LEND ME A TENOR - Free Rain Theatre - ACT Hub.

John Whinfield (Max) - William 'Wally' Allington (Tito Merelli) in Free Rain Theatre's production of  "Lend Me a Tenor"

Written by Ken Ludwig – Designed and Directed by Cate Clelland

Costumes designed by Fiona Leach – Properties by Rosemary Gibbons

Sound design by Neville Pye – Lighting Design by David Brown

Stage Management by Charlie & Sam Harbison-Gehrmann

Free Rain Theatre, 17 – 27 September 2025.

Opening night performance on 17^th September reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Michael Sparks (Saunders) - Justice-Noah Malfitano (Bellhop) - William 'Wally' Allington (Tito Merelli)- Sally Cahill (Julia) - Christina Falsone (Maria) - Meaghan Stewart (Diana)- Maxine Beaumont (Maggie) in Free Rain Theatre's production of "Lend Me A Tenor).

An Opera Company’s worst nightmare. The Cleveland Grand Opera Company’s expensive world-famous guest tenor, Tito Merelli, has not arrived in time for its all-important dress rehearsal for his once-only appearance in their production of Pagliacci.

When Merelli eventually arrives, accompanied by his fiery wife, Maria, he is unco-operative and pleading the need to rest, refuses any rehearsal before that evening’s performance.

Frustrated by his star’s behaviour, the General Manager of the opera Company, Henry Saunders charges his harried assistant, Max with the task of making sure Merelli gets to the opera house in time for the performance.

On learning Max has an interest in singing opera, Merelli gives him a singing lesson, after which, to insure Merelli gets his rest, Max slips a tranquilizer into his drink, unaware that Merelli has already taken a double-dose of tranquilizers.

Later, when Max tries to awaken Merelli, he finds him unresponsive and assumes that he is dead. Horrified, he notifies Saunders, and Julia, the Chairperson of the Opera Guild. Chaos ensures while they hatch a preposterous plan to have Max substitute for Merelli in the opera.

Meanwhile, Merelli revives and slips out via a side door, providing the perfect set-up for an evening of hilarious, cleverly staged slapstick, replete with witty dialogue, mistaken identities, and a surprise behind every door in the striking art-deco setting designed by Clelland.

John Whinfield (Max) - William 'Wally' Arlington (Tito Merelli) in "Lend Me A Tenor"

Supporting the deco concept, costume designer Fiona Leach captures the period by costuming the ladies in gorgeous authentic thirties-period gowns, furs and lingerie, and the men in smart period day and evening wear.

Under Clelland’s direction her accomplished cast captures the correct mood, creating well-rounded characterisations without losing the essential silliness necessary to engage the audience with the farcical situations.  

William 'Wally' Allington (Tito Merelli) - John Whinfield (Max) in "Lend Me A Tenor"

William ‘Wally’ Allington and John Winfield are well cast as the capricious opera star, Tito Merelli, and his reluctant carer, Max. The essential camaraderie of their developing relationship is engagingly realised, and their impressive rendition of the duet “Dio che nell’alma infondere” from the Verdi opera Don Carlos earned them an appreciative ovation.

Sally Cahill (Julia) - Michael Sparks (Saunders)- Justice-Noah Malfitano (Bellboy) 
 John Whinfield (Max) - Maxine Beaumont (Maggie) in "Lend Me A Tenor". 

Michael Sparks is totally convincing as the Opera Company’s General Manager, Saunders, the outraged father of the adventurous Maggie, engagingly portrayed by Maxine Beaumont, while Sally Cahill delights as the dotty, manipulative Opera Guild Chairperson, Julia.

Christina Falsone revels in the role as Merelli’s fearsome Italian wife, Maria, and while Meaghan Stewart’s interpretation of Diana, the man-eating soprano who doesn’t rely on her voice to achieve operatic heights, is entertaining, a little less aggression, and a little more elegance, would make her portrayal more believable.

Meaghan Stewart (Diana) - William 'Wally' Allington (Tito Merelli) in "Lend Me A Tenor"

And proving that there is no such thing as a small role, Justice-Noah Malfitano milks every moment he is on stage to steal more than his fair share of the laughs as the pushy bellhop fan of Tito Merelli.

With this delightfully entertaining production of “Lend Me A Tenor” Free Rain Theatre have produced a winner.  It would be a pity to miss it.

 

                                               Photos by Janelle McMenamin

   This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au

   

 

LEND ME A TENOR by Ken Ludwig. Directed by Cate Clelland. Free-Rain Theatre Company. ACT Hub. Sept17-27.

                                                     Photo: Janelle McMenamin 

Lend Me a Tenor is an unabashed romp about life behind the scenes at the opera. There are six doorways in the hotel suite on stage and they’ll get a work out in this farce about backstage events in a 1930s American opera company who are doing Pagliacci with a somewhat doleful guest artist, world renowned Italian tenor Tito Merelli (William ‘Wally’ Allington). He's staying the hotel. The visit will not go smoothly. 

Saunders (Michael Sparks) is the wily company manager whose shy offsider Max (John Whitfield) harbours some singing ambitions as well as a passion for Saunders’ daughter Maggie ( Maxine Beaumont). Maggie is dying to meet Tito and is a little dismissive of Max. She wants a bit of excitement in her life before any settling down. 

The somewhat daffy Julia (Sally Cahill), chair of the Cleveland Opera Guild and fond of extremely bedazzling dresses, enlivens the scene. 

And the hotel’s wide eyed bellhop (Justice-Noah Malfitano) has an intense crush on Tito and comes in at all the wrong moments. 

Tito comes complete with brisk and passionate wife Maria (Christina Falsone) and neither have a great deal of English. 

The opera company’s leading lady is the powerful Diana (Meaghan Stewart), wolfishly ambitious and eager to use Tito to climb the singing heights.

There’s a presumed death and dual tenors in full identical clown costume and makeup as Max has to take over the role.  Luckily he can sing. 

Much confusion and use of those multiple doors is the well controlled order of the night under the firm hand of director Cate Clelland. The play’s demands are easily met by a strong cast and the pace does not slacken.

It’s not deep but it is a theatrical workout for all concerned and an excuse for some seasoned performers to let their hair down. 

Alanna Maclean

LEND ME A TENOR

Written by Ken Ludwig

Directed by Cate Clelland

Free-Rain Theatre Presentation

ACT Hub Theatre, Kingston to 27 September

 

Reviewed by Len Power 17 September 2025

 

Guaranteed to put a smile on your face, American playwright Ken Ludwig’s farce is a crazy story of mistaken identity, misconception, mistakes and mis-everything. First performed in London’s West End and on Broadway in the 1980s, the play has been an international success.

Although the Cleveland Grand Opera company are delighted to have secured world-famous tenor, Tito Merelli, to sing Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci for one evening in 1934, his late arrival sets off a chain reaction in which everything possible goes wrong.

On a substantial hotel two room set cleverly squeezed into the ACT Hub Theatre, set designer and director, Cate Clelland, has delivered a high-energy farce with fine performances.

Michael Sparks is Saunders, the opera company’s general manager and a nervous wreck with an explosive temper. Maxine Beaumont as Maggie, his daughter, is not as innocent as she seems. John Whinfield, as Max, her intended, is also the long-suffering assistant to Saunders. Sally Cahill is Julia, very much the grande dame chairwoman of the opera company. Meaghan Stewart is the glamorous, man-eating soprano, Diana, and Justice-Noah Malfitano is an opera-mad bell-hop. William ‘Wally’ Allington is the temperamental Italian opera star, Tito Merelli, and Christina Falsone is Maria, his formidable and fiery Italian wife.

From left: Michael Sparks (Saunders), Justice-Noah Malfitano (Bell-hop), one of the Pagliaccis (I got confused over who was who about here), Sally Cahill (Julia), Christina Falsone (Maria), Meaghan Stewart (Diana) and Maxine Beaumont (Maggie)

Everybody in the cast is at the top of their game, performing with extraordinary energy and finely-honed comic timing. Both Whinfield and Allington display fine singing voices with their opera duet from Don Carlos.

John Whinfield (Max) and William 'Wally' Allington (Tito Merelli) - no wonder I got confused!

Fiona Leach has designed excellent and eye-catching period costumes. The most outstanding is Sally Cahill’s sparkling gown which fails to impress the general manager, resulting in one of the funniest lines in the play, delivered to perfection by Michael Sparks.

There’s nothing like a classic stage farce done well and Free Rain Theatre’s new production of Lend Me Tenor is as close to perfection as you can get.

 

Photos by Janelle McMenamin

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/. 

LEND ME A TENOR

 

Lend Me A  Tenor by Ken Ludwig. 

Directed and designed by Cate Clelland. Sound design Neville Pye. Lighting design David Brown. Costume design Fiona Leach. Properties Rosemary Gibbons. Free-Rain Theatre Company at ACT HUB, September 17-27. 2025. Bookings 62108748 or enquiries@acthub.com.au

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Sall Cahill as Julia, Justice-Noah Malfitano as Bellhop, 
Maxine Beaumont as Maggie and Michael Sparks as Saunders
in Free Rain's production of Ken Ludwig's Lend Me A Tenor

Ken Ludwig’s farcical romp, Lend Me A Tenor is given a side-splitting production by Free Rain Theatre under Cate Clelland’s sparkling direction.  An outstanding cast give their all in this riotous cavalcade of mix up and mayhem.

John Whinfield as Max. William ("Wally") Allington as Tito

When international opera star Tito Merelli (William (“Wally”) Allington) is unable to perform in Cleveland Opera Society’s gala premiere meek and mild Max (John Whinfield) is forced by society President (Michael Sparks) to fill in. And that is where the chaos begins. This is farce at its very best, timed to perfection, played with grand operatic fervour by a company of actors in full command of Ludwig’s frenetic characters. Sparks’s Saunders desperately tries to keep control of the ludicrous situation. As Max’s fiancée, Maxine Beaumont is sweet innocence itself in contrast to neurotic and vampish soprano Diana (Meaghan Stewart). Christina Falsone once again commands the stage with a volatile performance as Tito’s fiery Italian wife Maria. Natural comic Justice-Noah Malfitano is pure Commedia as the manic Bellhop and Sally Cahill is immediately recognizable as Julia, the country Grand Dame of the local provincial society.  Whinfield is perfectly cast as the straight man caught in a maelstrom of hilarious madness.

Meaghan Stewart as Diana, WilliamWally) Allington as Tito

Ludwig’s mastery of plotting is brilliant invention as both Max and Tito, dressed as identical clowns cause utter confusion.  Clelland maintains expert control of the action as Keystone Cops meet the Marx Brothers meet Fawlty Towers. Clelland also keeps a tight leash on any ham acting that could lapse into incredulity. The actors play absurdity with relish but never at the expense of the willing suspension of disbelief. This is farce mixed with passion that at any moment could result in catastrophe.  Ludwig has loaded his play with the perilous moments of panic and discovery.

Willim "Wally"Allington as Tito. John Whinfield as Max

Lend Me A Tenor is not instantly a play that I would associate with an ACT HUB repertoire. When it is done with such flair and theatrical virtuosity then it deserves to be seen by every audience. The curtain call speed run of the entire play is a thrill worth every bit of the laughter and applause that it received on opening night. The play is a witty parody of every local arts society. The tongue is firmly in the cheek  and there will be many a member of an audience who will recognize poor Max caught in an impossible situation or the blustering apoplectic Saunders, the vampish lead soprano Diana, the innocent Maggie or the clownish Bellhop. Tito and Maria’s slanging matches are true to Italian passion.

Special mention should be made of Allington and Whinfield’s singing coaches in the creation of a stunning duet between the two tenors. Sarah Louise Owens and Sharon Tree ensure that Max is a worthy substitute for Il Stupendo Merelli while Dianna Nixon and Tara Mac Davidson lend fine voice to Allington’s Tito. Clelland’s keen eye for detail in characterization and stage business gives professional gloss to this joyful production.

Free-Rain’s production of Lend Me A Tenor is the perfect antidote to the woes of troubled times. Leave your critic’s head at home and simply delight in this first-rate production of Ludwig’s fun-filled parody. Even if you wince in recognition, just remember this is farce, superbly played and hitting the high notes of an entertaining night at the theatre.  

Photos by Janelle McMenamin

THE INDEPENDENTS: FESTIVAL OF NEW WORKS - Week 1

 

Christopher Samuel Carroll in "The Cadaver Palaver" -  Photo:Carlos Hernan

The Courtyard Studio – Canberra Theatre Centre. 12^th – 21^st September 2025.

As part of a year of celebrations marking its 60^th Anniversary year, the Canberra Theatre Centre has inaugurated a new festival aimed at connecting Canberra with contemporary performance on a national scale.

Over two weekends the Canberra Theatre Centre will present four productions by independent artists, all of which will also be presented at the 2025 Sydney Fringe Festival.

The productions chosen for “The Independents” are The Cadaver Palaver (Christopher Samuel Carroll), Superposition (Gabriel Sinclair and Jazmyn Carter) both from 12^th to 14^th September.  

I watched Someone Die on TikTok (Charlotte Otton) and Takatapui (Daley Rangi) will be presented from 19^th to 21^st September.

This review looks at the two productions presented each night of the inaugural weekend.

Christopher Samuel Carroll in "The Cadaver Palaver". Photo: Carlos Hernan

The Cadaver Palaver – Written and performed by Christopher Samuel Carroll.

It is hardly surprising that all four performances of The Cadaver Palaver drew capacity audiences to the Courtyard Studio. Having enjoyed successful seasons at the Adelaide Fringe, The Butterfly Club, Melbourne, and most recently at the Edinburgh Fringe, these performances offered the first opportunity for Canberra audiences to see what all the fuss is about.

A much-admired Canberra- based artist, Christopher Samuel Carroll has trained at the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin and Ecole Internationale du Theatre Jacques Lecoq, Paris, and is a prolific creator of solo shows for himself, in addition to maintaining a busy independent career as an actor, director and teacher.

This latest and threatening to be his most popular creation to date, is a masterwork of storytelling, which holds his audience in thrall from the moment his alter-ego Bennett Cooper Sullivan is revealed sprawled on a carpet.  

For the following hour, which feels like ten minutes, sartorially outfitted in an elegant three-piece Edwardian suit lined with red satin, a cane his only prop, (unless you count that suit),  Bennett Cooper Sullivan, an enthusiastic adventurer and raconteur, regales his audience with a long, complicated, perhaps dubious, but wonderfully entertaining explanation as to how he came to find himself in such a predicament.

His story has Monty Pythonesque overtones involving hands being cut off in duels with syphilitic lunatics, falls down endlessly deep holes, encounters and conversations with all manner of nefarious villains who speak in a variety of accents, which he recreates and demonstrates amidst gales of laughter from his delighted audience.

It’s a tour-de-force performance notable as much for the elegance of its execution, as for the cleverness of its presentation. It is also a wonderfully entertaining showcase for Carroll’s impressive skills as a writer, actor, raconteur and mime.

Gabriel Sinclair & Jazmyn Carter in "Superposition". Photo: Andrew Sikorski

Superposition – Choreographed and performed by Gabriel Sinclair and Jazmyn Carter.

Described in the promotional publicity as “a bold contemporary dance performance where movement meets machine”, this iteration of Superposition is an extension of a shorter work originally performed at the 2024 Melbourne Fringe.

It commences in silence with the two performers facing each other, in a circle of light, emotionless, except that their hands are constantly moving, machinelike, around each other’s, scrupulously avoiding contact.

They are costumed identically in long skirts and tops created from multi-coloured fabrics which responds to changes in lighting states.

For the best part of an hour, they continue this movement, expanding it into wide fan-like sweeps as the surrounding light expands and contracts. Occasionally one will advance on the other, then retreat as the other takes the initiative, as if caught in some magnetic push-and-pull. However, the initial hand movements continue, by now, driven by an electronic soundtrack.

The effect of the repetitious machine-like movement is mesmerising. But what to make of it?  A duet in perpetual motion? A deconstructed pas de deux perhaps?  While pondering these possibilities, tiny changes in the timings and directions of the movements propel thoughts towards wonder at the ability of the performers to maintain concentration as the movements become more tender and intimate while still avoiding contact.

Superposition is a challenging work which makes extraordinary demands on both the performers and their audience. For those who witness it, reactions and responses will undoubtedly vary, but there will be little argument as to the originality of the work, or the excellence of its execution.  

Stella Eve performing at "The Independents" Photo: Bill Stephens

 

A delightful inclusion pre – between- and post-show, was the courtyard performance by songstress Stella Eve presenting a selection of her original songs. 

     This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au 

 

 

 

 

     

How to Plot a Hit in Two Days

 

https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/how-to-plot-a-hit-in-two-days/

How to Plot a Hit in Two Days by Melanie Tait.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, August 29 – October 11, 2025.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 13

Playwright: Melanie Tait
Director: Lee Lewis; Assistant Director: Tiffany Wong
    
Set & Costume Design: Simone Romaniuk
Lighting Design: Brockman; Composer & Sound Design: Paul Charlier
Stage Manager: Jen Jackson; Assistant Stage Manager: Sherydan Simson
Costume Supervisor: Renata Beslik

This production is made possible by the Commissioners’ Circle and The Tracey Trinder Playwright's Award.

Cast
 Sharon – Amy Ingram
 Dell – Genevieve Lemon
 Bert – Seán O'Shea
 Judy – Georgie Parker
 Sally – Julia Robertson



Turning the death of Molly into a heart-warming comedy was a stroke of genius on Melanie Tait’s part.

For anyone else as ignorant as me, who never watched A Country Practice, the crucial question is, Did Molly Really Die?

As serendipity would have it, my wife and I missed our usual appointment to watch ABC TV’s 7.30 just last Monday.  You can watch it now, at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-08/behind-molly%E2%80%99s-heartbreaking-death-on-a-country/105750504 celebrating 40 years since Molly’s “heartbreaking death” as “a new play goes inside the writer’s room to reveal how that heartbreaking storyline was created. Richard Mockler brings us this story” including interviewing the actors, Anne Tenney (Molly) and Shane Withington (her husband, Brendan).

So the answer to that crucial question is complicated.  Molly was a fictional character, so “iconic” that she still hasn’t died in our cultural memory.  But that’s only because she really did die, in that fiction.

And now, Melanie Tait – who is obviously very real – has created her fictional story of the group of writers, as she imagined them, who created the fictional Molly for the very real Anne Tenney to act, 40 years ago.  In deciding, over many fraught sessions, about how to “kill” Molly, Tait’s writers find themselves imagining why Anne has decided to leave the show, and so create for them this awful task of writing Molly out.  Was it just for a better paid acting job somewhere else?

The real Anne doesn’t say in the 7.30 interview, but does say “They coined my character mad Molly, for some reason or other. She was very involved in local issues and very environmentally aware.” Hmm!

 

Writers Team: 
Julia Robertson whose other job is ICU Nurse, Sally, 
who has seen someone die from leukemia.
Georgie Parker as Judy, the final writer who "kills" Molly.

Writers Team:
Genevieve Lemon as Dell Isn't there another character we could make a theatre critic
and get Judy to kill? (The Mirror's Woeful Theatre Section revolting little man)
Seán O'Shea as Bert, whose wife takes off with a camera grip on a film shoot in Darwin.
Georgie Parker as Judy

Amy Ingram as Sharon, in full motorcycle gear.
Full rock star/former jail inmate vibes.

In the end the important thing, as you watch Melanie Tait’s imagination made real before your very eyes by the terrific top-quality actors, so precisely directed in every detail of lifted eyebrow, rolled eyes, widened eyes and clarity of ironic speech, the real answer is that at many points you will die laughing.

But in the end you will be seriously impressed by Tait’s skill making humour telling.  A Country Practice  may have been a commercial television soapie, but the way that team of writers finally came up with the way Molly dies – maintaining for the audience not just a conventional sentimentality about her unfortunate passing, but a positive view of her life as a mother and wife – turned A Country Practice into a positive social force.

The play, How to Plot a Hit in Two Days, is wonderfully enjoyable to watch, especially because the group of writers, each quite different personalities, work so well together, understanding each others’ feelings about problematic situations in their own lives which arise from working out the effects on people who will watch Molly’s death – from understanding medical issues (she dies from leukemia), social and family issues, and environmental issues (after all, it’s a country practice).

The theatre company is not called Ensemble for nothing.  This is an ensemble production of the best kind – light-hearted in performance and strong-hearted in effect.

As the playscript says (it includes the program, for $10: Currency Press), This isn’t your average conference room.  It’s where writers are expected to come up with ideas, so it’s comfortable, lived in and welcoming.  Indeed it is.

Certainly not to be missed.
 

 

 

 

THE CADAVER PALAVER

 

 

Christopher Samuel Carroll is Bennet Cooper Sullivan
in The Cadaver Palaver

The Cadaver Palaver. 

Written and performed by Christopher Samuel Carroll. Bare Witness Theatre Company. The Independents Season. The Courtyard Studio. Canberra Theatre Centre. September 12-14. 2025. Bookings: 62752700

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins.

There’s no-one I know better to play the rakish and yet so sartorially refined Victorian adventurer, cartographer, linguist, raconteur and fornicator of wives Bennett Cooper Sullivan than the enigmatic Christopher Samuel Carroll.  After a long absence, Carroll’s alter ego emerges from the foetid cell of an Afghanistan prison to set about on a journey that will take him on a Boys Own journey from the exotic climes of Cairo to the lascivious streets of Soho and then to Edinburgh to find a friend who will help him to find his old sea captain Cobden Gack. It is a perilous mission that will see him battle with a would-be assassin, seduce a fair young maiden, fall into a pit of corpses, and discover him in peril upon the slab of an anatomy lab. Lovers of the tales of adventure and perilous journeys, life threatening combat with dangerous adversaries and the thrilling exploits of the raconteur will delight in Carroll’s recounting of the amazing life of Bennett Cooper Sullivan as he rebounds from one danger to another, from one sexual assignation to another and into the darkest recesses of the mausoleum, its coffins and cadavers. This is the stuff of young boys’ fantasies, delving into the world of Buchan, J Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. Such daring, such bravado and all performed with wit, charm and charisma. One toys with death to make life so much the richer.

This is Carroll at the top of his game, an actor of consummate skill and imagination who holds the audience in the palm of his hand while clutching the mimed severed hand of an unfortunate assailant in the other. For an hour Carroll, with only a patchwork of Persian rugs to mark out his space in the Courtyard Studio, spins a ripping yarn that echoes with the excitement of an age when suave was cool and mystery a mission to reveal. Carroll’s writing rolls trippingly off the tongue. There is the poetic irony of the Irish, laced with the cheeky humour of the master storyteller, the characters’ chameleon who with an accent or a twist of the body can transform into a villain, a pawnbroker, a surgeon, and others in Carroll’s clever tale of mystery and suspense.

Carroll’s training at Ecole Jacques Lecoq needs no props, other than a cane. A fall to the floor, a turn in an instant, hands to the throat, a glance, a sudden movement of the arm can signal a moment, a gesture, a reaction and Carroll’s commanding control of character and escapade. Sporting an immaculately coiffured moustache, trimmed beard and slim-lined Victorian Tweed suit and vest, Sullivan is no Indiana Jones, and yet one has the impression that he could handle himself with charm and aplomb in a pit of rats or in this case cadavers and emerge unruffled and with a witty smile and a glint in the eye.

Carroll’s tale of adventure gallops apace and it takes some fierce concentration to follow the plot. It is easy to be mesmerized by the telling and let the plot slip away. Carroll’s one man show is a gripping as well as ripping yarn that recalls the literary adventure tales of a past era that still has the power to thrill and entertain. The Cadaver Palaver has a very short season as the opening performance of the Canberra Theatre Centre’s Independents Season. Carroll’s performance alone makes this a theatrical adventure not to be missed.

Photos by Carlos Herman 

 

  

THE CADAVER PALAVER: BENNETT COOPER SULLIVAN ADVENTURE

 

Written and performed by Christopher Samuel Carroll

Presented by Canberra Theatre Centre New Works

The Courtyard, Canberra Theatre Centre to 14 September

 

Reviewed by Len Power 12 September 2025

 

Before Indiana Jones, there was Bennett Cooper Sullivan, gentleman adventurer and rakish raconteur. Upholding the finest ideals of the British Empire, Sullivan takes us on a breathless tour of his turn of the 19^th century adventures involving a mad scientist, imprisonment in Afghanistan, a scarab brooch, a host of cadavers, a monosyllabic Scotsman and torture by analgesic. And that’s not all!

Christopher Samuel Carroll, an actor, director, and playwright from Ireland, trained at Trinity College Dublin and Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris. Since moving to Canberra in 2016, he has become one of its most prolific and celebrated theatre artists.

Christopher Samuel Carroll (Bennett Cooper Sullivan)

In his one-man show, Christopher Samuel Carroll presents a dashing hero’s adventures that owe a great deal to Sherlock Holmes, Richard Hannay, Phineas Fogg and other well-known characters from the literature of the period.

Written by Carroll, the clever story unfolds at breakneck speed with danger at every turn, colourful characters and hair-breadth escapes, all told with a wit that Oscar Wilde would have been proud of.

On a simple stage setting, Carroll’s performance as this gentleman adventurer is highly polished. Although presented at a bewildering speed, his clarity of diction is impressive, his comic timing is impeccable, and the physical aspects of his performance combine to produce a highly charming and attractive hero as well as the many other characters. The subtle lighting design by Ash Basham adds extra atmosphere at carefully judged moments.

Already presented in successful seasons at the Adelaide Fringe, The Butterfly Club, Melbourne, and the Edinburgh Fringe, Carroll’s play is hugely enjoyable from start to finish. Bennett Cooper Sullivan, gentleman adventurer, is vividly brought to life by Carroll in a memorable and delightful performance.

 

Photo by Novel Photographic

Len Power's reviews are also broadcast on Artsound FM 92.7 in the ‘Arts Cafe’ and ‘Arts About’ programs and published in his blog 'Just Power Writing' at https://justpowerwriting.blogspot.com/.

 

 

Peter/Wendy

 

Peter/Wendy by Jeremy Bloom. Ribix Productions and Lexi Sekuless Productions at Mill Theatre, Dairy Road, Canberra, September 3-27, 2025.

Presented as part of the Mill Theatre Co-Production Series, a program which provides an avenue for creatives to present their own work in the Mill Theatre space.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
September 10

Cast

In alphabetical order:
Wendy U/S, Swing: Aleksis Andreitchenko (she/her)
Wendy: Veronica Baroulina (she/her)
Tinker Bell: Chipz (they/them)
Lost Boy: Phoebe Fielden (she/her)
Tiger Lily:    Sarah Hartley (she/her)
Peter Pan: Joshua James (he/him)
Mr Darling/Smee: Mark Lee (he/him)
Mrs Darling/Hook: Heidi Silberman (she/her)


Creative Team

Writer: Jeremy Bloom; Director: Rachel Pengilly (she/her)
Movement Director: Hannah Pengilly (she/her)
Composer & Sound Designer: Shannon Parnell (she/her)
Set & Costume Designer: Helen Wojtas (she/her)
Lighting Designer: Jacob Aquilina (he/him)
Stage Manage: Hannah Pengilly (she/her)
Assistant Stage Managers: Sophie Hope-White (she/her) & Ciara Ford (she/her)
Intimacy Coordinator: Chipz (they/them)
Marketing and Publicity: Liv Blucher (she/her)
Vocal Coach: Lexi Sekuless (she/her)
Singing Tutor: Petronella van Tienen (she/her)
Consulting Artist: Julia Grace (she/her)

Co-Producers: Ribix Productions and Lexi Sekuless Productions by permission of ORiGiN™ Theatrical on behalf of Playscripts, Inc and Broadway Licensing Global

Principal Sponsor: Willard Public Affairs; Media Partner: Darkhorse Creative

Further credits found here: https://www.ribixproductions.com.au/peter-wendy/


You can read the original playscript of Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up at https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300081h.html 
Or you can also read the book called Peter and Wendy at https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Peter_and_Wendy/yhbTEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover

Peter/Wendy seems to have drawn on both.  J M Barrie writes as if he, in reality, is living in a fantasy land.  His play has hugely long stage directions which seem impossible to fulfill, while his novel describes the characters in excruciating psychological details that are hard to accept.

At this point in my reading, Barrie seems either an early 20th Century absurdist or an unpleasant social satirist.

At https://www.playscripts.com/play/2714 you will find Jeremy Bloom’s script, “adapted from the works of J M Barrie”, which is described as a “lyrical, atmospheric interpretation of Peter Pan, [in which] Jeremy Bloom strips the familiar story down to its emotional essence. Peter lures Wendy away from her nursery to the magical world of Neverland, where she joins his adventures with Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, and the menacing Captain Hook. A low-tech, inventive adaptation that pays homage to the darker themes of J. M. Barrie's original”.

And I am pleased to report that Rachel Pengilly and her team of designers and actors have succeeded in creating that ‘emotional essence’ in the relationship between Wendy and the faeries, and reveal the need in an imaginative young daughter to psychologically escape the ‘standard’ parents’ assumptions about parenting.  They are not the darlings that their name suggests.

This justifies a positive answer to the question we might ask: why present stage material written in that ‘different country’ more than 100 years ago?  It’s because that need for escape – to grow up – is as relevant today as then; and perhaps more so in a world where a modern Peter will be on Wendy’s social media feed, while her parents have no idea of the Captain Hooks and Tinker Bells she come across.  It’s a worry – and we feel it as Peter/Wendy ends as the dawn begins.

On the practical theatre side, the set design, the detailed complex choreography in using all the symbolic items of Peter’s world of adventures, and the lighting and sound, created the fantasy world very successfully, showing a high degree of originality which, for me, solved those stage direction difficulties I saw in Barrie’s script.

Especially important, and highly successful was the casting.  Apart from all the tricky acting in the fast moving changes for the whole cast, Wendy and Peter looked and felt absolutely right in their parts.

The Mill Theatre writes it is “excited to announce the first co-production of 2025”, and I say the more the merrier, especially for the young people on stage and in the audience.  This production is full of life, auguring well for the future of Ribix Productions.

Veronica Baroulina as Wendy
in Peter/Wendy
Ribix Productions, 2025

 

 

 

 

 

The Camera Unrepair Shop

Exhibition Review | Visual Art | Brian Rope

The Camera Unrepair Shop | UK Frederick

Photo Access | 14 August – 13 September 2025

Entering the gallery my first sight of The Camera Unrepair Shop caused me to wonder just what was being exhibited. Three shelves on the wall filled with an assortment of analogue cameras and a table with a few seemingly random pieces of photo paraphernalia on it. But, when I took a closer look and thought about it, I soon saw a simple photographic shop.

First Sight - The Camera Unrepair Shop Installation Image © Brian Rope 

Promotional material informs us that the exhibition combines installation, cyanotype process and performance to reflect on the nature of photography, its evolution, and the unseen labour behind film-based imagery. And that the artist, UK Frederick, dismantles cameras, creating blueprints of their anatomy, subverting the usual production-to-waste narrative. This experimental work provokes contemplation about the current state of photography amid emerging technologies.

In fact, the artist did that dismantling live in the gallery during the exhibition, then created photograms and cyanotype blueprints from the parts. Those results have accumulated and surrounded the workspace with an evolving collection of “mechanical unmaking”. Circumstances have prevented me from revisiting to see the additions to the archive, but some fine examples were in place when I visited soon after the show began.

Unrepaired Cyanotypes Installation Image © Brian Rope

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

A catalogue essay by Vahri McKenzie sheds further light on what Frederick is doing here. She once visited the Detroit Institute of the Arts and saw some of Diego Rivera’s murals depicting tourists visiting the nearby Ford Motor Company factory and watching the labourers at work creating cars. Visitors to this gallery during this exhibition similarly have had opportunities to watch this artist labouring to create artworks.

So, as the essay says, the artworks created become a collaboration between the artist, the cameras she “unrepairs” and the observers who went to the gallery to watch the creative process happening in the camera unrepair shop.

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

The-Camera-Unrepair-Shop-UK-Frederick © Fernanda Pedroso

Frederick herself tells us in the catalogue that her primary modes of art practice are photography, printmaking and video. As an archaeologist, her art practice is informed by her interests in material culture and the way people interact with each other and their worlds.

So, this is a rather different exhibition and well worth visiting and exploring. It is correctly described as a durational performance and mixed media installation of cameras, cyanotypes and photograms. I wish I had had the opportunity to see parts of the performance first-hand, and more of the archive created since I saw its early stage.

It is worth watching the video of an Artist in Conversation: UK Frederick event. You can see gaps in the camera equipment on the shelves and the increase in the quantity of cyanotypes and photograms. During the event Frederick refers to the cyanotypes referencing the blueprint as a process of design, but also as a collection of prints representing the process that goes into making art that eventually goes onto the wall or wherever – in a sense each artwork is a portrait of an unrepaired camera. Her thought processes and discussion of ideas provide much for us to contemplate.

Screenshot from Photo Access video of UK Frederick Artist in Conversation event 30.08.2025

This review is also available on the author's blog here.

LIZZY, DARCY & JANE - Canberra Repertory Society.

 

Sterling Notley ( Harris)  - Lydia Milosavljevic (Jane Austen) - Elaine Noon (Mrs Austen) -
Dylan Hayley Rosenthal (Elizabeth Bennet) - Rachel Hogan (Madam LeFroy)
in "Lizzy, Darcy & Jane" 

Written by Joanna Norland – Directed by Alexandra Pelvin

Set Design by Kayla Ciceran – Costume design by Eliza Gulley

Lighting Design by Nathan Sciberras – Sound Design by Neville Pye

Properties co-ordinated by Belynda Buck – Stage Managed by Julie Barnes

Canberra Rep Theatre, 4th – 20th Sept. 2025

Performance. on Sept. 5th reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Marco Simunec as Mr Darcy - Lydia Milosavljevic as Jane Austen.

Canberra Rep could hardly have chosen a more appropriate play with which to celebrate Jane Austen’s 250th birthday than Joanna Norland’s intriguing 2008 play, Lizzy, Darcy & Jane.

Rather than rehash yet another version of Pride and Prejudice, Norland, with her play, has invented a fascinating argument based around propositions suggesting much of Austen’s celebrated novel is autobiographical.

Austen herself is one of the characters, as are several of her contemporaries, which adds an additional layer of intrigue for Austen devotees.

This is the style of play Rep does so well, and the care and attention lavished on this production by director Alexandra Pelvin, her cast and creatives is obvious.

The play is performed in attractive period costumes designed by Eliza Gulley, on Kayla Ciceran’s imposing setting with its meticulously chosen period furniture and properties, which transforms the Rep Theatre stage into an agreeable approximation of a Regency period mansion. Superb lighting design by Nathan Sciberras and a meticulously chosen soundscape, the work of Neville Pye, beautifully compliment the visual elements.

Pelvin has taken opportunity to include several lovely tableaus in her staging, most notably, the drawing room scene which opens the second act, in which family members engage in a cardgame while another relaxes in front of a blazing fire.

Lydia Milosavjevec is a picture-perfect Jane Austen. Vivacious and animated, her performance will be even more effective if she takes a little more time over the delivery of her lines and controls the fluttery hand-movements that detracted from her otherwise impressive first night performance.

No such reservations about Dylan Hayley Rosenthal’s beautifully judged performance as Elizabeth Bennet, or Rachel Hogan’s forthright interpretations of both Madam Lefroy and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Rachel Hogan as Lady Catherine de Bourgh

Sterling Notley impressed as Mr Bingley, Mr. Collins and Harris,and Marco Simunec was well cast as both Mr Darcy and Tom Lefroy, as was Elaine Noon in the dual roles of Mrs Austen and Cassandra.

However for those in the audience less steeped in the world of Jane Austen, one wonders, given the limited range of some of her actors, and the complexity of the author’s concept, that in the interests of clarity, the production might have benefited, had the director decided on less role doubling.

Nevertheless, as it stands, this production of Lizzie, Darcy & Jane provides an entertaining evening of intriguing theatre while posing questions of new possibilities for beloved characters.


                             Images by Ross Gould, Alexandra Pelvin, Helen Drum

                 This review first published in the digital edition of CITY NEWS on 06.09.25