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A Well Deserved Standing Ovation

28/10/202627/10/2026 Potanoski Papa⭐🔥🎪

Sydney Harbour Ensemble presents: Beethoven’s Emperor Rating

★★★★★

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It was an utter joy to experience Sydney Harbour Ensemble perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 and the monumental Emperor Piano Concerto, featuring pianist Joshua Han on Saturday night at the ACO on the Pier.

This is Sydney Harbour Ensemble’s third concert in their inaugural year. Their mission is to pair live orchestral music with landmark harbour settings and local history. While focusing on celebrating emerging Sydney talent. This orchestra is certainly packed with talent.

Hearing Beethoven’s Symphony no. 4 in B flat major Opus 60 makes you understand why we still want to hear and play his music today, even though it was composed in 1806, over 200 years ago. Especially when it is played as superbly as it was on Saturday night.

All 36 instrumentalists in the orchestra played with great passion and were strongly connected with each other the entire time. They dazzled with expression, large ranges of dynamics and soared through the very fast passages in the symphony. Their Timpanist, Bryn Wood, has an amazingly expressive face and you could tell he was in his element of utter joy the entire time.

Benjamin Crowe, their artistic director and conductor, held great poise and determination throughout the night. His conducting was very graceful and clear. We felt very safe in his hands… pun intended. I believe he has a big future ahead of him.

For the second half of the concert, Beethoven’s Emperor Piano Concerto, featuring pianist Joshua Han, was absolutely magical. I could not keep my eyes off Joshua Han the entire time. His fingers gracefully dancing up and down the keys with immense passion. His perfectly quaffed hair moved effortlessly with the music and his face embodied intense emotion that then instantly transferred to fingertips. I am not surprised he has won so many piano competitions locally and internationally. I’m sure there will be many more to come.

The night ended with a well deserved standing ovation by all and we were treated to a beautiful encore by Joshua Han. You could tell all of the orchestral players were just as enamoured by Joshua Han as the audience were. They all looked mesmerised by his playing, now that they were able to watch him for the encore.

I can see many more exciting concerts in this orchestra’s future. I hope they continue to do more of Beethoven’s work as they play them so exquisitely and they have more collaborations with pianist Joshua Han.

Please keep an eye out for more concerts by Sydney Harbour Ensemble, they are not to be missed.

To book tickets to Sydney Harbour Ensemble presents: Beethoven’s Emperor, please visit https://sydneyharbourensemble.com.au/.

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Do We Carry On As Normal, Live In Up Or Party Like There’s No Tomorrow?

18/10/2026 Potanoski Papa⭐🔥🎪

Cruise Rating

★★★★★

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Cruise by Jack Holden
Directed by Sean Landis
Produced Maybelline San Juan
Movement Director Jeremy Lloyd
Starring Fraser Morrison

Cruise is an intergenerational monologue spanning four decades and over 20 characters, celebrating queer nightlife and paying tribute to a generation lost to the AIDS crisis.

Our two central story characters, one a young twink volunteering at an LGBTQIA+ helpline call centre just months before the Covid-19 Pandemic and Michael Spencer, the caller to the helpline. The young twink is left alone one Saturday and Michael calls on a particular anniversary that meaningful to him.

The plot is backlit by the clubs of London’s Soho in the 19802, Michael is living with HIV in 1984, he’s told by doctors that he has just four years to live. The show questions how to survive and what to do when given this type of information. Do we carry on as normal, live in up or party like there’s no tomorrow? And if you survive, how can he go on living?

This is a beautiful but heart wrenching play, filled with many fabulous characters to help us breath and have lighter moments in some of the darkest times during the trenches of the AIDS epidemic. Some of my favourite characters were the older ladies depicted in the play.

Fraser Morrison has a Mount Everest to climb and does so with great energy and enthusiasm. It’s an emotional, vocal and physical roll coaster.

The lighting by Tom Hicks is stunning and makes stepping into so many different settings a lot easier with the very limited set that is used.

I did find some of the accents off putting, as I did not know what part of the UK they were from or they were more Australian than British. Having lived in the UK a long time and seen most of the country, it stands out like a sore thumb when they waiver or are a strange amalgamation of several at once. This could have been opening night nerves.

The play runs nearly two hours straight through. I personally felt there should have been an intermission and there are two cliffhanger points where it could have clearly happened. I think this would have let the audience breath a bit more.

Take tissues with you and use the bathroom before the show starts. I think it’s definitely worth seeing.

Cruise runs at the Seymour Centre until October 31st.

To book tickets to Cruise, please visit https://www.seymourcentre.com/event/cruise/.

Photographer: Abraham de Souza

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The Musical That The Australian Musical Theatre Industry Desperately Needed

12/10/2026 Potanoski Papa⭐🔥🎪

Dangerous When Wet: The Musical Rating

★★★★★

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Dangerous When Wet is a fabulous new musical comedy celebrating the friendship and rivalry of local swimmers Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie – Australia’s first female Olympic representatives and winners of Gold and Silver in the 100m freestyle at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

Narrated by Australia’s first Hollywood Superstar, Annette Kellerman, this vaudeville-styled, hilarious and touching show will have you laughing, crying, singing along and rejoicing in Australia’s swimming history.

It was such a joyous experience to be at opening night of this wonderful new musical. Based on a true story, with an all female cast and nearly all female creative team. It was truly an amazing way to celebrate many fabulous female Australian icons. We need more of this!

This has a beautiful score by Joanna Weinberg and had me humming many of the tunes as I left the theatre. It is so refreshing to hear such glorious legit musical theatre singing by all cast members. The melodies and counter melodies with gorgeous harmonies shone through. The music in act two is where this particularly shines and has one showstopper number after the next. Just when you think you’ve heard the best song in the show, the next song comes in to knock your socks off. Hopefully they consider doing an original cast album.

The cast of 8 not only play their respective principal roles but many other smaller parts as well. There was much great strength in stamina by all.

Megan Walshe as Annette Kellerman is an absolute star. The creative team must have thanked all the gods when she auditioned. Excellent comic timing, velvet toned speaking voice and bell like singing voice and oh can she dance. The Olympic song in act two was a highlight of the show. By the way, she also choreographed the show.

Cypriana Singh as Fanny Durack and Grace Trainor as Mina Wylie were perfectly cast in their leading roles. They sounded exquisite when singing individually and together. Their acting was so genuine and heartfelt. I think we will be hearing from both of them a lot in the future.

Jacinta Gregory as Cecil Healy was hilarious from start to finish and it’s exciting to hear a rich female tenor voice. Annerose de Jong as Mrs Mack and Eliane Morel as Rose Scott/Alick Wickham we fantastic comedy duo sparring team in the main and supporting roles. Addy Robertson and Vida Cullen were great support to the rest of the cast.

Darryl Wallis (Musical Director, Arranger and Accompanist) was the one man band for the show, he played beautifully and it fitted the vaudevillian style of the show.

Lyndal Loves costumes for Megan Walshe’s Annette Kellerman were particularly stunning.

I do hope that they get more opportunities to do this again. If the show gets licenced, it would be perfect for many universities and community musical theatre groups to perform.

I look forward to finding out what happens next to Dangerous When Wet the Musical.

To book tickets to Dangerous When Wet: The Musical, please visit https://dangerouswhenwet.com.au/.

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The 80s Are Definitely Back!

26/09/202626/09/2026 Potanoski Papa⭐🔥🎪

Momentum Rating

★★★★★

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Momentum
Produced by JT Performing Arts Company and Sydney Fringe Festival
at Chippin Street Theatre

This is a dance focused piece by a new theatre company and a group of young dancers. It shows a series of vignettes of various themes with some dance solos mixed in between. It has overwhelmingly heavy 1980s influences, in dance style, music and look. Even if some of the songs were written later, they all have 80s call backs. There are four core dancers and three soloists. The four core dancers do work their butts off, as these sections are quite long and relentless.

Before the show started, I was looking through the digital program. It always alarms me when there is so much explanation of a work in the program, this is either a sign of no clear point of view or over intellectualising. I think in this case it was a bit of both.

Chippin Street Theatre needs to replace their speakers. They are both blown out. I would recommend wearing ear loops or eye plugs as the music is at a deafening level the entire time. This is very distracting throughout the show.

The three soloists Jasmine Bowtell, Ashley Miller and Alyssa May really stood out. Yes, they had less to do but they all had clear focus of their intention with what they wanted to say in their solos. Ashley and Alyssa should consider focusing on cabaret dancing as they definitely have the height, extension and look for it. These jobs could help them travel the world with their careers. Jasmine Bowtell would have to be the best dancer of the night with beautiful technique and a natural grasp on raw emotion, that you could tell she was feeling with every fibre of her being. Her first solo was a particular stand out.

Out of the four core dancers there was definitely a difference in ability, which became most apparent in the unison dancing. Sometimes the steps were right, but style was not consistent and clean between the four. I wonder if this was opening night nerves and perhaps this will improve in the run. It is quite a marathon for them. Perhaps shortening the sequences and adding more solos would have helped the pace and stamina.

Out of the four core dancers Mia Ryan really stood out. Her precision with every step made it very clear who dominated the “company” collaboration choreography. My eye was always drawn to her every time she was on stage. I would have liked to have seen more solos by her.

JT Performing Arts Company is a brand new theatre company and this is their first outing. I know a lot of hard work and energy went into producing the show and that is an accomplishment in itself.

Momentum runs until Saturday 26th.

To book tickets to Momentum, please visit https://sydneyfringe.com/events/momentum/.

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