Tag Archives: comedy

Review: Shirley Valentine (Theatre Royal)

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Venue: Theatre Royal (Sydney NSW), Oct 22 – 26, 2025
Playwright: Willy Russell
Director: Lee Lewis
Cast: Natalie Bassingthwaighte
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
Shirley is at home, drinking too much wine and talking to the walls. Once the devoted wife and mother to an ungrateful family, she now finds herself, at 42, confronting the emptiness that domestic duty has left behind. Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine (1986) still beats with the pulse of liberation, but its rhythm has softened. What was once piercingly funny and quietly radical now feels more quaint than provocative. The world has moved on, and so has the conversation about women’s liberation — though the play’s plea for self-possession remains universal, a reminder that the longing for selfhood, for the courage to live beyond the roles we are assigned, is timeless.

Lee Lewis’s direction proves almost too faithful to the original’s stylistic and philosophical blueprints, resulting in a production that feels somewhat restrained by contemporary standards. Still, it is a respectable staging — elegant, measured, and clear in its moral throughline. Simone Romaniuk’s set and costume design offer little in the way of reinvention, yet they convincingly evoke the dual worlds Shirley inhabits, from domestic confinement to sunlit escape. Paul Jackson’s lighting, unembellished but effective, complements Brady Watkins’s music and Marcello Lo Ricco’s sound design, both of which are finely judged in modulating the audience’s emotional terrain.

Natalie Bassingthwaighte’s natural charisma positions her perfectly for the role of Shirley. With impeccable timing and clear command of the material, she lends the one-woman show a sense of substance and confidence throughout. While she doesn’t entirely bridge the gap between the play’s dated sensibilities and a modern audience, her performance radiates authenticity, grounding the work with a valuable sense of integrity and emotional truth.

Shirley Valentine reflects not only the lives our mothers and grandmothers once led, but the continuum of feminist struggle that binds their stories to ours. It makes clear the extent of our progress, and the fragility of it — how readily it can unravel the moment we presume the fight has been won. Freedom, as ever, survives only in motion — and Shirley, we hope, is still forging ahead, still living out the promise of a brighter future.

www.shirleyvalentine.com.au

Review: Meow’s Meow’s The Red Shoes (Belvoir St Theatre)

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Venue: Belvoir St Theatre (Surry Hills NSW), Oct 4 – Nov 9, 2025
Creator: Meow Meow
Director: Kate Champion
Cast: Kanen Breen, Mark Jones, Meow Meow, Dan Witton, Jethro Woodward
Images by Brett Boardman

Theatre review
In Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, a young girl is condemned to dance without end, her obsession consuming her entire being. Meow Meow’s The Red Shoes transforms this fable into a self-reflexive performance piece, with Meow Meow — the self-proclaimed “eternal showgirl” — embodying an autobiographical figure who cannot stop performing, trapped in the perpetual motion of her own artistry. She describes her practice as non-linear and anti-narrative, and those qualities are evident here. Yet if the work falters, it is not because of its structural resistance to story, but rather because its gestures, however extravagant, begin to feel drained of true inspiration.

Nonetheless, Meow Meow’s song writing remains unequivocally delightful, buoyed by Jethro Woodward’s musical direction, which is both sophisticated and deeply satisfying. The staging of each number, under Kate Champion’s direction, abounds with visual allure, though the production’s overall lack of emotional resonance can leave one curiously hollow. Dann Barber’s set and costume design are splendidly realised, conjuring an atmosphere of apocalypse without ever relinquishing a sense of glamour. Meanwhile, Rachel Burke’s lighting is nothing short of transcendent, transforming the space with a radiance that is as visceral as it is luminous.

Meow Meow is, without question, a consummate performer — her voice rich and expressive, her physicality precise and magnetic. Yet beneath the impeccable technique lies a curious detachment, as though the machinery of performance turns flawlessly, but the spark within flickers faintly. In contrast, Kanen Breen radiates exuberance and conviction as her onstage companion, his presence a buoyant counterpoint that reanimates the stage. Exquisite musicians Mark Jones and Dan Witton, alongside Woodward, contribute not only live accompaniment but a heady air of bohemian decadence, infusing the production with an intoxicating sense of play.

Andersen’s 1845 tale The Red Shoes may glimmer with romance, yet beneath its sheen lies a stern puritanism — a warning against the woman who dares to follow her own desire. In Meow Meow’s hands, that cautionary fable is turned tenderly inside out: love, not vanity, becomes the pulse of her relentless motion. It is the reach for connection, not self-admiration, that keeps her dancing — as if true salvation lies in crafting communion, even in a space as fleeting and ephemeral as the theatre.

www.belvoir.com.au

Review: Work, But This Time Like You Mean It (The Rebel Theatre)

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Venue: The Rebel Theatre (Sydney NSW), Oct 15 – 18 , 2025
Playwright: Honor Webster-Mannison
Director: Luke Rogers
Cast: Georgie Bianchini, Hannah Cornelia, Kathleen Dunkerley, Quinn Goodwin, Matthew Hogan, Blue Hyslop, Sterling Notley, Emma Piva
Images by

Theatre review
Chaos is the natural order in a fast-food restaurant, where young workers hold down the counters and, by extension, the bottom tiers of vast corporate empires. Honor Webster-Mannison’s Work, But This Time Like You Mean It announces its irony from the title, a wry invitation to reflect on labour, performance, and disillusionment. The play mines humour from the everyday grind, though its observations rarely move beyond the familiar. Still, the writing’s energy and authenticity make it a fertile ground for theatrical invention.

Directed by Luke Rogers, the production delivers amusement in spades, impressing with its relentless energy and visual exuberance. Set within the bleak confines of a takeout joint, Rogers’ staging transforms the banal into the spectacular, revealing the latent drama of labour and exhaustion.

Kathleen Kershaw’s set is both playground and pressure cooker, facilitating agile movement while immersing us in vivid, layered visuals. Ethan Hamill’s lighting gives the work structure and momentum, while Patrick Haesler’s sound design further heightens atmosphere and tension, ensuring the production maintains a constant sense of urgency and rhythm. Together, these elements generate a rhythm that feels breathless yet purposeful, a choreography of survival rendered with theatrical bravado.

A cast of eight delivers the show’s discombobulating heart with infectious precision and energy. Their performances are tightly honed, radiating a cohesion and verve that keep the audience engaged from start to finish. As the beleaguered branch manager, Blue Hyslop stands out for both charm and nuance, balancing comic timing with moments of surprising emotional depth amid the surrounding mayhem.

Work, But This Time Like You Mean It presents entry-level work as both crucible and classroom, a space where identities are forged under pressure, and where the absurd machinery of labour dispenses its quiet lessons in endurance. It exposes the inevitability of our initiation into capitalism, especially at an age too young to grasp its traps, when the thrill of a first job disguises the real lesson: that the system always starts by teaching us how to stay in line.

www.canberrayouththeatre.com.au

Review: Everything I Know About This Water Bottle (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Oct 7 – 17, 2025
Playwright: Michael Andrew Collins
Director: Violette Ayad
Cast: Ari Sgouros
Images by Phil Erbacher

Theatre review
Clara’s story begins millions of years ago, evolves into a toy horse, and culminates as a plastic water bottle in the 21st century. Written by Michael Andrew Collins, the one-person play Everything I Know About This Water Bottle unfolds as a whimsical odyssey from organism to object. Though rich in imagination and buoyed by moments of fanciful invention, the work ultimately distils into a rather straightforward message of ecological preservation, one that resonates on a thematic level but rarely connects beyond the immediate impression.

Directed by Violette Ayad, the production maintains an appropriate sense of gravity, even as the text itself struggles to convey emotional depth. Performer Ari Sgouros proves sure-footed and assured, exuding a warm, jovial presence that keeps the audience engaged and at ease throughout. Set and lighting designer Morgan Moroney conjures a campfire-like intimacy that draws viewers closer to the story, while Madeleine Picard’s minimal sound assemblage offers only minimal enhancement, lending texture but little transformative impact.

Everything I Know About This Water Bottle exposes, with unflinching clarity, humanity’s incapacity to prioritise its own survival. Despite decades of discourse surrounding ecological collapse, our predicament continues to worsen, suggesting an almost inherent self-destructive tendency that no amount of awareness has managed to arrest. In its quiet despair, the piece gestures toward the melancholy truth that knowledge alone cannot redeem us. What remains is a haunting portrait of a species watching itself fade, fully conscious yet strangely unmoved.

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.eswrkrs.com

Review: The Shiralee (Sydney Theatre Company)

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Venue: Sydney Opera House (Sydney NSW), Oct 6 – Nov 29, 2025
Playwright: Kate Mulvany (from the novel by D’Arcy Niland)
Director: Jessica Arthur
Cast: Stephen Anderson, Paul Capsis, Lucia Mastrantone, Josh McConville,  Kate Mulvany, Aaron Pedersen, Ziggy Resnick, Catherine Văn-Davies
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
In Kate Mulvany’s retelling of The Shiralee, D’Arcy Niland’s 1955 novel, the swagman Macauley finds purpose only when he chooses to embrace his parental responsibilities as his daughter Buster approaches her tenth birthday. Together they walk through the shadow of the Great Depression, where dust and hunger become the measure of endurance. The hardships they face quickly draw them close, allowing both to flourish in unexpected ways.

What was once a folksy tale of toil and redemption is transformed by Mulvany’s deft writing into something vibrantly humorous and sharply contemporary. Her play is delightful, charming, and consistently hilarious — a thoroughly entertaining reimagining that recontextualises a classic story for modern sensibilities.

Directed by Jessica Arthur, the production leans wholeheartedly into its comedic potential, unearthing every possible moment of laughter to create a show brimming with joy and playfulness. Driven by an expansive imagination and free-spirited inventiveness, Arthur’s work is a profound uplift, offering sincere explorations of love, belonging, and the meaning of home.

The cast glows with an irresistible warmth — each performer uncovering fresh, idiosyncratic ways to awaken an old tale for our restless, modern hearts. They play to our weariness with laughter, coaxing joy from every line, finding light in even the smallest turns of phrase.

As Macauley, the magnetic Josh McConville strikes a perfect balance between gruff masculinity and raw vulnerability, allowing us to see both the archetypal Aussie bloke and the tender humanity that quietly resides beneath the façade. The endlessly endearing Ziggy Resnick radiates pure exuberance as Buster, delivering a performance that is both impeccably timed and deeply sensitive — a portrait of a child wise beyond her years.

Jeremy Allen’s production design is elegantly spare, mirroring the harshness and austerity of the Australian outback. His use of gumtrees, at once iconic and nostalgic, evokes a landscape that feels both mythic and deeply personal. Trent Suidgeest’s lighting design is remarkable, seamlessly transforming the stage into a multitude of imagined places while crafting moments of sheer visual poetry that satisfy our longing for beauty. Equally striking is Jessica Dunn’s sound and composition, which capture both the vast, unforgiving sweep of the land and the tender intimacy of this unlikely father and daughter bond. Dunn’s work brims with feeling, but her sentimentality is never cloying; it moves us because it is always saying something true.

In this 2025 reiteration of The Shiralee, are unforgettable encounters with Indigenous and other people of colour, alongside multiple queer identities and unapologetic women of substance. Beneath the lively retelling of a story about familial bonds and traditional maleness lie subtle but profound redefinitions of the marginalised, insisting that we see ourselves not as outsiders but as integral threads woven into the tapestry of the Australian myth, forever reshaping it with our resolute presence and undaunted voices.

www.sydneytheatre.com.au

Review: Fekei (Qtopia)

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Venue: Qtopia (Darlinghurst NSW), Oct 8 – 18, 2025
Playwright: Sarah Carroll
Director: Sarah Carroll
Cast: Melissa Applin, Natalie Patterson, Kikki Temple, Lawrence Ola, Naisa Lasalosi, Mele Telefon
Images by DefinitelyDefne Photography

Theatre review
Akanisi returns to her hometown in Fiji for what was meant to be a relaxing visit, but the trip quickly becomes fraught with tension when her girlfriend Sam joins her, with her family remaining unaware about Akanisi’s queerness. Fekei by Sarah Carroll explores how postcolonial societies grapple with the lingering influence of Christian doctrines that have bred prejudice and shame. Yet, it also reveals how deeply rooted cultural traditions can offer resilience and acceptance, standing firm against the harmful legacies of biblical indoctrination.

It is a sincere work by Carroll — tenderly written and often humorous in its portrayal of cultural idiosyncrasies. Their direction, however, lacks refinement; the rawness of approach occasionally renders scenes forced or unconvincing. Yet, Luna Ng’s commendable lighting design provides a counterbalance, its sensitive evocation of atmosphere helping to guide the audience through the production’s emotional shifts.

Melissa Applin brings a quiet sincerity to Akanisi, while Natalie Patterson infuses Sam with a buoyant, infectious energy. Yet the emotional core of their relationship never quite lands, and a stronger chemistry between the two would give the story greater pull. As Akanisi’s family, Kikki Temple and Naisa Lasalosi are a delight — playful, camp, and full of heart — offering both comic relief and genuine tenderness. In supporting turns, Lawrence Ola and Melehola Telefoni add texture and vibrancy, enriching the play’s portrait of everyday life in Fiji.

Queer people have every right to want acceptance, a pursuit that is both natural and deserved, though sometimes harmony is the closest we can come. The influence of religion in the Pacific runs deep; after more than two centuries of Christian indoctrination, its unravelling will take generations. During her fleeting return home, Akanisi cannot hope to rewrite her grandmother’s faith, but within their shared customs lies an older wisdom: one that values peace, patience, and the quiet endurance of love.

www.qtopiasydney.com.au

Review: Chicken In A Biscuit (Old Fitz Theatre)

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Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Oct 3 – 18, 2025
Playwrights: Mary Rachel Brown, Jamie Oxenbould 
Director: Mary Rachel Brown
Cast: Mandy Bishop, Jamie Oxenbould
Images by Becky Matthews

Theatre review
Mary Rachel Brown and Jamie Oxenbould’s Chicken in a Biscuit stitches together a handful of comic vignettes about pets and their humans. It is a playful collection that mostly delivers on its promise of amusement, serving up easy laughs and moments of recognisable absurdity. The writers occasionally flirt with taboo, but never quite bite down; the material remains amiable, lightly absurd, and ultimately harmless. Pleasant enough, but it never risks enough to truly surprise.

Brown’s direction keeps everything tidy and contained, resulting in a show that feels carefully packaged but rarely surprising; a safe bet for audiences who prefer their theatre comfortable and uncomplicated. Kate Beere’s production design injects a colourful vibrancy, touched with camp flair, that lifts the show above the merely ordinary. Aron Murray’s lighting, video, and sound design provide atmospheric support and emotional precision, opting for reliability over experimentation.

Featuring Oxenbould and Mandy Bishop in multiple roles—human, feline and canine—Chicken in a Biscuit maintains a tone of confident control. The performers’ technical proficiency and evident commitment ground the production, providing a stability that facilitates audience engagement. Their comedic timing is deft and reliable, though attempts at emotional depth inadvertently reveal the text’s limitations, exposing a lack of substantive resonance beneath the humour.

When creative writing turns to anthropomorphism, an act of mirroring takes place. It reveals us as a species that defines itself relationally — understanding what we are only by imagining what we are not. Through the animal, we are stripped of pretence, order and normative hierarchy, made to think in other languages, to locate identity in a space far removed from the familiar. Perhaps, at the heart of it, what we desire most is transformation itself — for to be human is so often to long to be something, or somewhere, else.

www.oldfitztheatre.com.au | www.instagram.com/fixedfootproductions

Review: King (Sydney Fringe)

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Venue: New Theatre (Newtown NSW), Sep 24 – 27, 2025
Playwright: Jo Tan
Director: Tan Shou Chen
Cast: Jo Tan
Images by Elissa Webb

Theatre review
Geok Yen is a marketing executive by day and Matt’s dutiful girlfriend by night, roles she shoulders with care but never with equal reward. She is forced to shrink, to contort, her true voice muffled. Then, in a moment of accidental inspiration, she steps into the skin of a man named Sterling—and the ground shifts beneath her.

Jo Tan’s one-woman play King initially situates itself within familiar binaries, only to destabilize them as the narrative progresses. Its insights into sexism accrue gradually, building towards a textured critique that resists simplistic dichotomies. By layering complexity onto what appears at first conventional, Tan invites her audience to reconsider the very categories through which gender is perceived and enacted.

Directed with flair by Tan Shou Chen, King shifts seamlessly between comedy and drama in charting Geok Yen’s journey. Each comic twist carries within it a shadow, each burst of humour a reminder of the weight pressing beneath. Though rooted in Singapore, the play’s reflections on societal roles and gender imbalance transcend geography. The details may vary across cultures, but the paradigm it reveals is both universal and pertinent.

Jo Tan delivers a tour de force, slipping effortlessly between Geok Yen, Sterling, and a gallery of side characters, all conjured with wit, imagination, and playful precision. The craftsmanship of her performance is impeccable, but it is her irresistible charisma and the clarity with which she unfolds both story and moral, that captivates, delights, and provokes in equal measure. Also noteworthy are video projections by designer Brian Gothong Tan, which heighten the theatricality of the production and accentuate the fantastical dimensions of Geok Yen’s narrative, all while dazzling with their sheer visual spectacle.

King begins with a starkly binary view of life, but by inhabiting both extremes, Geok Yen moves toward a more nuanced understanding of her place in the world. From black and white emerges a spectrum of grey, within which she discovers the courage to begin embracing her authenticity. The terrors that once haunted her prove to be illusions, and the forces that seemed all-powerful are revealed as far less formidable than they first appeared.

www.sydneyfringe.com

Review: True West (Ensemble Theatre)

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Venue: Ensemble Theatre (Kirribilli NSW), Sep 8 – Oct 11, 2025
Playwright: Sam Shepard
Director: Ian Sinclair
Cast: Vanessa Downing, Darcy Kent, James Lugton, Simon Maiden
Images by Prudence Upton

Theatre review
Austin is holed up in his mother’s California home, polishing his screenplay, when his brother Lee bursts in and blows everything apart. Austin is neat, proper, civilized; Lee is chaos incarnate. In True West, Sam Shepard turns their clash into a battle of identities, a showdown between two Americas under one roof. Many pre-Reagan plays have lost their bite, but this one hits harder than ever—its vision of fractured cultures feels ripped straight from today’s headlines.

Simone Romaniuk’s production design sharpens the play’s intensity: the set feels close and feverish, and the costumes declare conflict from the outset. Brockman’s lighting washes the story with unexpected flamboyance, sculpting emotion into lyrical images of sheer visual poetry. By contrast, Daryl Wallis’ sound design is more restrained, yet its sparseness proves effective in aligning with the play’s measured textual rhythm.

Expertly directed by Ian Sinclair, the staging pursues every dramatic and revelatory possibility in Shepard’s text. What emerges is provocative and cerebral, yet at the same time raw and palpable—an utterly absorbing experience achieved without reliance on superfluous bells and whistles. The play holds us fast with a tale that is at once grounded in reality and tinged with the extraordinary, keeping our fascination with its central relationship alive, while persistently stirring uneasy thoughts about the world we now inhabit.

As Lee, Simon Maiden is a study in intricacy and truth, his every gesture alive with resonant authenticity. Opposite him, Darcy Kent drives Austin into surprising surges of theatricality, pushing the drama to exhilarating heights. Each is formidable in his own right, yet it is their electrifying chemistry together that anchors the production’s success. Around them, James Lugton and Vanessa Downing embrace their smaller roles with admirable flair, their comic touches both outlandish and irresistible, adding yet another layer of delight.

Beneath the polished surface of Western progress and civility lies a startling fragility. In True West, the brothers slip effortlessly into barbarity, exposing the raw, untamed instincts lurking beneath social masks. Both cling to a mythic past, yearning to make America great again, as if modernity has failed them, even though much of contemporary advancement has unequivocally strengthened democracy and improved life collectively. True West reminds us that, no matter how far society reaches toward progress, those who wield the greatest power—and shape the course of our evolution—often remain savages at heart.

(Note: due to a medical emergency on opening night, the part of Lee was played by director Ian Sinclair for the final scene.)

www.ensemble.com.au

Review: Bright Star (Hayes Theatre)

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Venue: Hayes Theatre Co (Potts Point NSW), Sep 5 – Oct 5, 2025
Music, Book & Story: Steve Martin
Music, Lyrics & Story: Edie Brickell
Directors: Miranda Middleton, Damien Ryan
Cast: Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward, Kaya Byrne, Victoria Falconer, Genevieve Goldman, Jack Green, Deirdre Khoo, Hannah McInerney, Jarrad Payne, Rupert Reid, Katrina Retallick, Felix Staas, Alec Steedman, Molly Margaret Stewart, Olivia Tajer, Seán van Doornum 
Images by Robert Catto

Theatre review
The story begins a century ago in North Carolina, where Alice falls pregnant out of wedlock and is forced to give up her child. At a time when single motherhood was considered unthinkable, women who defied convention by seeking independence or family without a husband were often subjected to severe persecution. Bright Star, the musical by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, revisits this not-so-distant chapter of history, exposing the harsh, often barbaric conditions faced by some Americans. While the narrative tends to be too obviously tugging at our emotions, the production is buoyed by its irresistibly vibrant score, written in the bluegrass tradition, which remains a joy to experience.

Alec Steedman’s musical direction sweeps us into the romance and effervescence of every song, while co-directors Miranda Middleton and Damien Ryan shape the production into something strikingly elegant, imbued with warmth and empathy, even if the story’s separate timelines are not always clear. The design elements are handled with equal finesse: Isabel Hudson’s set exudes rustic charm yet retains a crisp sense of polish; Lily Matelian’s costumes evoke the American South with convincing detail, though they falter in ageing characters convincingly as the story shifts through time. James Wallis’ lighting is a continual delight—sumptuous, evocative, and unfailingly theatrical.

Hannah McInerney is commanding in the lead role of Alice, bringing remarkable depth and authenticity to the character, even if the distinction between her younger and older selves is not always sharply drawn. The two men in Alice’s life, played by Kaya Byrne and Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward, make a lasting impression with performances marked by sincerity, grounded realism, and an appealing lack of artifice. Also deserving mention are Deidre Khoo, Genevieve Goldman, and Jack Green, who, though in smaller roles, provide delightful flashes of humour and personality, their quirky characterisations and impeccable comic timing adding much to the production’s charm.

Not all storytelling lies in what is said, but in how it is told, and Bright Star is a case in point. The way its elements are assembled gives the production a resonance far greater than the sum of its parts. The meticulous musicianship, the generosity of its performers, and the discerning artistry of its designers coalesce to create a show that is consistently engaging, even when the plot itself borders on cliché. In this moment, we transcend the ordinary, reminded that art’s greatest gift is often the inspiration that it bestows.

www.hayestheatre.com.au | www.sportforjove.com.au