Melissa Marsh🥉 - Whats The Show

Sweet Charity

17/05/2026 Melissa Marsh🥉

Sweet Charity Rating

★★★★★

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Hornsby Musical Society’s production of Sweet Charity succeeds because it understands the difficult balance at the heart of the musical. Beneath the colour, comedy, energetic choreography, and sharp stylisation sits a story about loneliness, resilience, and the exhausting act of continuing to hope. This production never loses sight of that emotional core.

At the centre of everything is Victoria Alfieris as Charity Hope Valentine, and it is her performance that anchors the entire production. Alfieris brings charm, vulnerability, spark, and sincerity to the role without ever reducing Charity to caricature or sentimentality. Her performance captures the essential contradiction of the character: a woman repeatedly bruised by disappointment who continues moving through life with irrepressible optimism. That emotional openness carried through her singing and dancing, creating a Charity who always felt emotionally alive and in motion.

Several musical numbers particularly showcased her strengths. “You Should See Yourself” was tender and sincere, while “If My Friends Could See Me Now” balanced comic exuberance with emotional honesty beneath the fantasy. “I’m A Brass Band” became one of the evening’s emotional high points, with Alfieris capturing Charity’s overwhelming rush of hope and possibility with infectious warmth.

James Denton’s Oscar Lindquist provided an effective counterpoint to Charity’s energy. Denton wisely leaned into Oscar’s physical awkwardness, using nervous movement, hesitant posture, and restrained reactions to make the character endearing rather than merely eccentric. This physicality gradually softened during the Ferris wheel scene, allowing genuine warmth and connection to emerge naturally between the two leads. Denton’s understated comic work during “I Love to Cry at Weddings” was particularly effective, with small physical reactions and visible discomfort generating both humour and sympathy.

Among the supporting cast, Max Waterson stood out as Vittorio Vidal. Rather than pushing the role into parody, Waterson gave Vittorio genuine charm and sweetness, especially during “Too Many Tomorrows,” which landed with surprising sincerity. Alfieris and Waterson also played beautifully off one another during the apartment sequence, balancing comedy, fantasy, and genuine warmth in a way that made Charity’s excitement feel completely believable.

The ensemble work throughout the production was consistently strong. “Big Spender,” “Rich Man’s Frug,” and “Rhythm of Life” each possessed distinct physical identities and strong collective energy. Director and choreographer Lauren Oxenham, who also choreographed Hornsby Musical Society’s Grease last year, again demonstrated a strong instinct for ensemble movement and theatrical rhythm. Where Grease required buoyant nostalgia, Sweet Charity demanded sharper stylisation and emotional edge, and Oxenham’s choreography rose confidently to that challenge.

The production’s visual design also deserves praise. The abstract, block-like set design, at times reminiscent of Rothko paintings, created flexible playing spaces that transformed smoothly into locations such as the elevator, closet, and Ferris wheel. Costumes brought generous colour to the production while still allowing larger numbers like “Rich Man’s Frug” and “Rhythm of Life” to develop distinct visual identities. Lighting was also used effectively to shape mood and transitions, though from some audience positions several lighting cues projected directly into sightlines and briefly became distracting.

Musically, the production maintained strong momentum throughout the evening, with the orchestra supporting the show’s shifting emotional rhythms without overwhelming the performers. Just as importantly, the production trusted the emotional honesty of the material. Rather than treating the ending as cynical, the final moments suggested something more hopeful: that despite repeated disappointments, Charity retains the capacity to keep moving forward.

That sense of resilience lingered after the curtain call. In the end, Hornsby Musical Society delivered a production of Sweet Charity that was not only entertaining and visually confident, but emotionally sincere, anchored by a warm and compelling central performance from Victoria Alfieris.

To book tickets to Sweet Charity, please visit https://www.pioneertheatre.com.au/whats-on/sweetcharity.

Photographer: Stefanie Roche Dobb

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The Importance of Being Earnest

11/03/2026 Melissa Marsh🥉

The Importance of Being Earnest Rating

★★★★★

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Brendan Jones’ direction for The Guild Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest takes a deliberately restrained, actor-focused approach to Oscar Wilde’s celebrated comedy of manners. A single adaptable set serves the entire evening, with shifts in furniture, props, and lighting indicating changes of location while maintaining the rhythm of the play. Period costumes establish the late Victorian setting without drawing undue attention to themselves, subtly marking the passage of time while keeping the focus squarely on the performances.

At the centre of the play is Christiane Brawley’s commanding performance as Lady Bracknell, which provides the production with its gravitational force. Brawley resists exaggeration, instead building the character through carefully controlled presence, voice, and movement. Her Lady Bracknell commands the room not through volume but through absolute certainty, delivering Wilde’s lines with the authority of social judgement. Particularly striking is her use of the character’s walking stick, wielded almost like a rapier, slicing through the surrounding absurdities and, in the final act, restoring order to the increasingly chaotic situation.

The comic partnership between Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff proves equally strong. Simon Pearce’s Jack projects confidence and control, yet allows the cracks in that composure to appear as the plot tightens around him. The result is a performance in which Jack’s comic energy bursts sideways whenever the carefully maintained façade begins to slip, often expressed through sharply physical reactions. In contrast, Harry Rutner’s Algernon moves through the play with gleeful poise, seemingly delighted to dance along the knife-edge of Wilde’s social absurdities. Their contrasting energies play off each other beautifully, creating a lively tension that drives many of the play’s comic exchanges.

Julia Burns and Isla Harris bring similar clarity to their performances as Gwendolen Fairfax and Cecily Cardew. Both actresses initially lean into the romantic enthusiasm and social niceties expected of their characters, presenting Gwendolen’s polished confidence and Cecily’s imaginative warmth with equal charm. The famous tea scene, however, allows them to demonstrate impressive range as the tone shifts repeatedly within a single encounter. What begins as cordial conversation cools rapidly once the two women realise they are engaged to the same man. The atmosphere turns first cold, then openly combative, with politeness weaponised through smiles, teacups, and carefully chosen words. Burns and Harris navigate these transitions with precision, and the final moment—when the two women instantly unite against the men responsible for the confusion—provides one of the evening’s most satisfying releases of tension.

Leigh Scanlon’s dual performance as Lane and Merriman offers a neatly observed contrast. Lane appears as a figure of calm control, the perfectly composed manservant quietly maintaining order in Algernon’s household, while Merriman carries a dry affability that suggests a man well accustomed to accommodating the oddities of country house life. Scanlon keeps the two characters distinct, highlighting how the servants calmly adapt as the increasingly absurd events of the play unfold around them.

Lyn Lee and Kevin Tanner bring warmth to their roles as Miss Prism and Canon Chasuble, playing their mutual flirtation with straightforward sweetness. That sincerity makes the later revelation of Miss Prism’s role in the play’s central mystery all the more effective, as the gentle respectability of the characters contrasts sharply with the absurdity that ultimately resolves the plot.

Taken as a whole, The Guild Theatre’s production succeeds through the clarity of Brendan Jones’ direction and the strength of its ensemble. By keeping the staging deliberately restrained and allowing the performers to take centre stage, the production lets Wilde’s intricate social comedy unfold with confidence and precision. The result is an evening that captures both the elegance and the absurdity at the heart of the play, and one that reminds audiences why this mischievous comedy continues to reward performance more than a century after its first appearance on the stage.

To book tickets to The Importance of Being Earnest, please visit https://www.guildtheatre.com.au/featured-shows/the-importance-of-being-earnest/.

Photographer: Grant Leslie Photography

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Much Ado About Nothing

16/12/2025 Melissa Marsh🥉

Much Ado About Nothing Rating

★★★★★

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This Much Ado About Nothing is set on the South Coast in the week before Christmas, and the choice is not cosmetic. From the moment Don Pedro, Claudio and Benedick enter wheeling a battered esky, the world is established: this is a family gathering, loud, sunburnt, faintly daggy, and thick with history. The cicadas hum, So Fresh Summer Hits blare, and the audience—seated in the round, sometimes beside the actors themselves—is folded directly into the social fabric of the play.

The production leans into deliberate dagginess. Costumes are bright, mundane, occasionally ugly. The set is minimal: a Christmas tree, a party table, a CD player, tinsel slung over exits. Popular music and unpolished dancing create the feeling of a real holiday gathering rather than a theatrical abstraction. In a space this small, there is nowhere to hide—and the production knows it.

Theo Rule’s Benedick is an Australian bloke we recognise instantly. His loud vows of eternal bachelorhood are funny because they’re defensive, half-brag and half-shield. What makes the performance quietly impressive is the vulnerability Rule allows in. As Benedick overhears that Beatrice may love him, the change is gradual, almost reluctant. Armour loosens in stages. Pauses lengthen. Hope creeps in. By the time Benedick acts, his earnestness feels earned, not performative.

Madison Chippendale, who also directs the production, gives Beatrice a different kind of armour. Her wit reads as learned self-protection, shaped by disappointment rather than disdain. When she overhears Benedick’s supposed love, curiosity flickers—but caution holds the line. Her later demand that he prove himself lands not as cruelty but principle. That insistence becomes the moral spine of the play, aligning directly with Benedick’s decision to believe Hero when others will not.

Andrea Magpulong’s Hero emerges slowly, but when she speaks there is no ignoring her. That restraint makes the wedding scene genuinely shocking. In such close quarters, Claudio’s public shaming feels brutally intimate. James Papadakis plays Claudio as someone painfully familiar: good-natured, not too bright, easily led. His cruelty comes not from malice but weakness, which makes it harder to excuse.

James Yeargain’s doubling of Don Pedro and Don John is smartly executed, though the production’s trimmed structure means Don John’s plot is never fully resolved. This Much Ado prioritises emotional truth over narrative closure, and that trade-off is visible.

The true heart of the production lies in the Beatrice and Benedick scenes. Calling it “chemistry” is inadequate. What plays is collision—two guarded people meeting at force. Love doesn’t bloom here; it crashes.

There is something quietly principled in these choices. Shakespeare did not write for high culture; he wrote for crowded rooms, for people eating, drinking, laughing, and sometimes being cruel to one another. Chippendale’s direction understands this instinctively. By embracing the familiar — the bad taste, the pop music, the awkward dancing, the Christmas rituals everyone recognises — the play is returned to its natural habitat. In this exposed, communal space, the language doesn’t arrive as something precious, but as something overheard. And that is where it belongs.

To book tickets to Much Ado About Nothing, please visit https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1493684.

Photographer: Jamie Simmons

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Menopause: The Musical

23/09/2025 Melissa Marsh🥉

Menopause The Musical Rating

★★★★★

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Menopause the Musical has been packing theatres around the world for more than two decades, and its Sydney season shows why. Built as a one-hour revue without interval, the show wastes no time on plot, instead linking pop classics with menopause-themed lyrics and broad comedy. It’s a format that could easily flag, but in Cameron Mitchell’s brisk staging the pace feels more like momentum than overload, sustained by four performers who never let the energy drop.

The archetypes are simple—Professional Woman, Soap Star, Housewife, Earth Mother—but the cast injects them with distinct flavour. Tara Morice, remembered by many as Fran from Strictly Ballroom, brings a real edge to her Professional Woman, most memorably when she trades businesswear for a shiny black top, skirt, and denim jacket to belt What’s Love Got to Do With It. Erika Heynatz, cast with a wink as the Soap Star given her Home and Away past, proves the standout vocalist, carrying numbers with clarity and ease. Melissa Langton’s Housewife combines warmth and honesty with gleeful broad comedy—her romp in red lingerie over her clothes is a crowd-pleasing highlight. Cherine Peck, reprising her role as Earth Mother, leans into the playfulness of the part, giving the ensemble an effervescent lift.

Christine Mutton’s costumes start in recognisable shorthand—power suit, flowing layers, domestic comfort, showbiz glam—before sliding into sillier territory. The red lingerie gag and the final sparkly outfits underline the production’s refusal to take itself too seriously while still keeping the glamour dialled up. Frances Story’s set is functional but bright, leaving space for the performers, while Jasmine Rizk’s lighting design proves versatile: bold washes carry the big numbers, but subtler effects sneak in, particularly during the hot-flash sequences where the humour lands visually as well as vocally.

The songs themselves—rewritten classics from the baby boomer songbook—are instantly familiar, and that recognition is half the joke. For an audience of “ladies of a certain age,” as the program knowingly puts it, the combination of nostalgia, camp, and shared experience is irresistible. Saturday night’s crowd responded with knowing laughter, cheers, and a standing ovation.

Menopause the Musical is not a show for subtlety or story. It’s a night of energy, glamour, and communal release. In this Sydney staging, thanks to a committed cast and slick creative team, the formula still works—and then some.

To book tickets to Menopause The Musical, please visit https://menopausethemusical.com.au/.

Photographer: David Hooley, Joel Devereux

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