John Frost for Crossroads Live. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 3 Aug 2025
Agatha Christie's 1939 novel has had a challenging titling history. It was first published as Ten Little Niggers after the 1869 minstrel song. And Then There Were None was the title of the first US edition in 1940 - the American response to their bespoke racial situation. It was also published as Ten Little Indians in the US. Oh, boy. UK editions use the original title until 1985, which is both amazing and distasteful. Whatever it’s called, it’s the world's best-selling mystery - over 100 million copies. Agatha Christie also wrote the play in 1943, which was performed in the UK under all three titles.
Theatre doyenne and director Robyn Nevin brought Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap to Adelaide in 2023. The Mousetrap is the world’s longest running play, since 1952. The only mystery about The Mousetrap is that it's been running so long. Christie, presumably a woman of her time and unfazed by minority or disability appellations, originally called the play Three Blind Mice. Oh, woke is me.
Although written first, Christie built a better mousetrap with And Then There Were None. There are more murders, it’s eviler, and it's more gruesome. Set in an isolated house on an isolated island off Devon, eight people arrive by boat, thanks to unexpected invitations, and are greeted by the married domestic staff. Turns out nobody knows the hosts. And somewhere on the island, there is a cat amongst these pigeons.
Stylish costumes look bright and gay and 40’s fashionable against the battleship grey of a desirable modernist mansion room designed after American architect Richard Neutra. Set and costume designer Dale Ferguson intelligently utilised this US connection from Christie’s novel. The big expanse of windows invite opportunities for dramatic skies to match the action that were largely missed.
There is plenty of Coward-ly repartee and more accents than a French novel. The action accelerates to the final reveal and witty recriminations rise with the body count. It's fun to guess who is responsible for all the mysterious murderous mayhem. Characterisations are lovingly lavished by the ensemble, yet Christie is ungenerous in giving actors opportunities to break free of stereotypes. Director Robyn Nevin does her best to help, but until the juicy end, persons sitting next to suspected murderers don't seem overly perturbed. Actors with the best roles look the best. What is locked into the script is an expose of prejudices, self-justification and excuses for monstrous behaviour.
Robin Nevin’s production is slick and beautiful to behold. And Then There Were None is not only your classic murder mystery but also a great drama on the human condition, and one begging juxtaposition with the current political upheaval. A must see for the Christie tragics, or if you’re curious where Midsomer Murders comes from.
PS. The game of Cluedo was released in the same year, 1943, that Christie wrote this play. The murder mystery held its fascination even in the midst of World War II.
David Grybowski
When: 3 to 16 Aug
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: andthentherewerenone.com.au
State Theatre Company South Australia / Queensland Theatre. Odeon Theatre. 30 July 2025
Dear Son is a magnificent example of storytelling craft intersecting with theatre. It’s a witty, richly playful and deeply compelling work adapted from the book Dear Son: Letters and Reflections from First Nations fathers and Sons by Thomas Mayo, co-author of The Voice to Parliament Handbook.
Director Isaac Drandic and co-adaptor John Harvey have fashioned a remarkably sophisticated production managing to successfully offer a work at once hilarious as its underlying intent is extremely serious. Speaking of contemporary issues faced by indigenous men and problems they face as fathers and sons. Encompassing with extraordinary ease and deft flair the impact 200 years of negative colonial attitudes crushing positive cultural forces thousands of years old have had and are having on them.
There is much magic created from simple choices made. Backbone to the production’s structure is a group of indigenous men meeting at an outdoor BBQ club to chat and talk issues. From this foundation, story after story segues with complete ease. That, in partnership with Designer Kevin O’Briens’s lovely basic shed roof, sand floor with wood tables and benches, Lighting Designer David Walter’s faultless feeling for mood and tone, allied with Craig Wilkinson’s video design and William Hughes sound design, you get an experience that’s at once familiar – do we not always consider the stories of sons and fathers – yet distinctly very, very different.
Drandic’s cast are a fantastic ensemble, very into playing it up as they are handling pretty intense stories. Not easy having your wife and kids move out on you. Losing a beloved Uncle when you arrive too late (yet this sad tale is easily one of the funniest stories in the telling,) managing a mixed married.
The real power in this cast’s work is an infallible ability in giving deep expression to the love, admiration and hope of sons to their fathers, of fathers to their sons. In words they could not say face to face. Words wrapped in the wonder, mystery and celebration of culture; animal totems and land in much the same way western culture does, with a different emphasis and form.
Bravo Jimi Bani, Waangenga Blanco, Kirk Page, Aaron Pedersen, and Tibian Wyles. They accomplish something extraordinary with a humble simplicity to be admired.
David O’Brien
When: 26 Jul to 16 Aug
Where: Odeon Theatre
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au
The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 17 Jul 2025
And thus does one brighten a winter’s week, solidly giggling at the folly that is Hollywood comically veiled in a Shakespearean movie caper.
Ken Ludwig is an American playwright with a keen feel for zany comedy and an affectionate eye for old movies. Hence this capricious send up of Hollywood’s great 1935 flop, a daring Warner Brothers production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the exiled anti-Nazi Austrian director Max Reinhardt. It starred Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney with Mickey Rooney as Puck. It later became a cult movie and much later, under the satirical pen of Ludwig, who had been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, an award-winning take-off on stage.
Now, under the deft directorship of Jude Hines for the Rep, this zany play about a movie about play shines anew.
And what a big night out it is. The cast is huge and so is the set, from Gary Anderson, its centrepiece a giant tree which stands as the magical forest of The Dream’s fairy characters. This is a comedy which depends on pace and lots of clever sound cues and lighting effects - all of which are effectively delivered.
Overlaying the A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s original plot is the Ludwig plot which throws Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Puck his mischievous offsider, into preparations for the Hollywood movie version. By default, they are cast as themselves, hence bringing supernatural powers to play amid a lineup of vain old Hollywood greats.
Merry mayhem ensues and, in true farce tradition, the tricks and cross-purposes escalate into over-the-top hilarity.
There are a number of notable performances. Emily Burns really lights up the stage as a lithe and bold little Puck, standing in for Rooney, while Stephen Bills, in fine Shakespearean voice, towers over her, all power and majesty. Another wonderful scene-stealer is Malcolm Walton as Joe E Brown playing Flute, the Joiner AKA Thisbee. Oh, such a bemused Mechanical in tutu. Leah Lowe is well voiced and simpatico as movie star Olivia and Jasmine Duggan wins hearts and laughs as the gauche aspiring starlet Lydia Lansing. Absolute dependables in the cast are Penni Hamilton-Smith as Louella Parsons and Ben Todd as Jack Warner with Sam Wiseman, very cleverly attired by costume designer Sandy Whitelaw, as the brilliant, exiled director Reinhard who brings with him his ghosts of Hitler’s Germany. Nice work. Adam Schultz thrives with a very funny scene of his own as horrible Will Hayes and everyone is well supported by Keiran Drost, Matthew Thompson, Tom Adams, Nicholas Eldborough and the three be-winged fairies. There are lots of fun costumes, thanks to Whitelaw, some forgettable wigs and a wonderful Bottom’s head. Eleven out of ten for Ian Barge’s lighting and whoever did the magic tinkling.
The night outside did not feel so cold after all that wholesome fun and games
Samela Harris
When: 17 to 26 Jul
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: adelaiderep.com
Flinders University Performing Arts Society. Holden Street Theatres. 9 Jul 2025
The numeric significance attached to milestone birthdays seem as fluid as gender identities—there’s no certainty that the numeric denotation corresponds with anything in particular. Rites of passage once attached to such numbers seem to have blended, or have they?
Jesse Chugg has written and directed a clever theatrical exploration of the zeitgeist of teen-dom here and now. Of course, such spirit will likely change with the generation, but Mary’s 18th – a play about a party effectively captures all things “same as it ever was” as well as those that aren’t, when it comes to teens morphing into young adulthood.
Prior to commenting further, I do need to get something out of the way. I’m not a fan of shows starting late. However, if reasonable explanation is given, such can be forgiven. I’m sure I’m not alone here. But twenty minutes with no explanation? Perhaps the fact Ensemble Swing, Jazmyn Stevens, was announced as playing the title role had something to do with it. There. Whinge over. Stevens did a magnificent job!
Director/Playwright notes offer great insight into the creative process behind Mary’s 18th. A first draft completed only months after Chugg’s 18th birthday—she is now, I think 22—was read by a group of actors aged 14-18 at Chris Iley and Simone Avramidis’s wonderful Goodwood Theatres as precursor to further development.
“The 18year old characters were read by real 18-year-olds, the 16-year-olds the same.” While appreciating this early work was flawed, Chugg recognized “something about it, something raw, that young people connected with.”
And this is where the works’ strength lies. No, many of the issues aren’t new. Parties during the mid-70s (my mid-teens) were riddled with various substances, too much alcohol, sexual tension, matters of gender (yes, LGBTQIA+ existed but wasn’t as publicly acknowledged,) relationship dramas and heartache. However, Chugg’s writing is so wonderfully honest that we are afforded great insight into how these things are being dealt with now.
Mary has few friends. Then along comes Malcolm (Noah Montgomery) who Mary met after school, under somewhat fraught conditions suggested and revisited during the narrative by the creation of a tree by the cast. Malcolm is a sensitive, articulate soul adrift in school culture that, let’s face it, remains tough for young men like him. Mary, alone and all too frequently victimized, reaches out, and a friendship develops to the point where Malcolm and a few others are invited to Mary’s 18th. Penelope, Malcolm’s precocious sixteen-year-old sister, invites herself and proves to be something of a catalyst for the party getting out of hand! Not an unreasonable premise! There’s tension between Penny’s new boyfriend Corey (Brandon Calmiano), a sulky sixteen-year-old perhaps “punching above his weight,” and nineteen-year-old Dylan (Dylan Chomel), who, it turns out, has his own issues with the girl he ‘likes,’ Abigail (Eva Wilde). Hockey girls, Bennett (Ash Wood), Kacie (Kate Wooding), fraught with relationship undercurrents, and Jamie (Rachelle Launer) arrive, with the latter immediately “on the same page, in the same book” as the immensely likeable, irrepressible Declan (Jalen Berry).
Kudos to Stevens and Montgomery for their great portrayal of, as playwright Jesse Chugg puts it, “…two characters only shortly acquainted…tether to each other as the world tries to tear them apart.” Similarly, Kameron and Chomel play that forbidden, uncomfortable space between an underage girl and hormone charged young man. Wilde and Chomel are commendably strong in an emotionally charged scene.
Chugg’s script cleverly interweaves strands of comedy into the often dark fabric of the play’s themes: Winnie and Melanie’s account of how an injury was sustained in the mosh is hilarious, while Declan and Jaime’s relationship and Mary’s character arc make for some great comedic moments.
I was impressed by how effectively this largely inexperienced cast filled numerous roles as the party spiralled into that “who are these people?” zone. Great work.
The driving ‘tonally ferocious’ score by self-proclaimed queen of the Adelaide music scene, Will Everest underscored and punctuated the action very effectively and lent itself very well to the ambiance of a party spiralling into that dreaded place where no one is even thinking of the fallout when the parents come home.
No-one is credited with set design which is a shame because the simple use of a couch, bathtub, toilet, and small dining table and chairs, cleverly captures the vibe of house party degenerating into a house-wrecking party. However, occasionally the non-linear narrative structure proved a little cumbersome when it came to set changes.
Josh Manoa’s lighting works well, Oona Stephen’s props serve effectively, and Jules Moylan and Magnus Carpenter’s costume designs work a treat!
Where Mary’s 18th – a play about a party is not slick, it is truthful. Where it lacks a little polish, it is passionately raw. And where, occasionally, actors fall into call and response verbal table tennis—"you say a line, then I say mine”—the writing is crisp enough to make up for it.
If you’re looking for insight into contemporary late teen life, or you’re brave enough to recognise and reconnect with your own teen experience, or you want to enjoy “a brilliant group of energetic performers…debut a piece with casting so true to its source…”, Mary’s 18th – a play about a party is well worth it!
John Doherty
When: 9 to 12 Jul
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: Closed
State Theatre Company of SA co-pro with MTC. Her Majesty’s Theatre. 11 Jul 2025
What an unlikely concept for a rollicking piece of comical song and dance - the story of a girl with a rare genetic ageing disorder and an horrible family.
Kimberly Akimbo is an American creation with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori. It was written in 2021 but it is set in New Jersey in 1999. From 2022, it took Broadway by storm and was immediately smothered in awards.
How lucky are we to ride the antipodean crest of this delectable sweet and salty theatrical confection. Even when it feels sad, it feels good. It is one of those shows in which one simply loses track of time and place and one exists entirely in its own finely-wrought reality.
There is not much to criticise unless one considers the stingy length of its season. It gets just two weeks before heading off to Melbourne whence it is a STC/MTC co-pro.
Its sets and costumes are made in SA and its performers and makers are from both worlds with some seriously good new local talents: Allycia Angeles and Alana Iannace, both from the Elder Conservatorium’s magnificent Music Theatre stable, along with fellow alumni, Darcy Wain who is a really dazzling emerging triple threat.
Wain carries the show in many ways, playing Seth, the gooby goodie teen who befriends Kimberley at her new school. The evolution of their relationship is a symphony of awkward tenderness and Wain plays through those emotions as on a Stradivarius. The audience falls in love with him. It’s a tough call for him, really, insofar as he is playing against a blazing star of the Australian musical theatre in Marina Prior, she, in mid-life, fearlessly and artfully playing a troubled 16-year-old with an accelerated aging condition. She establishes credibility with impeccable body work and the cleverly in-betweener nature of her costume from Ailsa Paterson’s designs. All the costumes reflect sensitively the characters within them with Christie Wheelan-Browne winning laughs in the most over-the-top pregnant belly. She delivers a nice comic presence, too, and a nasty one. It is love-hate until she sings, at which point it is love.
Naturally, this being a musical, the voices are a high point and also the harmonies which the chorus of four school chums—Jacob Rozario with cutie-pie Marty Alix and the girls, Angeles and Iannace—execute to a tee.
Nathan O’Keefe, a trusted and familiar player on the Adelaide stage, comes up trumps with an exhaustingly amusing addled dad song, performed in the car to his daughter and her new friend Seth. It brings the house down, as do some of the big numbers, although ironically, the music in the end of the day is unmemorable.
Unlike those performing it.
Here comes a musicals character into which Casey Donovan can really sink those sparkling teeth and that big, ballsy voice. She plays dodgy Aunt Debra, the ultimate nefarious bad influence maverick of the family. Donovan clearly relishes the role and is quite a treat to watch.
Indeed, so are they all. Director Mitchell Butel has elicited a well-defined sense of personality from each of the chorus players as well as the leads.
He’s been a popular STC artistic director/performer, eminent on many levels, and he leaves us on a high.
Of course, Kimberly is doomed from the start, but she is not going out without living life to the full. Thus, are there sad songs and teen angst along the way. There are myriad messages woven into this very complex plot. And also, roller skating, just for the full American cultural gestalt.
Jonathon Oxlade rarely puts a foot wrong in the set design department and here, with a literally moveable feast of locker rooms, library, bedrooms and even snowstorms, he maintains the excellence.
What with Matt Scott’s perceptive lighting and Amy Campbell’s lively choreography, what more could one wish of a really pro show? Sound, of course. And here, returning to the fore as musical director, comes our beloved Kym Purling. Hence, the creamy orchestration.
The whole of Adelaide’s arts world seemed to be packed into Her Majesty's for the opening night of Kimberley Akimbo. And, through the foyers as they streamed out to the winter’s night could be heard most prominently the words “what fun”.
What fun, indeed.
Samela Harris
When: 11to 19 Jul
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: statetheatrecompany.com.au