Brodie Turner - Page 2

BWW Review: GHOST JAM a Spooky Sure-Fire Outing for the Kids at Melbourne Town Hall

BWW Review: CULL is Hysterical Millenial Madness #FTW at Malthouse Theatre

BWW Review: TRAINSPOTTING LIVE a RAazor-Sharp Cold Sweat Sensation at fortyfive downstairs

BWW Review: THE CURIOSITY EXPERIMENT is Spine-Tingling, Hair-Raising, Fifty Shades of Fun at Carclew

Post-apocalyptic pleasures and visceral visual delights, Yasmina Intoxicada's World's End Cabaret was one heck of an end-of-the-world party. Featuring the Orsino Nation family, this show was a body-positive subversion of genres, where flautist bikies roam, flamenco fires rage and Sia-inspired styling is du jour.

An exercise in knowing one's audience, and trumping one's own stereotypes, Two Brunettes & a Gay was so tongue-in-cheek it was deep throating itself. In an evening of salacious, ostentatious and fabulous entertainment, this self-professed 'cabaGAY' show took audiences gleefully through generations of songs accompanied with a delicious cocktail of personalities.

The city of Rome is suffering, restless, and lying in secret senators cry for the blood of Julius Caesar, a prize they will have. Shakespeare's classic retelling of the historic events surrounding political turmoil in ancient empires has seen countless further renditions, adaptations, references and critiques.

BWW Review: WHAT IF Ticks All the Boxes at Tandanya Theatre

If you've been in the habit of blinking lately, you might have missed the fact that Arts Centre Melbourne has transformed to house the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts, so you might want to cut that out and head to a box office hashire hashire! What transpired on my visit was one of the most tantalising entertaining bewildering evenings this reviewer has thus far ever experienced.

The saying goes that there are no new ideas. Originality in the age of mass-production and population density and exponential destruction of every natural muse known to great artists, has been shot mid-flight. Originality was shot through the heart, plummeted into an oil-drenched ocean, washed upon a beach of glass and needles only to be eaten by an ice addict and made into a meme.

Australian poet Nan Witcomb once wrote a remarkable statement which has stuck in my memory from childhood, which I will paraphrase: 'we lock up the crazy to keep them from living the dreams of the sane'.

One was a vagina. The other one was a vagina. Can I make it any more obvious?

World War II has been on our minds a great deal of late, with events preceding the rise of modern history's most reviled dictator being comparable to those elevating the incumbent American President. In East Berlin, the second World War was an intersection of prejudice, fear and violence from which few survived. Which is what makes this, the tale of Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf, a transgender woman of some prominence who lived through and since archived much of this dark period of history, all the more remarkable. I Am My Own Wife was first produced off-Broadway in the early noughties, and has since become a theatrical cornerstone of trans representation. Presented as a staged documentary, I Am My Own Wife oscillates between interviews, reenactments, transcripts and serves to catalogue Charlotte's life much in the way she maintained the Grunderzeit Museum for which in part she became famous.

Club Swizzle is the kind of experience you see in the movies, the kind of night you move cities for, the kind of place where even the humblest ticket holder can feel like a star. Brett Haylock, producer of the indomitable La Clique and La Soiree, has brought the sparkle and fizz back to Sydney and dusted off the Opera House for a night of vintage good fun. Throw on your glad-rags, take along your lover and prepare to be swizzed...swuzzled...swoozed? I dunno, ask Amy G, she's the comedy queen 'round these here parts.

We live in uncertain times; today's version of talent is an impressive Instagram following, YouTube killed the show reel, and much of the art forms once adored are phasing out. What does the emerging theatregoing audience know of vaudeville? Or burleycue? Thankfully, we have those answers in amazing stalwarts reinventing and reenergising these classic forms and making them timeless all over again. As a sincerely scintillating ensemble are bubbling away to create the latest in a line of variety-circus-burlesque triumphs, Broadway World got to sit down with Amy G and talk turkey. Well not actual turkey, mostly we talked about Adelaide. And of course, Club Swizzle!

The final independent production of the year at Griffin Theatre certainly has their year going out with a bang in Lighten Up, a tongue-through-cheek pummelling of racist stereotyping, the entertainment industry, metaphysics and Aussie lunacy. Written by Nicholas Brown and Sam McCool, Lighten Up was quick-fire and zero-point sharp at poking fun toward the prejudices running rampant in Australia's social and political climates, more acutely of late.

It is a wonderful time of year to be reminded of the romanticism inherent in the Australian outback; a topic more frequently explored of late for links to our history, our current social climate and our connection as a nation. Summer Rain is the work of two Australian theatrical legends, Nick Enright and Terence Clark. Summer Rain is no Boy from Oz, but this production is undeniably charming, a quintessential musical, and a wonderful ode to Australia's natural treasures. Debuting as director, Trent Kidd has shown great skill with stagecraft and character development, alongside his clear choreography talents which truly thrive in Summer Rain.