Alex First
Thinner Than Water (The LAB Theatre), at Alex Theatre - 140 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
Families – you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. That idiom may well apply to the characters in the sharp comedic...
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Alex First
Aug 183 min read
Milk and Blood, at fortyfivedownstairs - 2 x 70 minutes, with a 20-minute interval
Writer Benjamin Nichol continues his incendiary anthology series of plays with the double bill Milk and Blood. Each 70 minutes in...
Alex First
Aug 173 min read
Murder for Two (Hayes Theatre Co.), at Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne - 100 minutes, with no interval
One of the cleverest and funniest pieces of musical theatre I have had the good fortune to see, Murder for Two is a triumph of writing,...
Alex First
Aug 163 min read
JENNIE! (Melbourne Writers' Theatre), at Gasworks - 75 minutes
If I reference the word “suffragette”, the first name that will pop into many people’s heads will be Emmeline Pankurst (1858 – 1928). ...
Alex First
Aug 162 min read
Piper (Frenzy Theatre Co), at Theatre Works - 90 minutes, with no interval
The legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which dates back to the Middle Ages, has been upended in glorious fashion in the stunning new...
Alex First
Aug 113 min read
Apologia, at Malthouse Theatre - 90 minutes, without interval
Creative – yes. Original – my word. Captivating – not so much. I struggled with Apologia, which is a reflection on language,...
Alex First
Aug 92 min read
La Rondine (Victorian Opera), at Palais Theatre - 2 hours 20 minutes, including two intervals
Can one truly escape one’s past? Can true love win out? These are questions posed in Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine (The Swallow). The...
Alex First
Aug 82 min read
SIX, at Comedy Theatre - 80 minutes
SIX sizzles and girl power rules. It is a high-octane musical in every sense of those words. I speak of talent, production values,...
Alex First
Aug 72 min read
The Importance of Being Earnest (Bloodshed), at fortyfivedownstairs - 70 minutes
This is a Wilde/wild night all right – oh so deliciously wacky, in fact. Bloomshed has taken the essence of Oscar Wilde’s original farce,...
Alex First
Aug 73 min read
50 Shades: The Musical Parody, at Alex Theatre - 100 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
When British author E.J. James released his erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey in 2011, it titillated an excited throng of...
Alex First
Aug 42 min read
The Art of Banksy – Without Limits, on Level 1, 116 Studio Lane, Docklands
It is not hard to see why Banksy’s street art has captured global imagination and attention. With his satirical stencil work, he has been...
Alex First
Aug 33 min read
English (MTC), at Southbank Theatre, The Sumner - 90 minutes, with no interval
Identity. Being comfortable in our own skin. It is integral to who we are and what we stand for. English is about that. It is about love...
Alex First
Aug 23 min read
Only Child, at Chapel Off Chapel - 95 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
The moral dilemma. Juicy. Delicious. Ideal for the stage. It is at the heart of Only Child, a new play from Leah Annetta. Divorced,...
Alex First
Aug 12 min read
Little Shop of Horrors (Saltpillar Theatre) - 100 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
A unique plant runs amok. There you have it. A five-word synopsis of the darkly comedic offering that is Little Shop of Horrors. With...
Alex First
Aug 12 min read
The State, at Theatre Works' Explosives Factory - 80 minutes, without interval
Oh my, what a special kind of subversive offering The State is. In play are democracy and revolution, for this is a huge dig at all that...
Alex First
Jul 273 min read
Pizza Man (Slay Theatre), at 16th Street Actors’ Studio - 90 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
Julie Rodgers (Elyse Batson) is having a very bad day. The 28-year-old has just been sacked from her secretarial role for rejecting her...
Alex First
Jul 262 min read
Older Than I Ever Intended To Be, at The MC Showroom - 70 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
Since the age of 11, when he was taken to see the dark musical Chicago at the Sydney Opera House, Scott Hollingsworth has dreamt of...
Alex First
Jul 253 min read
Romeo & Julie, at Red Stitch Actors' Theatre - 2 hours 40 minutes, plus a 20-minute interval
Star crossed lovers all right, but this isn’t the Montagues and the Capulets. In fact, far from it … and neither are we in historic...
Alex First
Jul 213 min read
Elegies - A Song Cycle (Clovelly Fox Productions), at fortyfivedownstairs - 85 minutes, without interval
Love, loss and laughter are potent and enduring in composer William Finn’s (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) Elegies. Based...
Alex First
Jul 153 min read
The Whale (Melbourne Shakespeare Company), at Alex Theatre - 2 hours, including interval
Anger and frustration explode in Samuel D. Hunter’s power packed drama The Whale, which is about connection and redemption. While the...
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