Billy Elliott: The Musical, Free Rain, The Q, April 9-May 5

 

"Billy Elliot: The Musical" poses a challenge to most musical companies. First you need a lead boy who's around 13 who is a highly capable dancer, singer and actor. Then you need another one to balance the pressure of pulling the performance off nightly. Surrounded by a cast playing out the drama of the 84-85 UK miners strike, he has to play out the story of a boy discovering his true passion for dance against the pressures of a family in crisis, as his father deals with his bereavement about both his wife and his career, his brother invests in a political struggle with the odds loaded against him, his grandmother drifts into dementia and the world around him erupts into chaos. Mitchell Clement has the skill and ability to pull this off with aplomb, dancing impeccably but also giving us a Billy who is anxious, hopeful, connected and strong. 

Surrounding him are a range of strong performers, from Alice Ferguson, touching and gloroius in her solo "Grandma's song", to Joe Dinn shifting from intimidating dad to the lost figure in "Deep in the Ground" and the father who realises what he needs to do for his boy. Janie Lawson enjoys the chance to showbiz it up and delights from her introductory "Shine" to her ongoing unwavering support of Billy, showing real heart throughout. Jo Zaharias's appearances as Mum are desperately cherished as moments of warmth. Blake Wilkins has a cheeky glee and charm as Billy's irreverent friend Michael, playing gleefully with infectious enthusiasm.

Cate Clelland's set as a miner's union hall gives us a strong sense of place and reality, and adapts well to the multiple alternate locations it requires. Jacob Aquilina's lighting is precise and skilled. The music is well presented by directors Katrina Tang and Caleb Campbell, mixing the sound of Miner's choruses, the gentle ballads, the showbizzy dance moments and the rageful clatterings during "Angry Dance". 

This is a strong production of a heartfelt, powerful musical and well worth the catching. 

RBG: Of Many, One, Canberra Theatre Centre Presents a Sydney Theatre Company Production, Playhouse, 11-21 Apr(subsequently touring Melbourne, Brisbane, Paramatta and Perth to 23 June)

 This is a tour de force, with Heather Mitchell expertly playing Ruth Bader Ginsberg at stages throughout her life, narrating through the lens of three key encounters with American Presidents but flashing backwards and moving forward, engaging with her as a lawyer, judge, mother, grandmother and elder statesperson of American law and ethics. It's incredibly comprehensive and places many demands on Mitchell, from aging to medical issues to rhapsodic enjoyment of opera to the simple home life enjoying time with her husband and family, and Mitchell meets every one of those demands, creating a complex portrait at once engaging and occasionally slightly critical of moments of Ginsberg's hubris and human failings. Priscilla Jackman's production is elegant and ever-flowing, using David Fleicher's monumental design and Alexander Berlarge's lighting to give the show depth and strength across the 100 minutes of stage time.  Writer Suzie Miller, after her triumph of "Prima Facie" and her recent "Jailbaby" is a writer who clearly knows both humanity and the law and is able to bring knowledge of one aspect to the other in ways that are illuminating and powerful. 

There is a slight oddity here that this is an Australian actress and an Australian production team diving very deeply into a figure and circumstances that are fundamentally American - I can't imagine that there's an American production of a play about Mary Gaudron currently going on - but never the less this is powerful theatre and shows Mitchell as one of our strongest actresses, giving us time to relish in her skill and care. 

Unlikely Friends, Damien Callinan, Hey Dowling, Comedy Republic, 30 Mar-21 Apr

 

Unlikely Friends takes the form of a structured improvisational chat show where two comedians are given a celebrity to research and perform as – at this performance the comedians were Australian Kirsty Webeck and the UK’s Elf Lyons, performing respectively as Phar Lap and Pegasus. Damian Callinan as moderator has a good ability to set a prepared path and to let the performers go loosely away from that, creating their own goofy personas with a firm bedding. It’s a clever concept that plays well, with Lyons particularly enjoying the chance to give Pegasus lingering trauma from the usual stuff that most Grecian mythical figures go through and Webeck giving Phar Lap a gently supportive manner, and the trio play well together. Apparently the intention is to let these run as a podcast, and it’s the kind of thing that would work well as a comfy set of giggles.

 

Little Aussie Battler, Daniel Connell, A List Entertainment, Rydges One, 28 Mar-20 Apr, Melbourne international Comedy Festival

 Daniel Connell has been working solidly as a standup for a few years, and this latest show is a solidly professional show that I must admit I kinda bounced off – it’s a mixture of whimsy and observations about fairly common subjects –dealing with disinterested shoe clerks, the police, spicing up his relationship, a theft and performing on a boat – it’s the kinda show that is diverting in the moment but didn’t for whatever reason, really hold my attention or have a point for being beyond “it’s comedy festival time, I need to put together a show”, and while it’s professionally done it feels a little insubstantial.

 

Groundhog Day The Musical, Whistle Pig Productions with GWB Entertainment, Princess Theatre, Feb 2-20 Apr

 A reunion show for director Matthew Warchus and composer/lyricist Tim Minchin following the wildly successful "Matilda", "Groundhog Day" has had a slightly rougher time since premiering at London's Old Vic in 2016 - the initial London run was a hit, but the transfer to Broadway fell afoul of being in the same season as juggernauts "Come From Away" and "Dear Evan Hansen", losing all of the 7 Tonys it was nominated for. A recent London revival also sold like gangbusters and finally Michin has had his second musical come home in a grand production, carrying the lead of both London and New York runs, Andy Karl, with it. 

There are a few challenges to a musical of a film as beloved as this - is it just revisiting the hit moments from the movie or is it doing something new, and does it translate to song well? For the first ten-fifteen minutes, the musical tends to feel a little by the numbers, with the show very much following the tracks laid down by the original - cynical weather reporter goes to small town, finds himself trapped by bad weather and then by a strange case of living the same day over and over again - but then Michin's songs take flight with a run of songs that take on different angles of the story - a group of medicos and healers looking into Phil's situation in the song "Stuck", deeper analysis of minor characters in "Night will come" and "Playing Nancy", a fun drunken rollick with "Nobody Cares" and a powerful montage of suicide attempts. While Rob Howell's set design has a lot of bells and whistles it holds a simple small-town aesthetic throughout, and Warchus together with choreographer Lizzi Gee gives the show an efortless flow that keeps things moving. 

Lead Andy Karl has one of the bigger roles in the music theatre canon - he's rarely offstage and is constantly in motion for most of the run of the show, and he executes it with integrity - from the sarcastic asshole at the beginning of the show, into spiralling depression and an eventual emergence to engage with the world around him. Elise McCann takes the female lead and gives it width and depth as a character who starts out glimpsed and is expanded throughout as she provides a strong positive force within the narrative. The energetic ensemble of sixteen are kept busy bouncing between various roles as they variously antagonise and pal up with Phil along the way, and all do it with relish. 

There's one or two moments that land tonally oddly - in particular the power ballad "Hope" which combines the deepest depression with the biggest of power notes, and therefore had members of the audience emitting grand "woos" right when the story is at its darkest - but mostly this is a strong, entertaining show which absoultely deserves to be sween. 

Every Single Thing in My Entire Life, Zoe Coombs Marr, Token Events and Triple R, Melbourne Town Hall, Powder Room, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, 28 Mar-21 Apr

 Zoe Coombs Marr is a standup who’s also a performance artist – which means any show she does has a broadly theatrical approach, as well as a fair bit of “is she trying this on or not”. In this case, again, it’s a “things that happened to me recently” show, though in this case it’s expanded to cover … well, everything since she acquired self-awareness. It’s as much a show about how her brain works as it is about the titular topic – and Marr’s brain is a wild and eclectic place that touches on everything from childhood to personal pre-occupations to her long-term relationships to a particular 1999 music video. It’s a show for spreadsheet nerds, for people who have a favourite database as well as for anybody who’s lived a life and has tried to make sense of it all.

Tragedy Plus Time, Ed Byrne, Century, The Malthouse, Beckett Theatre, Melbourne International comedy Festival, 28 Mar-21 Apr

 Ed Byrne’s latest show also uses the formula – something that happened recently turned into a show- and, weirdly enough, is also about his relationship with his own fame. It’s a highly polished show – Byrne mentions throughout other places he’s performed it and how elements have gone down there – and it’s got a strong tale to tell – the 2002 death of his younger brother, and also his own slight resentment about not being a regular on BBC panel shows any more. It’s active, speedy and very heavily joke laden – his relationship with his brother includes everything from childhood bonding to adult arguments to highly inappropriate music at his deathbed – and if it feels maybe just a teensy bit too polished, that’s not the worst sin in a comedy show that you’re paying money for. And it does have my favourite joke about modern diagnostic trends for standups – “I’ve recently been diagnosed with ADHD, which for a stand-up comedian is like being diagnosed as having skin”.