Author: Penny Spirou

Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings: a Musical Tale, brings incredible triple-threat talent to the Aussie stage.

In a world of dramatic works turned into musicals (see: Beetlejuice, Death Becomes Her, and The Color Purple, The Lord of The Rings: A Musical Tale enters. Although the original production premiered in Toronto and London back in 2006 and 2008, this new production, which focused more on the telling of the iconic story from…

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Siegfried and Roy

Sydney Festival: The dazzling Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera has its glitzy world premiere

Sydney Festival has some world class theatre, dance, art, and music on show throughout the Sydney summer this year, but Siegfried & Roy: The Unauthorised Opera, is really something special. A fascinating real-life story in its own, the tale of these two German magicians is captured on stage in the form of an opera. And…

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Colour Maze

Colour Maze is an inspirational art adventure for young families at Sydney Festival 2025

A kid friendly interactive art installation is on as part of the 2025 Sydney Festival. Held in the beautiful Walsh Bay Arts Precinct, Colour Maze is geared towards children in the 2-to-12-year age range. “Colour Maze is an imaginative play experience created and brought to life by Amigo & Amigo. It inspires children to get…

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Theatre Review: SIX the Musical continues to deliver big queen energy as it returns to Sydney

SIX has arrived for a Sydney season at the Theatre Royal. Inspired by the six wives of Henry VIII, this fresh new musical, which debuted in London in 2017, is a vibrant, energising show that captivates and charms. Written by Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, “SIX is more than just brilliant music, it’s also a…

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Theatre Review: Yiddish language is revived in a disarming queer production of Yentl

This production of Yentl is an incredibly engaging theatrical imagining of the short story of which it is based. The original Yiddish short story Yentl, The Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer, published in 1962 has proven to still have a relevance today, over 60 years since the story was conceived. Simply put, Yentl is…

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Theatre Review: Death of a Salesman endures on stage with Anthony Lapaglia leading the way

The 1949 play, Death of a Salesman, was written by lauded American playwright, Arthur Miller. Miller wrote plays including All My Sons (1947) and The Crucible (1953), and dabbled in screenwriting and radio plays, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this very play. Death of a Salesman first premiered in 1949 and ran for…

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Rocky Horror Show

Rocky Horror Show returns for another kinky run of the 50th anniversary production

With a little over a year since the first Sydney run of the 50th Anniversary Production, Rocky Horror Show is back at the Theatre Royal in Sydney. Featuring mostly the same cast and staging (check out last year’s recap here), this production has kept the momentum going after five decades of this outrageously naughty sci-fi…

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Juliet

Theatre Review: (Pop) cultures collide in high-energy new musical, & Juliet

Well, dip my eyeballs in glitter. The brand-new musical, & Juliet, is now in Sydney, and it’s a high-energy mash-up of Shakespearean storytelling, 90s pop music, and gender-bending progressiveness. Re-working the story of Romeo & Juliet (1597), the story starts with William Shakespeare (Rob Mills) and his wife Anne Hathaway (Amy Lehpamer) (yes, you read that…

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The Lehman Trilogy

Theatre review: The Lehman Trilogy is an absolute theatrical masterclass

The Lehman Trilogy opens in 1844, where a young man from Bavaria, Hayum ‘Henry’ Lehman (1844 – 1855), arrives in New York with a dream to work his way up in a bold new world. Lehman is joined by his two brothers, Mendel ‘Emanuel’ Lehman (1847 – 1907) and Mayer ‘Potato’ Lehman (1850 – 1897),…

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Circus 1903

Review: Roll up, roll up! Circus 1903 is a dazzling reflection of the traditional and spectacular travelling circus.

There are circus performances, and then there are circus performances. Circus 1903, with a very limited run at the Sydney Opera House, is a visual feast, dazzling audiences and leaving jaws on the floor with serious talent. This show has aerialists, contortionists, cyclists, jugglers, strongmen, clowns, and everything in between. Circus 1903, which toured across…

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Rouge

Theatre Review: Rouge is an incredibly saucy adult circus, for ladies, gentlemen, and people beyond the binary

A circus for adults only, Rouge is a sexy show touring and currently playing at the Sydney Spiegeltent (House of Mirrors) at The Entertainment Quarter, Sydney. The intention was to create a show that represented what doesn’t often make it to the stage: queer relationships, female sexuality, kink, and non-binary characters. Rouge had it all…

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Theatre review: Bernadette Robinson mesmerises with star performances in Divas

Directed by Simon Phillips, Divas is a captivating journey through time, exploring the (often quite short) lives of the biggest music stars to ever grace stage and screen. There are ten, in fact, each with their own unique personality, connection to music, and outlook on life and love. Unbelievably, there is one star who brings…

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Mamma Mia

Theatre Review: MAMMA MIA! The Musical, is back and…here we go again!

MAMMA MIA! The Musical boasts a coverage of 22 of ABBA’s greatest hits, loved by multiple generations since the super group first stepped on stage in the 1970s. This stage musical, first coming to life in London in the 1990s, has gone on to perform in over 20 languages around the world. It also turned…

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Theatre Review: Rocky Horror Show’s 50th Anniversary Production does the time warp – again!

If you can believe it, it’s been 50 glorious years of Rocky Horror, across stage and screen. It all started in a small 63-seater in London on the evening of 19 June 1973. Since, it has been performed worldwide in over thirty countries and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Of course, there…

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Theatre Review: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is a family-friendly explosion of music, colour, and joy

Created by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber over half a century ago, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has returned to Oz for the 2022/23 tour. It was this musical that gave Rice and Lloyd Webber the start in their illustrious careers which continued with theatrical collaborations including Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. For…

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Lady Sings The Blues

Sydney Festival Review: Working through the power and the pain of women in music with Prinnie Stevens in Lady Sings the Blues

Best known as a finalist on the commercial television singing competition, The Voice, Prinnie Stevens is a singer and theatre performer, starring in productions including The Bodyguard and Thriller Live. In Lady Sings the Blues, Prinnie brings her Tongan Catholic heritage to stage and maps out a life and love of strong women in music….

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Antarctica

Sydney Festival Review: Antarctica is a true blend of art and science into the unknown

Antarctica is a new Australian exclusive opera performed by the Sydney Chamber Orchestra, jointly with The Netherlands’ music ensemble, Asko|Schönberg. It draws its audience in to the endlessness of the southern continent that is Antarctica. As the composers, Mary Finsterer (Music) and Tom Wright (Libretto) intended, the performance “hopes to awaken a vastness of thought”,…

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Kings of Leon

Live Review: Kings of Leon tear it up on Halloween night at Park Sounds

As part of Park Sounds, musicians T. Lopea & the International Men of Mystique played at the Music Box (a pop-up stage near the P1 parking at Olympic Park, closest to Qudos Bank Arena) to add to the atmosphere as patrons started shuffling in for the main event, Kings of Leon supported by The Temper…

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Your Love is Mine is a tragic Australian romance: A Night of Horror International Film Festival review

Your Love Is Mine is an Australian feature-film, focusing on the relationship between two young people in a small country town. Mechanic, Sam (Lester Ellis) and bartender Violet (Senie Priti) fumble their way through each day together in a dead-end town. They embrace each other’s company and talk about the future, hoping for a better…

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Two Witches is the real deal: A Night of Horror International Film Festival Review

Two Witches is a gritty, realistic take on a beloved Halloween subject. Broken up into three parts (The Boogeywoman, Masha, and Epilogue), this witch horror pushes the envelope to some extreme witchy behaviour. As cited in the film, witches eat babies and worship the devil. They do both things in Two Witches and much, much…

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Zebra Girl brings horror in the form of childhood trauma: A Night of Horror International Film Festival review

One of the closing night films at A Night of Horror International Film Festival, Zebra Girl (directed by Stephanie Zari) brings a melancholic yet disturbing story to the table. The film is based on a one-woman play titled Catherine and Anita. In it, Catherine (Sarah Roy) marries an academic by the name of Dan (Tom…

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Razzennest is an art film unlike any other – A Night of Horror International Film Festival Review

Loosely translated to rats nest, Razzennest is unlike your typical horror flick. Refusing to be defined, this arthouse take on the genre offers many layers of meaning to unpack. The premise, an ‘audio commentary’ on a visual art film from director, Manus Oosthuizen, who (along with members of the crew), sit down with film critic,…

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Wolfgang’s Magical Musical Circus

Theatre Review: Family-friendly Wolfgang’s Magical Musical Circus delivers a joyful burst of energy

Presented by Circa, Wolfgang’s Magical Musical Circus has a short stint at the Theatre Royal, adding a cheeky element of fun to the school holidays. The show is a more ‘child-friendly’ version of its adult counterpart, Circa’s Peepshow, which runs parallel in the evenings. The classical composer’s music comes to life on stage as the…

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North by Northwest

Theatre Review: David Campbell beams in sensational production of iconic Hitchcock film, North by Northwest

Before walking into the theatre, the quality of the storyline has already been confirmed as this play is based on the 1959 film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock who brought audiences iconic classics such as Vertigo (1958), Strangers on a Train (1951) and Psycho (1960). Considered the first ‘James Bond’ before there was any,…

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Jagged Little Pill

Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill musical to re-open the Theatre Royal Sydney in September

The Theatre Royal in Sydney is currently undergoing a multi-million-dollar refurbishment and to mark its reopening in September, will premiere Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill stage musical. This is the first time it has been staged outside of Broadway. Jagged Little Pill debuted in December 2019 at the American Repertory Theater, however, was closed abruptly…

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Film Review: Wrong Turn takes a couple of wrong turns and becomes a hodgepodge of horror

Wrong Turn appears to be your stock-standard horror which takes a group of young twenty-somethings into a remote rural part of the US for some hiking fun. Although none of it is very fun and absolutely no good times are had. As you might imagine, during the hiking trip, on the Appalachian trail, one of…

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First Impressions: Netflix series Safe unveils hard truths behind a quaint, gated community

Set to hit Netflix soon is Safe – a drama television series set in a gated community where people are not as they seem. The series stars Michael C. Hall of Dexter fame as a father of two daughters, widowed after the passing of his wife from cancer. His character, Tom, juggles his profession as…

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DVD Review: The Handmaid’s Tale first season hooks you in and keeps you wanting more

The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a dystopian future unlike those we are used to seeing. There aren’t any flying cars or amazing technology that you’d assume to see here. There is nothing but solid regression, simplifying life back to its roots. In fact, it appears that everything has gone backwards in the worst possible…

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Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Theatre Review: The Trouble with Harry is a play full of depth (performances until March 3rd).

Based on the life of a transgender person, born Eugenia Falleni, The Trouble with Harry explores Harry Crawford’s struggle to live as a man in the 1920s. The harrowing journey covers issues in gender, abuse, family and crime. Through each emotive character, the audience takes a glimpse into what faces a transgender person in a…

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Film Review: Ben Affleck’s Live By Night (USA, 2016) is a visually stunning yet slow running 1920s gangster film

Based on the 2012 novel by Dennis Lehane of the same name, Live By Night is set in the prohibition era across the 1920s and 1930s. The man at the centre of the story, Joe Coughlin, is played by Ben Affleck, who brought this adaptation to life. He directed, wrote and produced the film, which…

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