Brodie Turner - Page 2

It cannot be underestimated, the place of an audience in the energy of a show and their collective states of mind. Having seen Gavin Roach's Measure of Man last year as part of Sydney Fringe, this reviewer was excited to see how the Melbourne Fringe production had stayed true to the message of the work whilst managing to refine its structure and push it beyond stage boundaries to really hit home the importance of sexual taboos that still exist in society, both inside and out of the queer community.

The Very Good Looking Initiative are back with a show that is the comedy-theatrical version of the sensation you get at the end of a YouTube Hole, and if you think Family Guy knows how far they can stretch a joke, wait until you see Let's Get Practical! Live. Any lovers of the Fringe condition and the Cranberries need to book their tickets instantly, and if you find yourself slightly inebriated by the time the curtain goes up (which I do declare I didn't), then the odds are sure to be in your favour.

Some argue it is the epic play of our generation, an iconoclast of politics, existentialism and the last health crisis to impact the modern world indiscriminate of race, class or religion. Tony Kushner's opus Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes premiered in 1991 and opened on Broadway in 1993. It became a cult classic: turned into a miniseries and several highly successful remounts, the latest of which is being raved about as you read this; the National Theatre in London's production starring Hollywood hero and homo-controversy-courting treasure Andrew Garfield.

Willow Sizer takes you right back into the presence of scintillating forties diva songstresses, all the way down to the shivers along your upper arms. Sitting spellbound in the Loft at Chapel of Chapel, an uncontainable crowd were transported back to the times of undulating figures and captivating stylings. Sizer's cabaret show, Put the Blame on Mame is a genuine and charming education on her upbringing discovering her legitimately impressive talents under the guiding hand of blueprints set down my masterminds like Eartha Kitt, Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth. The show was so good, this reviewer questioned whether they had lost their wits completely, the kind of platitudes it was engineering in his ordinarily critical mind, completely disarmed by Sizer's singing and sensuality evocative of everything those incredible women brought into our collective consciousness.

There is nothing much unfamiliar about the very real invasions of privacy, hyper-surveillance, augmentation of technology, flaws in cybersecurity, and moderate resurgence of feudal attitudes we experience in life that art often imitates. For all its relevance, not to mention its prevalence in secondary school texts, and cult following to boot, 1984 could all-too-easily suffer from a stage adaptation remiss in pushing it beyond its direct correlation to the frankly frightening realities of contemporary living that have emerged almost exactly as predicted by the source material published in just shy of seventy years ago. Mercifully, Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan's adaptation, is anything but by the numbers. What we have here is a visually powerhouse, intellectually dynamic, risk-taking presentation of the modern making of meaning. Potent from the first moment right through until the dripping finale, it's a post-show conversation you don't want to miss.

BWW Review: ONLY HEAVEN KNOWS is the Tonic; Touching and Wonderful at Hayes Theatre

BWW Review: THIS IS EDEN is a Must-See, No Exceptions at fortyfive downstairs

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

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

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.

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.

To open on a personal note, that was hands-down one of the best nights of my life. I swore an oath not to dish the delicious anecdotes or remarkable, revelatory stories, so you'll just have to see it for yourself tonight or tomorrow! Meantime, here's a little of what you can expect.