“Archer is going to rip your face a new ear hole.” The voice of the MC calls out cautiously. With that there’s a nervous end to the applause. A curtain opens on a man with a ukulele; he looks the audience up and down, introduces himself and starts singing. ….. The act ends and the audience with tears in their eyes clap again. “Actually what I really meant was that Archer’s going to melt your heart and steal it away, that’s what I get for going to a state school." There's a hearty laugh. "Now who's up for some more Vaudeville?" This sums up An Awful Lot Of Vaudeville - seemingly harsh, but once you get into it a really nice (and wonky) production. And it’s the best cabaret performance I’ve ever seen. Well it is the only cabaret show that I’ve ever seen… but yet it was enough to have me lusting for more.

Set in the Arts House Fringe Club, Everybody’s Talkin’ began with a smooth and relaxing atmosphere. The bar was filled with park-bench style seating, and each table had upon it tea light candles in coloured paper cases. This calming atmosphere was a perfect backdrop to the debate/discussion/question time that eventuated as six local media personalities […]

Imagine yourself sitting in one of the finest gold-gilded, velvet-lined theatres of old world Romanticism. The overture begins; it’s a haunting tune of love and melancholy laced with epic undertones. Hold that thought. Now shrink it to proportions appropriate to finger puppets and you have the opening stanzas of ‘The Cautionary Tale of Barry Von […]

I stepped into the warehouse off Sydney Road and was delighted; I have always wanted a warehouse completely covered in mattresses, blankets, beds and cushions. Musical Thoughts For A Darkened Room showed off the taste and talents of the two musicians Scott Edwards and Edward Gould. In front of this gigantic display of softness and […]

Described as “the real Little Mermaid” and “poetic filth”, I had thought to see a dark, grungy and twisted Hans Christian Anderson homage. Instead, Tommy Bradson plies our emotions with the insecure, yet pleading and emphatic, musings of a sailor and his siren as they try to deal with life, sex and love. And once […]