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March 04, 2023

Theatre: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Adelaide Festival
Theatre: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale about the struggle between public virtue and unconscious impulse is brilliantly transformed for stage and screen.

Written by Murray Bramwell

One of the many happy consequences of ongoing Adelaide Festival programming is that we have the chance to see the development of new work from artists and companies who have performed previously.

So, after last year’s extraordinary work, The Picture of Dorian Gray, …

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February 17, 2022

Fringe review: Afghanistan is Not Funny

Adelaide Fringe
Murray Bramwell
Fringe review: Afghanistan is Not Funny
Five Stars

A high-profile comedian visits a war zone in Kabul and it not only transforms him, but the things he wants to write about. This often comic memoir looks for answers to serious questions.

Henry Naylor is the master of the dramatic miniature. His plays, rarely more than sixty minutes in duration, are a crowded hour of fact, polemic, suspense, and compressed emotion that take us where other playwrights …

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February 23, 2021

Adelaide Festival 2021 – Robyn Nevin is outstanding

A German Life
by Christopher Hampton
Co-produced by Adelaide Festival
and The Gordon Frost Organisation.
Dunstan Playhouse. Adelaide Festival Centre.

February 23. Tickets $ 30 – $109.
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au.
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes. No interval.
Until March 14.

“I have forgotten such a lot,” concedes Brunhilde Pomsel, aged 102, “And then …things surge up into my mind. Things I can remember in the minutest detail.”

This happens when you get old, but in the case of Pomsel, the sweeping …

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February 18, 2021

Fringe review: The Twins

Adelaide Fringe
Murray Bramwell

Two friends are cast in a school production of The Comedy of Errors. At Geelong Grammar, no less. One is Greg Fleet, the other Ian Darling. One took the high road, the other the low. Forty years later they ponder where life has taken them – and which road was which.

**** Four Stars

The Twins, we are told, is Truer than Fiction. Terry Serio the director describes it as Theatre Verite. Whatever it is, …

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September 18, 2017

OzAsia opens up new territory

Murray Bramwell talks with OzAsia Artistic Director, Joseph Mitchell, about some highlights of this year’s program.

The OzAsia festival which opens this Thursday is now in its eleventh year. Initiated in 2006 by Adelaide Festival Centre CEO, Douglas Gautier, it has progressively consolidated its reputation as an adventurous and diverse event. It draws from all parts of the Asian and South East Asian sector – from China and Japan to Hong Kong and Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea to The …

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January 11, 2016

Haunting melodies

Ghost : The Musical
Book and lyrics by Bruce Joel Rubin
Music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard
Based on the Paramount Pictures film written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Ambassador Theatre Group Asia Pacific, GWB Entertainment and Adelaide Festival Centre in association with Colin Ingram, Hello Entertainment and Paramount Pictures.

Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
January 9. Tickets: $ 64.90 – $ 129.90
Bookings : BASS 131246 or bass.net.au
Until January 31.
Duration: 2 hours 45 minutes including …

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July 02, 2013

Double the fun with the Bard

Adelaide Theatre

The Comedy of Errors
by William Shakespeare
State Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare
Dunstan Playhouse
Adelaide Festival Centre.
July 2. Tickets $ 25 – $ 65
Bookings: BASS 131 246, bass.net.au
Until July 14.

Shakespeare’s comedies are full of tricks, dupes and misunderstandings. His characters frequently use disguise, subterfuge and illusion to create confusion. Appearances are altered to remedy injustice, take revenge and, often, to bring the misguided and the wrongheaded to their senses. But only his first …

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October 05, 2004

Doubling the Fun

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

2004

The Comedy of Errors

by William Shakespeare

The Bell Shakespeare Company

Dunstan Playhouse, September, 2004.

Murray Bramwell

It is seven years since Bell Shakespeare last played in Adelaide and they return with a production full of fun and flair. Thought to be Shakespeare’s first play, The Comedy of Errors borrows freely from The Menaechmi by the Roman playwright Plautus, except that, not content with the confusion of one set of twins, Shakespeare goes double or nothing by adding twin …

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June 01, 2002

Cold Comfort Farm

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh
Sydney Theatre Company
with The Druid Theatre and Royal Court
Optima Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There are nearly as many cliches about Ireland as there are people willing to perpetuate them. It’s not just the leprechaun pubs and the soft core music – it’s as though the whole place has become a theme park. James Joyce once said Ireland was the mother that ate her farrow. Nowadays, she’d sell them to …

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July 01, 2001

Tivoli Nights

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

2001

Tivoli

A Dance Musical

by Graeme Murphy

The Australian Ballet

Sydney Dance Company

Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The Tivoli Circuit represented a rich part of the history of Australian vaudeville and burlesque, and the two distinct spans of Tivoli entertainments – 1893 to 1929 and then 1931 to 1966 – cover more than seventy years. A fine and ranging subject, then, for inclusion in  Centenary of Federation celebrations, especially when many projects this year have proven lacklustre …

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