast.

Every actor plays at least one musical instrument. They sustain and change characters whilst also playing and moving, sometimes in clever dance routines. Even drummer Jarrad Payne is in every moment. The piano, keyboard, guitars, cello, double bass and their stands are all part of the set. Music and movement take Sybylla from Possum Gully to Caddagat to the M’Swat’s farm and back to Possum Gully – and the musicians become the many characters who people her world.

Raj Labade is Harry Meacham – a very un-19th century young man who appreciates Sybylla’s independence and ambition but isn’t able to convince her that she can still hold on to them if she marries. Labade finds the depth of Harry’s character, his gentle sense of humour, compassion and the disappointment of only being “mates and a little bit more”.

Every performer, including understudy Jack Green, is part of the on-stage-in-every-minute orchestra and ensemble, some moving from one instrument to another with hardly a second between. Music and movement carry the action, usually up-beat and punk, sometimes a little quieter and reflective, but always making Sybylla’s messages clear, expressive, funny … and full of power.

Adapted by Kate Mulvany from the novel by D’Arcy Niland. Sydney Theatre Company. Director Jessica Arthur. The Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. 6 Oct – 29 Nov. 2025

Reviewed : 13 October, 2025

“He had two swags, one of them with legs and a cabbage-tree hat … he had a child and … he was stuck with it.” D’Arcy Niland. The Shiralee.

In 1957, as a 14-year-old, I saw the British-made film of The Shiralee. It was the first time I’d seen anything about Australia at the “pictures” – and Jim Macauley was depicted as a bit of a hero. I read the book again last week. I had forgotten the how bleakly D’Arcy Niland described life in Australia in the mid 1900s – and the fact that there wasn’t really much “heroic” about Macauley or the way he treated his daughter Buster… until the end!

In this adaptation Kate Mulvany has made no attempt to romanticise what she calls the “horrific murk” of Niland’s book nor Macauley’s “brutal view of the world”. Rather she concentrates on “the lurking violence” and what Buster “teaches her father in their time on the road together”.

The result is a script that obviously suggested endless possibilities to director Jessica Arthur and her creatives. This Shiralee is set in the “beauty and the terror” of our “wide, brown land” and Arthur’s vision sees it on a wide, brown stage with dark blue night skies, sunrises, “steady soaking rain” …  and towering snow gums.

There is poetry in Jeremy Allen’s set design – just as there is in Mulvany’s script. Poetry chronicles Mac and Buster’s journey, spoken by the shadowy figures of others on the road as they sit around sunken campfires or rough shearing shed floors – or move shopfronts, or stretchers or gateways … or towering snow gums.

Symbols underscore the production. The characters themselves are figurative symbols of their time – and Allen’s set and costumes, the lighting (Trent Suidgeest) and the sound (Jessica Dunn) vividly conjure an image of the country that made them.

This is Buster and Mac’s story, but Niland peopled that story with other characters that typified Australians of the time – in the bush and the city. Some of them didn’t appear in other iterations of The Shiralee. Mulvany has insured their presence in this one … especially Tommy Goorianawa, the blind all-seeing aboriginal elder who told Macauley “Some men, they can live in a box, but you’re not one of them.”

Josh McConville gives Macauley the restless resentment that Niland suggested in Tommy’s words. His Mac is tough, cruel, fiercely independent. He doesn’t talk much, doesn’t trust anyone, rejects affection – even from Buster. It’s hard to like this harsh man, except every now and again there are tiny cracks in his façade where faltering affection glimmers but quickly disappear. Cracks that Buster works on unknowingly.

Ziggy Resnick makes Buster naïvely wise, her guileless innocence breaking through Mac’s hard veneer with persistent questions, disapproving comments – “You said shit!” –  and dogged determination. Some of the dialogue is straight from the novel. Some from Mulvany’s slightly more mature, knowing Buster who is funny, a bit bold, and who Resnik plays with cheeky energy and sometimes childish glee – especially as she teases her father with repetitions of “I like Aeroplane jelly”, or copies the laugh of a stranger.

Kate Mulvany herself plays Buster’s mother Marge, a woman left alone for months on end, waiting for mail that might bring money from Macauley to feed and clothe their daughter – and pay rent to the lonely landlord. Mulvany finds both resentment and passion in Marge – and some compassion.

The landlord is Marge’s lover, who Macauley bashes in a bitter rage. Stephen Andersen finds both fear and cunning in this character … as well as depicting other characters along the road like generous shopkeeper, Cheetham – “Only by name, not by nature.”

Tommy Goorianawa, played vey convincingly by Aaron Pedersen, sits guarding a waterspout. Pedersen makes him funny as well as wise, especially in a little bit of gentle fun with Buster that is indicative of Arthurs’s creative imagination. There is gentle spirituality in Pedersen’s Tommy that spooks Macauley and fascinates Buster.

Paul Capsis is endearing as writer/storyteller, Desmond, gently creeping into Buster’s imagination – and even breaking through Macauley’s cold veneer. His persistent calm and mellowness are beautiful contrasts to Macauley’s jumpy awareness.

Lucia Mastrantone is clever, as always, in all of the roles she plays. She is squeakily endearing as Beauty’s (Pedersen) wife Bella, and kindly caring as a bush poet.

Catherine Vǎn-Davies plays the other women in Macauley’s life, among them Lily who waits patiently for the man she hopes will come back to Grafton. One day.

All of the cast apart from McConville and Resnik become the characters who travel the bush roads, or work in shearing sheds, or share the poetry written about them in papers and magazines published in the city.

Kate Mulvany re-captured city life in the 1940s with her adaptations of Ruth Park’s Harp in the South. In The Shiralee the loneliness of the dusty country roads pervades her stage. Jessica Arthur, her cast and her creative team have breathed life into her adaptation of this “gritty tale of an Australia that was fading away” an Australia where …

The swagman crawls across the plain.
The drought it prowls beside him,
A hundred miles from rim to rim,
A shadow stick to guide him.”

The Ballad of the Shiralee: Ruth Park

First published in Stage Whispers magazine.

By Tim Firth. Director: Nicole Smith. Henry Lawson Theatre, Werrington, NSW. 19 September to October 3, 2025

Reviewed : September 19, 2025 *

It’s plucky women who accept roles in Calendar Girls – and a sensitive, well-organised, director who guides them. Between actors and director there has to be implicit trust, confidence and total conviction. Those three things have shone through in every production I have seen of this inspirational play. Henry Lawson Theatre’s production is no exception.

The play is based on a real story. In 1999 members of the Women’s Institute in a town in Yorkshire posed nude for a calendar to raise money for Leukaemia research in memory of a husband who died from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cleverly, the women covered their nudity with WI symbols – cakes, tea-cups, knitting … and what began as a joke resulted in raising over 1,000,000 pounds.

Posing nude was courageous for back in in 1999! Portraying them in a play in 2025 is just as brave. Even though posing nude doesn’t mean posing “naked”, getting some of your clothes off on stage isn’t easy, and hiding that nudity behind cakes and flowers demands clever organisation and timing.

Nicole Smith directs this production of Calendar Girls with care and compassion ensuring her actors pay tribute to the qualities of Tim Firth’s very real characters and the strong relationships they forge. There has to be a real sense of togetherness, a rapport that comes from collective support and respect.

Smith and her cast have obviously worked closely together to achieve that, and the sensitivity and precision needed for each of the “calendar girls” to achieve their “nude” pose with grace, decorum – and humour. There is warmth and love in this production. It shines in the faces – and tears – of the cast. It is there in the time and effort that has been put into the set and costumes and the planning, timing – and fun – in working out the difficult choreography for each “nude” photograph!

The set is not just a dour, old church hall. Ian Fletcher built and designed the set and revolving hill while Jacqueline Felangue refurbished it in pastel colours and adorned it with birds and cherry blossoms and Cindy Partridge has dressed the set with flowery bunting, gingham cloths and painted chairs.

Warmth and colour continue in the costumes, all of which enhance the personalities of the characters that are so explicitly defined in the script.

Holly-Leigh Prophet plays Annie, whose husband John is stricken with cancer. Prophet has the difficult task of keeping strong for her husband as he fights the disease, as well as showing her grief at his passing. Prophet finds all of that, buoyed by the warm support of the other women – and the love and gentle humour of her friend Chris, played by Jessica Hanlon.

Chris is a florist, who only joined the WI to win favour with her mother-in-law. Cakes and knitting aren’t her thing, but Chris is open and fun, and Hanlon makes this cheekily clear, in an upbeat performance. Whether supporting her friend Annie through her husband’s fight with cancer – or becoming the momentum behind the calendar – Hanlon’s Chris establishes the mood and tempo of the action.

Then there is Cora (Angela Pezzano) the single mum whose vicar father didn’t approve of her relationship with an African American. Cora’s still a bit of a rebel and Pezzano makes her just a bit wild, but rueful, tripping around the stage at times, pulling herself back at others, albeit with an apologetic grin or roll of the eyes.

Marie, played with exacting rigour by Cindy Partridge, is the authoritarian WI President.

Marie (who isn’t in the calendar even though Partridge would have liked her to be!) takes no prisoners and Partridge plays her as stern and controlling. Even in a badminton game she is unrelentingly dominating in her treatment her devout follower Ruth.

Ruth, played by Jenny van der Lem, is nervy and easily upset, and Van der Lem shows this in anxious, expressive reactions – especially when considering ‘going nude’ in front of a camera. Her reluctance is very real, but overcoming it gives her the courage to confront her husband’s young girlfriend, Elaine, in a short scene that gets a rousing reaction from the audience! Allegra Rodriguez and Leisel Hussy alternate as Elaine.

Rosie Crossing and Chris Snell are Jessie and Celia, the older “calendar girls”. Jessie is a retired teacher who has a sardonic sense of humour. Crossing makes her astute, observant, and a little wicked– and her mischievous asides are delivered with good comic timing. Celia is equally mischievous and Snell relishes showing her “devil may care” attitude and brazen sense of fun.

Supporting the women are Darren Gibson as John, and Stehen McCabe as Chris’s husband Rod. Mark Prophet plays a sassy sales promoter and Nash Burton and Blake Reeves alternate as the photographer Lawrence. Jacqueline Felangue appears as a guest speaker at a WI meeting and the judge at a cake-making competition.

The whole company’s commitment to the play is warming. All the proceeds from the sale of their program and tea lights of Hope go to the Cancer Council. Those tea lights, which glimmer in the hands of the cast at the end of the play as a silent tribute to those lost to that insidious disease, will become a lasting memory of this tenderly touching production.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

* Opening Night

Writer Performer: Kirli Saunders. Merrigong Theatre Company. Director Leland Kean. Bruce Gordon Theatre. Illawarra Performing Arts Centre. 20 – 22 Feb, 2025

Reviewed : 21 February, 2025

Kirli Saunders is a proud Gunai woman who, in her own words “rarely stays in her lane”. Rather, as a multi-disciplinary artist, she uses words, music and movement to express her strong feelings about country and mob … and the politics and policies and that force her out of “her lane”.

In Yandha Djanbay she explains those feelings in a performance that is open and challenging but is infused with gentle humour, wry irony and wise commentary.

The wide, open stage becomes country, protected by blue sky and rolling surf captured by cinematographer Tad Souden, sound realiser Dominic Hinton and musician Mark Chester Harding. In centre stage is a “midden” of modern artifacts that Saunders uses to facilitate her stories, stories that recall the past, decry the present, predict the future. Stories that are heart-wrenchingly personal … and mockingly sardonic, all lit evocatively by Corey Potter.

Saunders bookmarks each story with quotations boldly projected behind her, quotations from politicians, multimillionaires, would be influencers – cleverly chosen quotations that show Saunders’ perceptive understanding, quick intelligence and satirical sense of humour.

The quotes stay just long enough for the audience to read, then pick up Saunders’ cynical sobriquet for the originato. I seem to remember one including the words “spandex” and “Speedo”! Tony Abbott was just one among many – Hanson, Morrison, Rinehart, Katter, Joyce, Dutton – whose words Saunders used to exemplify stories of discrimination, racism, lack of empathy …  and denial.

Kirli Saunders moves easily on the stage, talking conversationally and punctuating with thoughtful pauses or short, sharp screams of anger or pain. She uses objects from her “midden” as symbols for each story. Holding an abalone shell, she takes the audience to the sea, and the wisdom of old aunties. She bends, holding the shell toward water and adds sand-shifting dance steps as she conjures the image of the abalone baking in the ashes – and the long thin spines of the sea urchins who have invaded the abalone spaces fished out by greedy colonising invaders.

Like the shell, other items become story starters, that are then laid in a circle around the “midden”. A possum skin, a paint brush, a wheel of cheese, a set of cable tie handcuffs, a hospital gown … All symbolic of the issues she raises – the hunting of native animals, stolen children abortion, deaths in custody, domestic violence, the referendum …

As a writer Saunders knows the importance of economy of words and careful editing. Both are evident in this clever script with which, as a performer, she reaches across cultures and generations in a kaleidoscope of messages and images that speak powerfully but gently of the need for action and change.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine

By William Shakespeare. Sport for Jove Theatre Company. Director: Samantha Young. Bella Vista Farm. 19-29 December, 2024

Reviewed : 21 December, 2024*

Much Ado is one of Shakespeare’s witty comedies where, once again, the Bard contemplated the vagaries of love, jealousy, greed and social class in a typically complex plot that twists its characters into dissembling, plotting, being hoodwinked and begging forgiveness. Put this in the hands of a clever director with a lively imagination and a small cast on an open-air stage and it’s amazing what can be achieved.

Samantha Young’s Much Ado is bright, fast, a little bit quirky – and thoroughly entertaining. Seven actors play fourteen roles in a production that has the audience involved (literally at several moments), amused – and even a little bit in awe of the quick character changes, the credibility of every character and the comedy that Young has infused into the production.

High on a grassy hillside, Bella Vista Farm lends itself to a rural vision, and Young sets the play in 19^th century Australia. The set, designed by Damien Ryan, is the verandah of a split timber slab hut with a galvanised iron roof … and a tank stand. Nestled in the yard of the original two-storey farmhouse and surrounded with grapevines and roses, it is the perfect setting for a play that involves deception, eavesdropping and some fast character changes.

Shakespeare had varied ideas about love, usually expressed through more than one relationship in every play. In Much Ado there are the young, besotted lovers, Hero and Claudio – and the less enamoured Beatrice and Benedick, whose relationship is fraught based on a previous deception which Beatrice explains in the lines:

“Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use for it,
a double heart for his single one.
Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice.”

This gives rise to the parrying between the two that Shakespeare used to comment on damaged love – and continues to give so many actors the opportunity to throw his witty, barbed, much quoted lines at each other.

Megan O’Connell and Jay James-Moody do so brilliantly, finding the pace necessary for their battle of words yet losing none of Shakespeare’s ingenious choice of words and phrasing. O’Connell plays a Beatrice who is urbane, wise, self-possessed, respected – and protective of her cousin Hero.

Jay James-Moody plays a Benedick equally respected among his soldier friends. Sworn to bachelorhood, James-Moody makes Benedick charmingly affable – so that his witty, condescending parrying with Beatrice causes mirth from Claudio and Don Pedro. James- Moody is a consummate performer who brings a different jauntiness and dash to the role.

Both he and O’Connell have excellent comic timing, as do the other five performers.

Leilani Loau plays a female Leonato, confidently in control of her domain and proud and caring of her daughter and niece. Loau uses the stage – and the audience – effectively, especially when doubling as the ‘Night Constable’ Dogberry, who moves among the audience, one of whom becomes a continuing reference in the final, funny scenes. Here, Loau uses hesitant timing that finds the humour and nuance in Shakespeare’s lines.

Ellen Coote plays both Hero – and Borachio, the wretch who schemes to make Claudio believe Hero has another lover. Coote moves easily from guileless and honest Hero to devious, money-hungry Borachio with apparent ease. Her Hero is light of foot and naively transparent – her Borachio is brash, loud and somewhat vulgar.

Toby Blome plays the naïve young soldier Claudio, as well as Conrade who is Borachio’s off-sider in crime, and Hero’s maid, Ursula. As Claudio, Blome shows the young, emotional soldier who falls in love easily – and is just as easily duped by Borachio and Don John. As Conrade he is a follower rather than a leader. As Ursula his is a tall, ungainly but endearing attendant.

Don Pedro is played with effective status and command by Mandela Mathia, but it is as the Friar that Mathia endears himself to the audience, moving among them with blessings and good wishes as he makes his way on to the stage.

Don John on the other hand is devious and Ziggy Resnick makes him slippery and sly, almost sliding in and out of scenes – very different to Margaret, the other character played by Resnick. Here Resnick is cheerful, open, full of life.

Samantha Young has given her cast the opportunity to use their varied talents to play contrasting characters in one long, fast moving, demanding production. Even James-Moody plays a second role, the musician Balthazar, whom he makes a little self-effacing and naïve – once again a contrast to Benedick’s confidence.

Young’s direction enhances the comedy in the play with moments of clever humour. Benedick hides in the grapevine and under the tank stand as he eavesdrops on the story of Beatrice’s love for him. Beatrice hides under a blanket on a cane chair then in high in the tank as she eavesdrops on the story about Benedick’s love for her. The funniest costume change occurs when Mathia is ‘caught’ having to change from priest to prince mid-scene.

There are subtle sight gags and intuitive blocking that keep the action moving without detracting from the plots or the characters or the ingenuity of the words. It is this sort of insightful, bold, contemporary direction and acting that makes Shakespeare’s comedies relevant for each new generation.

Also published in Stage Whispers magazine

*Opening performance

Book, Music, Lyrics Richard O’Brien. Rocky Horror Company. Director Christopher Luscombe. Theatre Royal, Sydney. Opening Night: April 3, 2024

Reviewed : 3 April, 2024*

Richard O’Brien calls his creation “a celebration of wonderful rainbow joy and toe-tapping happiness” – but he knows it’s really much more than that. It’s brazen and boisterous; cheeky and colourful; loud and lively! And though I was probably one of the oldest people in the audience at last night’s opening performance, I was just as hyped as any of the other excited Sydney siders who packed the Theatre Royal to celebrate fifty years of The Rocky Horror Show.

Since it opened in a little 63-seater theatre upstairs in the Royal Court in London in 1973 it’s been wowing audiences around the world. And it has s special place in Australian theatre history. It was Australia’s ‘showman’ Jim Sharman who directed Richard O’Brien himself as Riff Raff in the original London production; Sharman who directed it for Harry M. Miller a year later in Australia; and Sharman who encouraged Australia’s original Frank N Further Reg Livermore to be, in Reg’s words, “the fearless embodiment of all that is unspeakable”.

Jason Donovan does Livermore’s “fearless” Frank proud in this glittering production that sparkles with all the pizzazz of 21^st century technology, creativity … and inclusivity. Because it is superstar tennis Paralympian Dylan Alcott OA who plays the Narrator, spinning his wheelchair on a different stage and, in his usual, confident style, returning the serves of hecklers with crisp, cross-court cuts.

From high above the stage, almost hidden behind the backdrop of a giant strip of celluloid film paying tribute to the B-grade Science Fiction “late night, double feature, picture shows” on which the musical is based, the musicians strike up and the Usherette – Voice finalist Stellar Perry – appears, and with her tray of ice creams to open this anniversary production.

Nick Richards returns to Sydney to light the show with multiple contemporary effects. Gareth Owens matches them with exotic wrap around sound, and Sue Blane adds more spangles, sequins, feathers and weird wigs to her original designs, to make them even more daringly bold and suggestive.

Wearing them is a cast that appears just as lively and excited as the audience that awaits them. Blake Bowden replaces his Opera Australia Phantom mask with black-framed spectacles to become a very bewildered 1970s Brad, and Deidre Khoo is, as she proclaims in her bio notes, a “loud and proud Asian Janet”. Both find the naïve simplicity of their characters with some nice ‘engagement’ harmonies and excellent comedic timing, especially as they enter the laboratory of Dr Frank N Furter and his strange staff.

Henry Rollo sidles and simpers as Riff Raff, his lithe suppleness emulating the wraithlike spookiness with which O’Brien himself imbued the character. His Phantoms – Josh Gates, Hollie James, Nicolas Van Litsenborgh and Erica Wild – slither and snake as his dark minions, always in perfect time and voice. Stellar Perry returns as his sister, the alluring Transylvanian temptress Magenta, and Darcey Eagle is a feisty and spirited Columbia who follows her transvestite hero with lusty vocals and driving energy, especially as she joins Riff Raff, Magenta and the Phantoms for the much-awaited “Time Warp”. Nathan M. Wright’s fast, contemporary choreography delights the audience, especially in the reprise at the end of the show where the Narrator adds a surprise!

Ellis Dolan rocks in the role of Eddie – yet plays things much more sombrely when he returns to the stage as a slightly ‘restrained’ Dr Scott.

Who have I missed? Oops! The mad transvestite scientist Frank N Furter himself  … and his ‘perfect’ invention Rocky.

Jason Donovan is a dynamic, decadent Frank who owns the stage from the moment he strides in and throws off his black coat to reveal the corset, fishnets and pearls that are Frank’s ‘livery’! Strutting in high heels, he menaces the audience, never missing the opportunity to wriggle his eyebrows, flick his tongue or lustily lick his lips. Donovan brings a wealth of theatrical experience to the Rocky Horror stage.  As well as playing Frank for the twenty-fifth anniversary production, he has sung for a monarch, and played characters as diverse as an Egyptian pharaoh and a drag queen. This performance shows he has lost none of the energy or charisma with which he has captured audiences here and overseas.

And Rocky, the mad medical transvestite’s “favourite obsession”? That’s Daniel Erbacher! He emerges from the circle of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man in sculpturesque splendour, complete with glittering gold bikini briefs and boots. Fresh-faced and wide-eyed, he poses innocently – well almost! – setting Janet’s heart fluttering and Brad’s fists clenching. Erbacher does a fine job with this role, making Rocky gloriously guileless and just a little god-like!

This “golden” anniversary of the Rocky Horror Show is a celebration of how a crazy idea based on some third-rate movies has become a musical theatre ‘icon’ that can be ‘dressed up’ in all the glitter and glam of modern theatrics, but never loses its original wicked artless appeal.