Author: Jack Bengough

★★★★☆ Melbourne Shakespeare Company returns to fortyfivedownstairs with Cleopatra & Antony, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s historical tragedy by Sonya Suares. Serving as an abridged retelling of the original, Cleopatra & Antony explores the roles the title characters play in both the text and in history. But viewers might find it doesn’t go far enough…

★★★★☆ On Wednesday night, Bloomshed opened a new season of Animal Farm, based on the novella by George Orwell, at Melbourne Arts Centre’s Fairfax Studio. Presenting at first blush as a bombastic, comedic take on the literary classic, Animal Farm manages to deliver a surprisingly potent message on our current times. Bloomshed is…

★★★★☆ The Melbourne Shakespeare Company continues its 2026 season with a production of Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Gary Abrahams, Eurydice is a compelling reinterpretation of the Greek myth thanks to its beautiful production design, impressive use of live music and stellar performances. In the original myth, Eurydice, as a character,…

Theatre Works St Kilda continues its packed 2026 season with Lazarus, written by John Harding and directed by Kamarra Bell-Wykes. A powerful and inspiring retelling of the life of Taungurung elder Larry Walsh, Lazarus remains an impressive production despite a few opening-night glitches. At the start of the night, the audience…

★★★½ Clockwork Possum Productions makes a confident debut with The Last Parma Night, now playing at Chapel Off Chapel in Prahran. Written by Max Meaden and directed by Will Nash, the production balances pub humour with heartfelt reflection in an ambitious original work. The Last Parma Night is about a group…

The Theatre Works Explosives Factory is an odd little venue tucked away in a laneway behind Inkerman Street in St Kilda. Walking into the venue, you are sent straight up a set of stairs that leads directly to a ticketing desk at the top. Through the doorway on the left,…

Australian Shakespeare Company’s Summer Season in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens continues with its production of Twelfth Night. Much of the same creative team from the company’s previous show, Peter Quince Presents Shakespeare’s Best Bits, returns for this production. With Glenn Elston directing, that show’s cast further flexes their comedic chops with the…

The Australian Shakespeare Company has begun their 2026 season with a bang thanks to the hilarious Peter Quince Presents Shakespeare’s Best Bits at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. Directed by veteran Glenn Elston, this tongue-in-cheek compilation of a multitude of Shakespeare’s works is a great night for friends and family to…

This December, Melbourne Shakespeare Company brings its production of As You Like It to the rose garden in St Kilda Botanical Gardens. With a short run time and several jukebox musical numbers, this production has a clear aim to be accessible for younger audiences and those unfamiliar with Shakespeare. While still maintaining…

The opening night of Melbourne Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing was a night of glamorous spectacle. A full house packed into the Sumner Theatre to witness the latest offering from the state’s premier theatre company. The comedy at the centre of Much Ado About Nothing is very farcical and melodramatic, but director…

Local hotbed for independent theatre, The Motley Bauhaus, this week brings us Crows from The Persona Collective. Written by Robert Lewis and Ryan Enniss, and directed by Callum Bodman, Crows presents a tale of eight Melbournians whose lives interweave with each other in unexpected ways. Entering the theatre at the back of the Motely…

Local theatre troupe Scary Goats Theatre are back with The Last Song, running as part of this year’s Melbourne Fringe. The Last Song is an original story written by Chloe Towan and directed by Patrick Slee, which sees two high school friends reunite after ten years apart as the world is faced with an…

What happens when you strip Shakespeare’s Othello down to just ninety minutes and five actors? Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s bold new staging at fortyfivedownstairs shows us, and the result is as unsettling as it is compelling. A pretty significant adjustment like this naturally means that a lot of content from the…

Scary Goats Theatre is a small Melbourne-based troupe that has been slowly building momentum over the last four years. This week at The Motley Bauhaus they have opened their third season of A Twist of Fate, a horror anthology of sorts inspired by the likes of Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone. A Twist…

George Orwell’s novel, 1984, is considered a seminal work of 20th-century fiction, and since its publication in 1949, has been adapted and reinterpreted countless times. Shake & Stir Theatre Company, who are no strangers to adapting works of fiction, have remounted this literary classic with a season at the Comedy Theatre…