I saw ‘Howie the Rookie’ at the Old Fitz in 2014 and I thought it was the most accomplished acting that I could remember seeing..I was delighted that Sean Hawkins and Andrew Henry together won best actor ( Independent Theatre awards) that year.

When the return season was announced I was thrilled and I was not disappointed when I saw the play last week. The play is beautifully written and follows the exploits of two young Irish rogues. Both Andrew and Sean are mesmerising, captivating and brilliant. It is the most entertaining eighty minute of theatre possible, utterly delicious, and I am actually going to see it again because knowing the plot  increases the enjoyment of witnessing such skilled performance.

If you see very little theatre or no theatre..do not miss this one!

The latest Late Show at the Old Fitzroy hotel is Kayak, featuring fabulous actors Francesca Savige, Matilda Ridgeway and Matthew Cheetham and directed by Adam Cook. This line up alone would direct anyone with a vague interest in theatre to the play, since these folk never feature in sub-par productions. They are spectacularly up to par, with acting performances that are funny, tragic and very nuanced, vital for a play that has such a swift narrative. The scenes are short but enormous amounts of detail are conveyed about the characters and their backstories. This play is pure entertainment!

We are so lucky to be able to see shows with such talented, sought after performers and directors simply because they are passionate about doing small shows and enabling audiences without big budgets to be entertained. This play is only on for one week at my favourite independent theatre venue.  Do not miss it !

There is a new and very welcome addition to Sydney’s independent theatre scene..Kings Cross Theatre. It is situated on the second floor of the Kings Cross Hotel, right opposite the iconic coca cola sign. The space is excellent with two facing, well raked banks of seats.

This play is a triumph and credit must go to the director Richard Hillar. Richard has been reviewed by me previously and last night’s event only secures further my comment that if he is associated with a play, it will be good.

The play, ‘Year Of The Family’ is by well known English playwright Anthony Neilson, and it is terrific. The action is swift,interesting and creates very dynamic scenes and plot twists.The play is a series of ‘vignettes’ where various characters interact and this requires constant movement whilst maintaining a sense of timelessness on stage.The direction really hits the mark, and without any significant sets and very simple props. This is true creativity!

In order to engage the audience whilst the plot pieces have not yet fitted together, the ensemble cast must really perform flawlessly…and they do. I have seen most of these actors in previous independent play, often in a Hilliar play, and they rise to the challenge . Brendan Miles, Brooke Ryan, Nicole Wineberg, David Woodland and Peter-William Jamieson all bring humour and poignancy to their characters.

I am so thrilled that there is another venue for me to see independent productions and I hope that Sydney will get behind these places and ensure their success!!

It is only February but already the new play at the old Fitz is going to be one of the best plays for 2016 .It is a play of epic dimensions even though it is set in a tiny apartment in small town USA. This production brings out all the layers of the story exquisitely.

The Whale in this play is three characters- the whale of Moby Dick, the whale of Jonah fame and an extremely overweight gentleman.

As the play opens a man is offering critiques for literary essays online to students. He is morbidly obese and he is short of breath. There is an immediate chasm between this man’s capable brain and a body that has been almost destroyed.The story that follows has several interesting and interwoven plot lines and the audience eventually can piece all the back stories together. There is alot of humour in the lines, and the audience cannot help but laugh but there is an ever present undercurrent of sadness so that all emotions get a work out!

It is an American play and the cast have mastered their accents so well that when I spoke to some of the cast afterwards it seemed surprising that they were not actually American. The acting is truly breathtaking. Some of the performers are very well known to Sydney audiences, such as Keith Aguis ( Bell Shakespeare etc) and Meredith Penman ( STC etc) and some relative newcomers, such as Chloe Bayliss  but these and the other cast members Alex Beauman and Hannah Waterman are all wonderful.

I do not normally comment on the production values but this play has been so carefully thought through and some touches- such as making the performance area smaller by actually building a bank of seats works exceptionally well.

As a youngster I used to watch Countdown, and Mollie would often exhort the audience at home to “do (themselves) a favour” and attend a concert/buy an album. Well do yourselves a big favour: see The Whale before it closes!

It is Sydney Festival and I have twenty ticketed events over the nineteen days…This only left one free evening and I used it to see Masterclass 2, the sequel to last year’s eloquent creative and very funny play. The two actors, Charlie Garber and Gareth Davies wrote this piece and it is even more funny and creative than their original play, which was very successful in 2015

The original play is summarised at the beginning so it does not matter if the first Masterclass was missed in 2015. I do not want to  summarise the plot because it unfolds deliciously. These two actors are inspired in this piece and the result is a very captivating hour of theatre.

The Old Fitz is off to a great start!

As a theatre lover living close to the city, I would have little reason to visit the Hills District of Sydney were it not for the annual summer season of Sport for Jove at Bella Vista, in Baulkham Hills. The director of this Shakespeare company is Damian Ryan and he is keen to bring quality theatre to areas of Sydney which do not have theatre venues. Even if you live far from Baulkham Hills I cannot recommend this venue highly enough. There is a beautiful and highly sophisticated stage in front of a grassy park where the audience can picnic before and during the show and the atmosphere is magical.

The current season is showing Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Importance Of Being Ernest. Last night I saw the former on opening night and it is really spectacular. LLL is a difficult wordy play which is almost never seen in Australia because of the denseness of text and character difficulties. It requires a extremely talented person to fashion this play into a convincing entertaining and dynamic modern play. Damian Ryan is that person and there is a groundswell of opinion that he is our modern Shakespeare, so beautifully does he mould the original work into an authentic new work. He blends his new twenty first century ideas flawlessly with Shakespeare’s concepts. It is breathtaking.

This play is creatively directed, beautifully acted, elegantly lit, and the costumes are all mini masterpieces. To be able to watch this world class theatre in our own back yard is a huge privilege. If there are any tickets left, snap them up for a memorable night.

The Old Fitz has been my favourite independent theatre venue from the moment that theatre management was taken over by Red Line. This company of three has brought the most amazing year of theatre to Sydney- some revivals, some Australian premiers and some Sydney premiers. We Sydney-siders are lucky to have Red Line curating and mentoring productions and bringing Australia’s best acting talent so creatively and inexpensively to us. I can recommend any play at The Old Fitz even in advance of seeing it myself because every production is guaranteed to have quality of direction  and performance.

Dropped is the last play for 2015 and does not let the venue down. The two actors, Olivia Rose and Deborah Galanos are both seasoned performers, and I knew that they would create wonderful performances before they started speaking…the play opens with a very long period of silence, which gradually increases the tension between the actors and the audience .  This is a tremendous device which can only be utilised by very capable actors, and the scene which followed was indeed entertaining confronting and memorable. Of course the director, Anthony Skuse, is a grand master of theatre, and he makes the most of this beautifully written play. This is another winner for the Old Fitz… so do not miss it!

The Griffin does not often show musicals, but this one is a real treat. It is a musical fantasy with Keith Richards front and centre and gives a highly entertaining and musically rewarding ‘expose’ of the adventures experienced by the legendary guitarist during his years of drug use. The prose is beautifully written with many double entendres. Keith is played by Terry Serio, an accomplished musician and composer who really has the Keith look and accent down beautifully. He has composed a song which fits perfectly into the show. The supporting cast, playing band members and a multitude of other characters are Branden Christine, whom I last saw playing Penelope at The Tap, Lenore Munro, who is WAAPA trained and has done a lot of theatre including Shakespeare, Dorje Swallow NIDA trained and visible on television, film and theatre ( As You Like It for Bell this year) and Abe Mitchell who has an equally impressive and broad list of credits. The cast is wonderful, able to affect a multitude of accents, sing and play a variety of instruments. Lenore is also an accomplished dancer. To see a production where the performers do not need to be miked is quite refreshing, and this added to my enjoyment. I have to admit that watching Abe strut and sing  as Mick for a few ‘covers’ was the most delicious pleasure of all. The season is over fairly soon, try not to miss this production

The Old Fitz theatre created the late show- usually around 9:30 to enable more productions into the theatre, and particularly shorter works or new scripts.

The current late show, directed by Red Line’s Andrew Henry is a wonderful piece of theatre which would past muster in any main stage season.’A Girl with Sun in her Eyes’ is a dark, cop thriller set in the U.S. which is tremendously entertaining but also a deceptively well engineered play which ultimately fits together beautifully.The tension is maintained throughout, and the scene changes are handled quite creatively with characters continuing to interact as they move furniture.  At the helm is the tremendously talented Jeremy Waters. We are so lucky as Sydney siders that he works in our city. No-one who enjoys theatre should miss one of his performances. The other actors are all convincing and well cast. The accents are all effortless as would be expected from an Andrew Henry directed play.

Before the show I also recommend the Fitz restaurant which serves good quality pub food. The chef is also extremely accommodating and creative with food allergies/preferences- we always love his food.

Tom Holloway is perhaps my favourite playwright. I have seen many of his plays- fortunately he has written about ten and have found the delicacy of his writing quite spellbinding in all his work. I longed for this production to come to The Old Fitz and booked my tickets months ago.Tom Holloway was asked to write a short play in response to a play called Sea Wall by well known English dramatist Simon Stephens. It was brought to Sydney by a Melbourne company called Red Stitch. I was not disappointed.

The play takes two halves; companion monologues about an English woman traveling to Australia (performed by Rosie Lockhart) and an Irish man living in England (Ben Prendergast). The acting is beautiful and the stories are crafted so well that the full story becomes very slowly apparent- like a light being slowly turned up in a room until everything is clear. There is a lovely extra dimension given to the production by a series of projections and the lighting is marvellous.

The play runs for an hour but I would have loved two hours of these glorious performers…do not miss this one!