Theatre
With decades of fandom to live up to, the latest staging of Grease reaches – and exceeds – the mark in some wonderful ways, but fun times and good vibes don’t create cult status here.
Theatre
Holden Street Theatres’ latest triumph – a new production of Patrick White’s satirical play A Cheery Soul – is as absurd as it is touching, as challenging as it is utterly hilarious.
Libidinal energy, jealousy and margaritas abound in David Williamson’s new comedy The Puzzle, but it may leave you wanting more.
While mental illness is often a ‘sometimes’ thing, it is managed with debilitating treatments which are total and can be life-diminishing. This memorable production powerfully depicts both the human cost and the fleeting triumphs.
Australian playwright Kendall Feaver’s award-winning play The Almighty Sometimes is about to be brought to the Adelaide stage for the first time, and actor Emily Liu hopes it will open up some important conversations among audiences.
Ahead of the Adelaide premiere of his new play about ‘sex, secrecy and second chances’, playwright David Williamson and cast member Ansuya Nathan speak to InReview about comedy, cruises, middle-class foibles and upside-down pineapples.
The end of the journey is nigh for Slingsby, with the award-winning Adelaide theatre company announcing that its current project – scheduled to premiere at the 2026 Adelaide Festival – will be its last.
Encounters with people he met at isolated campgrounds on surfing trips in South Australia and elsewhere helped actor and writer Chris Pitman carve a story about a man stuck on the edge of the world.
Justine Clarke is mesmerising as she fiercely inhabits the life of Julia Gillard in playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s creative biography of the former prime minister.
State Theatre Company South Australia has become the latest local arts organisation to face a leadership change with the announcement that Mitchell Butel will leave in November following the end of his six-year tenure as artistic director.
Review
Bjorn Again is more than just a tribute band as they travel the country spreading the complete gospel of ABBA.
Theatre
Harking back to the Jazz Age of the late 1920s, Chicago is full of fizz and low comedy, great song and dance performances, and has a shrewd edge intended to make us think, even as we enjoy the razzle dazzle.
The Great Detectives are hitting the road to spread mystery, intrigue, comedy and chaos across South Australia as they celebrate the 10th anniversary of a live show that pays tribute to the popular radio dramas of the 1950s.
State Theatre Company SA presents the world premiere of the latest collaboration between playwright Van Badham and composer Richard Wise – a delightful rom-com in which hope for love and intimacy in this disconnected world springs eternal.
Justine Clarke says it feels like an atonement to hear the story of former PM Julia Gillard’s famous misogyny speech brought to life in Julia – a play the actor describes as “brilliantly poetic and very funny, too”.
He may be best known for his role on Kath & Kim, but actor and comedian Peter Rowsthorn is also a talented singer who is set to show his chops when Chicago the Musical opens in Adelaide.
In The Questions, playwright Van Badham and composer Richard Wise have lovingly crafted a show that is both a simple rom-com musical and, simultaneously, an exploration of intimacy in the age of polarisation.
Theatre
Blasting ’90s references from Sonic Youth to Lionel Richie, Laughter Through the Tears Productions brings this delightfully SA-focussed coming-of-age tale to the stage.
Theatre
This new sci-fi play by Adelaide’s Madness of Two uses visual effects and live performance to give us a glimpse of a frightening version of the world more than a hundred years into the future.
Cassie Hamilton’s ingenious new musical confronts complex sociopolitical issues without failing to be highly entertaining and heartfelt.
Wonders never cease in the latest Cirque du Soleil event to hit town: a spectacle of technical and bodily ingenuity in the Mexican-inspired setting of LUZIA.
As awareness of the gendered-violence crisis spreads across Australia, Adelaide’s ActNow Theatre is devising a play to help the next generation do better.
A dark chapter in Australia’s history is being revisited by an ensemble of young local actors and creatives in a new theatre work exploring the experiences of underage boys who enlisted to fight for their country in World War I.
Music
In a rare bringing together of top-class theatrical and musical talent, State Opera South Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia’s Candide is an absolute scorcher.
Theatre
Slapstick, Noel Coward’s sheer wit, and effete satire take the Holden Street stage with Cowardy, Cowardy Custard.
Musical theatre star Caroline O’Connor is excited to take to the stage with Candide, an operetta made on a grand scale through a collaboration between State Theatre Company SA, State Opera and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
John Waters and Daniel MacPherson deliver timeless gothic chills with an Australian production of this supernatural West End classic.
State Theatre brings Hew Parham’s hilarious and highly successful one-man show back to the Adelaide Festival Centre with this heart-warming story about cycling, heroism and the many faces of success.
This ‘Unauthorised Harry Experience’ is a great way to get out of a 20-hour movie marathon, with a power-through of every Harry Potter book in an entertaining 70-minute performance.
Theatre
Windmill Theatre Company’s Creation Creation is a show that playfully and creatively explores some of life’s biggest questions.
Music
For the many Tina Turner fans who believe her story is best told with key songs from her career, a terrific vehicle has arrived in the form of this vibrant musical.
The return of the most terrifying live theatre experience in the world – The Woman in Black – also ushers the return to the stage of a much-loved Aussie icon
In Pride in Prejudice, some of the satire is apt and cutting, some of it falls off the proverbial cliff – such is the death-or-glory of comedy and politics.
When detective story turns into family drama in the stage adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, you’re in for a surprise.
Famous Last Words makes its first foray into Theatre of the Absurd with this contemporary adaptation of Jean Genet’s The Maids, a play that cracks open social class with deadly consequences.
Music
In her first leading role in a major musical, Ruva Ngwenya inhabits the life of Tina Turner, channelling the emotional highs and lows that defined the iconic singer’s life and belting out the big hits that shaped her success.
Theatre
The audience is primed for discomfort from the outset in this intense two-hander.
In his compelling monologue, Édouard Louis meticulously describes a childhood ruined by poverty, abuse, and alienation. He blames his father but comes to realise there are also much larger social and structural cruelties in play.
This sharp new play from a team of young Adelaide theatre-makers is a guide to the grease, grime, and glory of making a living in restaurant work. ★★★★
Astrid Pill & Collaborators’ unconventional and highly original monologue reflects on mortality, grief and the relationships we have with lovers after they are gone.
In Barrie Kosky’s new version, The Threepenny Opera has had a haircut and a makeover but the satire is still in there, along with Kurt Weill’s splendid music.
Trent Dalton’s heartwarming book Love Stories will soon be a play thanks to a collaboration between Brisbane Festival, QPAC and the creative team behind the stage version of Boy Swallows Universe
Theatre
Expect the unexpected with Miriam Margolyes, who is hitting the road with a tour of Australia in a new show in which she promises there will be no singing or dancing.
Adelaide Festival
The delightful Grand Theft Theatre manages to capture the joy and significance of theatre while also eschewing the pretension that sometimes surrounds it.
Described as a visual meditation on mourning, Goodbye, Lindita eloquently, and sometimes convulsively, expresses feeling and wonder about the mystery of death – without uttering a single word.
When head of department Nicky enters her boss Jo’s office for her yearly work review, she’s resigned to yet another meaningless form-filling exercise. What follows is anything but. ★★★★★
Hooking its audience from the opening scene, Plenty of Fish in the Sea reels us in with inventive staging and hilariously physical performances. You can almost smell the ocean. ★★★★★
This intense monologue by a debut writer is an oceanic exploration of big themes – love, loss, mental illness and hope – but faces some choppy waters as it fights its way to the surface.
