Adelaide Festival – Theatre
Isabelle Huppert is superb as Mary Queen of Scots in an unorthodox monologue that explores the woman who would be queen. And Adelaide finally has a chance to see the theatrical vision of Robert Wilson.
Murray Bramwell
Much is known about the last 24 hours in the life of Mary Queen of Scots before her execution at 8am on February 8, 1587. Her night prayers with household servants, were documented, as were her farewell letters (including …
Continue Reading Back to topAdelaide Festival – Music Theatre
This imaginative song cycle uses jazz, poetry and sublime singing to remind us urgently that the injustices of the past are not yet over.
Murray Bramwell
The more time passes, the more extraordinary Josephine Baker becomes. Born in St Louis, Missouri in 1906, she moved to Paris at the age of nineteen and was star of the Folies Bergere by 21. As her popularity and celebrity expanded in France she broke all barriers.
At her …
Continue Reading Back to topSimon Stone moves his shrewdly faithful version of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard to contemporary South Korea and the result is a rich mix of exuberant human foible, sadness, and manifest destiny.
Murray Bramwell
“What turned out isn’t a drama” Anton Chekhov wrote to a friend in 1904, “but a comedy, in places even a farce…” He was referring to The Cherry Orchard, the last of his four great final plays, completed just before his untimely death later that year.
Chekhov …
Continue Reading Back to topDirector Ian Scobie and Associate Director Annette Tripodi, unveil some of the logistics and highlights (including their favourites) in the program for WOMADelaide 2026
Murray Bramwell
It is three weeks out from opening night for WOMADelaide 2026 and Ian Scobie is quietly confident. “It’s always touch wood” – his familiar caveat. But he is noting the positives. “We got the crazy heatwave out of the way. And we don’t have huge travel logistical challenges. No cranes and feathers. It’s looking …
Continue Reading Back to topTrainload of Sky
Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
February 22.
Murray Bramwell
Once again the gods arrived by car. Last time they played in Adelaide, in 2016, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings drove across the Nullabor from Perth. This time, it was a non-stop journey from Canberra via a visit to a Murray Cod fishing competition in Barham -Koondrook in New South Wales . “They made us very welcome” drawls Rawlings.
They are also very welcome on …
Continue Reading Back to topDust is presented as one man’s story, but it is a lively tribute to the endurance, courage, and solidarity of generations of British coal miners and their families.
Murray Bramwell
Dust is a glimpse, a distilled chronicle of the arduous, but also exuberant, lives of Northern English working men. A return to the UK for an elderly aunt’s funeral in Yorkshire brought writer and director, Charlaina Thompson unexpectedly close to her family origins.
In particular, it was the exploits of …
Continue Reading Back to topVera Shrimp announces that there’s going to be bits about science and bits about her. The combination is both fascinating and heartbreaking.
Murray Bramwell
You might say Vera Shrimp is a weather whisperer. She studies rainfall and its precipitation cycles and is a trove of information. She is fourteen and lives in Northern England, perhaps in Newcastle. She also has a special gift:
“I can feel the rain, the colours, the sensation, the words inside each drop when they land …
Continue Reading Back to topFearing her daughter won’t make captain of the school debating team an overzealous mother turns to drastic tactics to win the argument.
Murray Bramwell
Is there anything Martha Lott doesn’t do ? As well as hosting an outstanding range of Fringe shows at her Holden Street Theatres (check out the excellent Bob Marley, How Reggae Changed the World and Eat the Rich ) she has written, and features in, her own new play, The Debate.
It is a sharp and …
Continue Reading Back to topPeter Sellars makes Adelaide Festival return: ‘I hope I am coming back as an old friend’
Nearly a quarter century since his own tenure as Adelaide Festival artistic director was controversially cut short, Peter Sellars reflects on his onetime home and the timely body of work he is bringing to the 2026 festival.
Murray Bramwell
It has been 24 years since I last spoke to Peter Sellars and, at that time, both he and the Adelaide Festival were facing considerable …
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