AUDITORIUM

✮✮✮✮ 1/2 Muriel's Wedding book by PJ Hogan music & lyrics Keir Nuttall & Kate Miller-Heidke Sydney Theatre Company | Sydney directed by Simon Phillips Like legions of girls through the ages, Muriel was brought up to believe that life is incomplete without a man. It is a fallacy so deeply ingrained into our consciousness, that many are never able to outgrow the absurd notion, that marriage is required as a fundamental validation of our very being. In PJ Hogan’s Muriel’s Weddin

✮✮✮ Melba Hayes Theatre | Sydney music Johannes Luebbers book & lyrics Nicholas Christo directed by Wayne Harrison Dame Nellie Melba was the first Australian musician to have achieved international stardom, a legendary figure whose story provides inspiration not only to artists who dream of making it big, but also for women everywhere who know how it is to be told to tame their ambitions. She became wife and mother early in life, as was de rigueur in late nineteenth century,

✮✮✮✮ Tim Minchin's Groundhog Day The Old Vic | London directed by Matthew Warchus A musical based on the cult film of the 1990s, Groundhog Day? Um… Yes please. Music and lyrics by Tim Minchin? Yes please. This production was a bit of a dream come true for theatregoers before it had even begun. Great story, great creative team – yes, yes, yes. And the real thing does not disappoint. The first twenty minutes or so, depicting the initial Groundhog Day, is a tightly choreographed

✮✮✮✮ Jesus Christ Superstar Regent's Park OpenAir Theatre | London music Andrew Lloyd Webber lyrics Tim Rice directed by Timothy Sheader "What's the buzz?" sing the apostles in this frisky al fresco staging of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's first major hit. "Tell me what's a-happening." Well, the buzz is that Timothy Sheader, Artistic Director of Regent's Park OpenAir Theatre for almost a decade, has given us a rip-roaring production whose enjoyment factor goes through th

✮✮ LKY Marina Bay Sands | Singapore music Dick Lee lyrics Stephen Clark book Tony Petito directed by Steven Dexter Propaganda involves the telling of lies, usually by governments, to influence a population toward its own conception of an endorsed attitude. Aside from the always contentious nature of that sense of an approved and absolute outcome, what constitutes the nature of lies, and truth, are always ambiguous. There is no doubt that the achievements of Singapore’s legend

✮✮✮✮✮ Tristan Bernays's Teddy Southwark Playhouse | London music Dougal Irvine directed by Eleanor Rhode Snapdragon and Theatre Bench’s production of Teddy accomplishes that rarest of things: it leaves you feeling as giddy and untethered as a teenager again. This time machine of a show, powered by fictional four-piece Johnny Valentine and The Broken Hearts, crackles with vintage chemistry as Teddy and Josie – two spunky, sparky, South London youths – embark on a fateful night

✮✮ Cole Porter's High Society The Old Vic | London directed by Maria Friedman It’s tough at the top: the press are snooping through your knicker drawer, your father’s cavorting with a dancer half his age, your ex-husband’s trying to give you a yacht you don’t want and you simply can’t stomach all that champagne these days. Such are the problems of Tracy Lord as she navigates her way through her own wedding party attended by the great, the good, and the gorgeous of America’s H

✮✮✮ Beautiful: The Carole King Musical Aldwych Theatre | London book Douglas McGrath music & lyrics Gerry Goffin | Carole King | Barry Mann | Cynthia Weil directed by Marc Bruni “I can't watch my life like this,” Carole King told her daughter and manager Sherry Kondor after reluctantly attending an early reading of Beautiful, long before it reached Broadway. But 73 year-old King herself turned up at the opening night of this West End transfer, afterwards taking to the stage t

✮✮✮✮ Made in Dagenham Adelphi Theatre | London music David Arnold lyrics Richard Thomas book Richard Bean directed by Rupert Goold Industrial unrest is unlikely grist to the mill, but it's made plenty of dough for the British film industry, whether it's Pride, Billy Elliott or The Full Monty. This easily digestible adaptation of the 2010 Britflick has a surreally silly streak that almost, but doesn't quite, undermine its attempts to depict the morally grey landscape of factor

✮✮✮✮✮ Ray Davies' Sunny Afternoon Harold Pinter Theatre | London book Joe Penhall directed by Edward Hall Even if musicals aren’t your cup of tea (and there are plenty of us out there), you should book seats for Sunny Afternoon while you still can: word is quickly spreading that this West End transfer of the Hampstead Theatre’s wonderful Kinks musical is the hottest ticket in town. People are already travelling from far and wide to see it, including the people next to me who’