33 stories by "James Jackson"
There are two things that will survive the apocalypse: cockroaches and Cirque du Soleil. Such is its enduring legacy and its prevalence as a flagship for all things circus. The Grand Chapite…
Hotel Now is quite a daring ensemble. Since 2013 the company has been making political performance that can only really be given the appellation of "wild." They dance along the boundaries of…
Fluorophone is a configuration of light and sound. It is a marrying of percussion and unusual, non-traditional mediums. Strictly speaking, Fluorophone involves a percussion ensemble (Speak P…
Witness me performing acrobatics (back and forth, back and forth) as I try to come to terms with Animal created by Susie Dee, Kate Sherman and Nicci Wilks. Animal began its development six y…
There's something exquisite about entering the Trades Hall to see LadyCake. It's the slight vertigo that derives from crossing the threshold of time: walking up that darkly lit stairwell wit…
There's an extraordinary depth to Will Eno's Middletown, from the work's ability to transcend the mundane aspects of everyday life and reach the lofty heights of our galaxy to its disarming …
Positioned somewhere between the existential philosophy of Samuel Beckett and the comedic tropes of Monty Python, Give Me Your Love is an uncanny exploration of post traumatic stress disorde…
Sometimes there is a work that is so refreshingly provoking that is leaves you in a state of euphoria. This is precisely what happened with Nicola Gunn/SANS HOTEL's latest work, Piece for Pe…
Sad Digger Mad Mary is a hilarious piece that treads the fine line between comedy and tragedy. Performed by superstar Tom Halls, it has you laughing one minute and seriously re-thinking your…
Tender Napalm, written by Philip Ridley, is a surreal story about a couple trapped in a fictional cosmos that they themselves have created. It's a twisted battle of the sexes, played out thr…
Choreographed by Jo Lloyd, Confusion for Three highlights the varying degrees of confusion, misinterpretation and delusions that arise from the act of communication. The North Melbourne Town…
Ahilan Ratnamohan's SDS1 blurs the boundary between dance and physical theatre by incorporating his skills as a professional footballer. The first thing that we notice as we are ushered into…
Written and performed by James McCaughey, Conversations with the Gods about their Deaths & Other Matters (Part I) is a series of stylish (and somewhat bizarre) monologues based around ou…
The Exonerated examines the journey of five individuals wrongly sentenced to death in the USA. Walking into the freezing Loft space at Chapel off Chapel, we encounter a dimly lit set clutter…
Written by the agitprop and comedic mastermind Dario Fo, Johan Padan and the Discovery of the Americas is Hoy Polloy and Terra Incognita's re-telling of the Christopher Columbus voyage. The …
Presented by MKA in Melba Spiegeltent, Being Dead (Don Quixote) is an exploration of being a woman and what it is to forge your own identity in a masculine world. The set is relatively bare …
The Fastest Clock in the Universe, by UK writer (and perfomer, painter, photographer and director) Philip Ridley, is an exploration of beauty and the cost that comes from obsessive narcissis…
Written by Australian playwright Lachlan Philpott, The Trouble with Harry is a story about Harry Crawford, who was made famous after it was discovered that he was born female. It's set withi…
Awkward Conversations with Animals I've Fucked sums up the work in its entirety. The work presents various scenes with different animals, in which Bobby (Heath Ivey-Law) holds awkward post-c…
The Dream is Bell Shakespeare's reworking (or should one say reawakening) of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Set in what looks like the interior of a decomposed ship, the work is pl…
Post-Post is a surreal comedy. A mixture of slapstick gags (sometimes cringe-worthy), puns and boundless energy from creators-performers Harley Hefford and Carly Milroy. We're sitting in a c…
Performed at The Substation, one of Melbourne's most exciting theatre venues right now, Just Us is an interactive and immersive promenade work that explores Australia's justice system. In a …
Panic is a dramatisation of a short story written by Japanese novelist KÅbÅ Abe. It is a powerful, highly physical work that fuses strong action with a great text and narrative. The st…
Quills is a fleshy tour de force about art, morality and sex. Written by Doug Wright, Quills follows the tale of the pornographer/moralist/artist Marquis de Sade and his final years in Chare…
In the intimate space at The Butterfly Club, Nailed it! is cabaret about life, love, love lost and when you really aren't "nailing it." With lyrics by Andrew Strano and music by Loclan Macke…
