2026: Bette and Joan by Anton Burge

 

 

 Bette and Joan by Anton Burge.  Ensemble Theatre, Sydney  March 20 – April 25  2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 27

Cast
Jeanette Cronin as Bette Davis
Lucia Mastrantone as Joan Crawford

Creatives
Director: Liesel Badorrek; Assistant Director: Jessica Fallico
Set & Costume Designer: Grace Deacon
Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee
Composer & Sound Designer: Ross Johnston
Video Designer: Cameron Smith
Stage Manager: Krystelle Quartermain
Assistant Stage Manager: Lara Kyriazis



It’s my habit, as a reviewer, when seeing a play new to me, to not read too much about the play, and especially not to read reviews, even of previous productions, so that I can respond on the night with the immediate feelings and thoughts that arise without being influenced beforehand.

In the case of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, whose lifetimes closely matched my parents’ who were not often film-goers, I think I never saw any of the Hollywood movies which made Bette and Joan famous, though I certainly recall their names from my younger days.  But I was never aware of the feud between them.

As I expected at Ensemble Theatre, I appreciated very much the acting skills of both Jeanette and Lucia, clearly directed precisely in creating every detail of facial expression, voice and physical action that the playscript required; and the original use of video brought to mind visually the questions the characters talk of – about acting and knowing the difference between reality and fiction.

Yet I felt there was something missing.  I got the picture, so to speak, but I found myself at Intermission hoping for something in the second half which would reveal what the playwright’s purpose would be beyond showing us these two women battling away at each other.

There were a few hints in second half when they were older, in 1962, looking back on their film-making experiences in the 1930s, 40s and 50s but nothing definite enough to make me like either of them, or to feel more empathetic towards them as personalities, apart from sympathy for the social issue of the treatment of women compared to men.

So, after the show, I wondered if I should find out whether other reviewers had doubts like mine.

Lyn Gardner in The Guardian in 2011 made this comment about the original West End production that year: But this kitsch play is not trying to be more than it is, and [Greta] Scacchi and [Anita] Dobson carry it with an alluringly wicked twinkle in their eyes...and  it is only a pity there is not more excavation of the emotional pain felt by these two icons, whose public success was matched by private disasters.
[ https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/may/12/bette-and-joan-review ]

Anton Burge wrote the script which is littered with references to Bette and Joan’s shows. I would have liked to see more of a resolution at the end was a comment in a review of the Brighton Little Theatre production in 2024. 
[ https://rozscott.com/bette-and-joan-by-anton-burge ] 

So, though Jeanette Cronin as Bette Davis and Lucia Mastrantone as Joan Crawford surely gave as good as those acting in the play’s first presentation, and despite Anton Burge’s claim (in the Ensemble’s program notes) that it was never my intention to create merely a catalogue of anecdotes, I find I’m not the only one to want a bit more of a resolution and excavation of the emotional pain.

Maybe, if it’s not there word for word in Burge’s script, then, as director, Liesel Badorrek could indulge in a bit of poetic licence to make it happen.

But don’t let my quibbles stop you from seeing Bette and Joan, because Jeanette and Lucia give stunning performances.


©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Irony Done Here - Shortis and Simpson

 

 

Irony Done Here, by Shortis and Simpson, at Smith’s Alternative, Canberra Sat/Sun March 21/22, 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 22 3pm

John Shortis and Moya Simpson have been creating a range of shows for the past 30 years.  Irony Done Here, the title derived with their nice sense of humour from a Bungendore neighbour’s “Ironing Done Here” is just typical.

Amusing word play is central to their satire, to which they add what I call song play.  Moya can turn our expectations on our heads.  I won’t forget her American Country and Western songs about the nature of love.

Despite this seeming to be their swansong, John is unable to put the keys away, and promises he is already writing a new show – an epilogue, say?

I began my review of their first show together as follows:

Shortis & Curlies John Shortis, Moya Simpson, Andrew Bissett at The School of Arts Cafe, 108 Monaro Street, Queanbeyan.  Season: Thursdays to Saturdays till June 29, 1996.  Bookings: Phone 297 6857.  Professional.

If you are a Liberal politician confident that cutting government spending is the only way to go; or a Labour politician feeling sorry for yourself after 100 days of the new [John Howard] regime; or a veterinary surgeon operating out of Woden Valley; or someone who thinks that a national gun register is not a good idea; or Princess Diana; or Jeff Kennett; or even a frozen embryo who hopes to inherit your dead father's estate: then you shouldn't see this show because you probably won't laugh.

Their, possibly, last show is a selected history of 30 years in 90 minutes, including, to use their term, ‘human’ songs as well as their iconic political satires, showing their always engaging range of lyric writing, music composing, and song making in action, which is not always about subtle ironies in our lives.  Empathetic celebration has its place on the right occasion.

They managed this even for our first Prime Minister, Edmund Barton, whose pay was so low, he had to live cheaply, more or less in his office.

But I think the best bit of irony done here is that, among the prime ministers with the least sense of humour and appreciation of satire, Tony Abbott provided the best title for one of Shortis & Simpson’s previous shows and which I now designate as the title revealing the guts of Irony Done Here – A Suppository of Wisdom.

The show is wise because it reveals the truth through incisive humour.  It is a measure of both John’s and Moya’s art and intelligence – for which the audience at the conclusion of the 3pm show on Sunday spontaneously thanked them personally.

At https://shortisandsimpson.com/about-us/ they have provided brief notes about their histories, and quotes from many reviews.  I was pleased  to see one of my own, on a projection of a past advertising poster, for The Three Scrooges - Comedy Christmas Cabaret, at The Street Theatre in 2005:

 “,,,this is a terrible show.  It’s funny, for a start.  Even worse, it’s satirical.” 

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: The Dear Departed - Live Radio Play. Mill Theatre

 

 

The Dear Departed: Live Radio Play originally by Stanley Houghton, adapted for radio by Bart Meehan,  Mill Theatre, Dairy Road, Canberra March 20-28 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 20

Cast
Andrea Close: Amelia Slater; Sarah Hartley: Victoria Slater (20-21 March)
Aleksis Andreitchenko: Victoria Slater (27-28 March)
Richard Manning: Henry Slater  
Helen McFarlane: Elizabeth Jordan; Timmy Sekuless: Ben Jordan 
Graeme Rhodes: Host and Abel Merryweather 

Production Team
Playwright: Stanley Houghton
Adapted by Bart Meehan and Lexi Sekuless
Director: Lexi Sekuless
Stage Manager: Ciara Ford

Mill Theatre shows itself in a new light – light entertainment in a Live Radio Play, saying This production revives the tradition from the 1930s to the 1950s, inviting you to watch the mechanics of storytelling in real time: actors at microphones, sound effects created live, music underscoring the action — and a brand-new recording captured every night. It’s theatre, radio, and time travel all at once.

But I have some doubts, not about the performances but about the purpose of choosing this playscript and what might have been done to make this clear to the audience.

William Stanley Houghton (1881–1913) was an English playwright who wrote the original play for the stage in 1908.  The Dear Departed was amusing in its day, and remained popular, being adapted to fit within the history of BBC Radio Theatre's exploration of social issues and comedy, and broadcast on a number of occasions, in different adaptations, through the 1970s.

But in this local Canberra adaptation by ANU’s Bart Meehan and Lexi Sekuless, playing the Slater and Jordan families as old-fashioned English toffs, for we colonials to denigrate, actually loses part of the point of the play that Houghton wrote.

He was writing in parallel to the more famous (and much more substantial playwright) George Bernard Shaw who had recently written How He Lied to Her Husband and Major Barbara in 1905.  Houghton, like Shaw, was keen on presenting ordinary – i.e. working class – people while raising difficult issues, like family inheritance, in The Dear Departed.

The UK Wimbourne Drama Club, for their recent stage production, have pointed out that Houghton was a leading figure of the Manchester School of dramatists, but have published an un-named reviewer saying “Apparently rewritten to make it adaptable to any locale, Stanley Houghton’s well-known comedy, ‘The Dear Departed’, retained all the humorous situations but the dialogue – from the North Country idiom, and dialect – lost much of its impact.”
https://wimbornedramaproductions.com/productions/past/the-dear-departed/

Though I could easily laugh along last night, making fun of the English upper class made for too easily predictable jokes – including how obvious it was that Grandpa would rise from the ‘dead’ – while I can imagine doing it in Beatles’ accents (although they were from Liverpool, not Manchester), and emphasising the awfulness of the daughters’ attitudes towards their struggling working class drunkard father.  Then the laughter has a black edge which applies to us all.

I rather like to think that Shaw saw The Dear Departed, and then wrote Pygmalion (1913)  - which, of course, then was made lighter (but still funny) as a musical in My Fair Lady.

So Mill Theatre has done the good thing by going a bit off the beaten track, but I think the entertainment might have been a bit less light.

As I said, though, the performances were excellent, with changing voice modes and noises off all cleverly done.  I once saw a video of The Goon Show being live broadcast, with Peter Sellers making it even funnier for his acting colleagues in the studio,  as well as for the listeners.

The Dear Departed – Live Radio Play works very well, and you should focus especially on the Radio Presenter Graeme Rhodes, and his amazing transition into Abel Merryweather.

Highly recommended. 

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026: Almost, Maine by John Cariani

 

 

Almost, Maine by John Cariani.  Mockingbird Theatre Company at Belconnen Arts Centre March 18 – 28, 2026.

Reviewed by Frank McKone
March 19

Cast
The production features a four-person ensemble cast portraying multiple roles: 
Alexander Wilson - Pete / Steve / Lendall / Chad / Man
Wendy Wakwella – Ginette / Sandrine / Gayle / Deena / Suzette / Rhonda
Jayde Dowhy – Glory / Waitress / Marvalyn / Shelly / Marci / Hope 
Alastair McKenzie – East / Jimmy / Randy / Phil / Dave
    
Creatives
Director: Zac Bridgman; Assistant Director: Anna Hemming
Artistic Director/Producer: Chris Baldock 
Set Design: Chris Baldock
Lighting and Sound Design: Rhiley Winnett and Zac Bridgman
Costumes and Props: Cast and Crew
Sound and Lighting Operator and Stage Manager: Rhiley Winnett
Projections: Chris Baldock
Intimacy Coordinator: Steph Evans


Good plays – and that means good performances of well-written scripts – are the hardest to write about, because what is most praiseworthy is how they directly create your emotional responses as you are watching.  It’s like listening to good music.  You don’t need to explain how you feel.

Achieving this depends on originality of design and human understanding in directing, so that actors can find fine detail in their characters and in their reactions to each other in role.

This witty American script consisting of nine unrelated short stories could easily become just enjoyably funny skits about falling in or out of love, set for no apparent reason in a small country town in Maine, north-east USA.

This presentation is so well designed, directed and acted that though the scenes are humorous, they work to create a multi-faceted image of Love, as if it were a large diamond which sparkles in different colours in different lights from different angles.  A very satisfying experience for any viewer, especially when the Prologue scene, which seemed somehow unfinished at the time, is referenced – a bit mysteriously – as an Interlogue at interval; and neatly – I could say nicely – resolved in the Epilogue at the end.

Almost, Maine is very much an American play, and it was a sensible decision to train the actors to be able to speak not only in the correct accents but in a somewhat exaggerated style which is a true feature of that culture.  All the way up to the one-time reality television host who is now President.

When John Cariani wrote Almost, Maine in 2002 he may not have thought a quarter of a century later an Australian like me would see some aspects of the play as satire about American love for their president.  Perhaps I’m going too far – but see this excellent Mockingbird Production and see what you think.

©Frank McKone, Canberra

2026 My Brilliant Career - Melbourne Theatre Company

 

 

 My Brilliant Career, adapted as a musical from the novel by Miles Franklin.  Melbourne Theatre Company at Canberra Theatre Centre, 7 – 15 March, 2026

Reviewed by Frank McKone
Opening Night March 8

CREATIVES
Director Anne-Louise Sarks
Musical Director / Additional Music Arrangements Victoria Falconer
Choreographer Amy Campbell
Set & Costume Designer Marg Horwell
Lighting Designer Matt Scott
Orchestrator / Vocal Arranger James Simpson
Sound Designer Joy Weng
Associate Director Miranda Middleton
Associate Set & Costume Designer Savanna Wegman
Assistant Musical Director Drew Livingston

CAST (alphabetical order – Collective Ensemble)
Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward; Melanie Bird; Lincoln Elliott
Victoria Falconer; Kala Gare; Jack Green; Raj Labade; Drew Livingston
Meg McKibbin; Ana Mitsikas; Christina O’Neill; Jarrad Payne

Key acting roles:
Kala Gare as the protagonist Sybylla Melvyn. The ensemble includes Raj Labade (Harry/Peter), Drew Livingston (Father/Uncle Jay-Jay/M’Swat), Ana Mitsikas (Grannie/Rose Jane), and Christina O'Neill (Mother/Aunt Helen/Mrs M'Swat)


The very best theatre happens when the source material is emotionally honest and the writers, directors, designers, choreographers, musicians and actors create an original way to present on stage a work both thoroughly entertaining and true to its source.

This adaptation of Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career as music theatre by Melbourne Theatre Company is a wonderful example.  It takes Franklin’s understanding of herself as a woman growing up in 1899, making it available for our young generation in the 21st Century through music, song and dance as the story which Sybylla Melvyn tells us is “about – me!”

In this way, Sybylla – in effect the young Miles Franklin – takes us into her confidence.  As her mother shows her, to see herself in a mirror is to see her external attributes; but it does not reveal her real self.  

Entirely appropriately for our modern concerns about, for example, the destructive effects – especially in girls and young women – of the misuse of imagery on internet social platforms, Sybylla’s search for how to find and, for herself, how to become “someone like me” – very often generating shout out loud comedy – creates for us empathetic depth.  We feel for Sybylla, for Miles, for ourselves as we react to and reflect on their experiences, and so by a kind of osmosis understanding grows.

While writing the original My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin was what we know nowadays as a young adult, just turning 21 as her first novel was published.  Opening night at the musical was full of cheers and whistles, and sighs – not only from the young, though I admit as an octogenarian I only clapped in admiration – standing with everyone for the final ovation.  

To achieve such great theatre, all the performers work as an extraordinary ensemble company, playing out all the characters over time as musicians, dancers, singers, mimes and actors with such precision, in itself a powerful reason to not miss My Brilliant Career – the Musical.

Though, as Sybylla insists, her story will not be a romance, and has no plot, I think it is fair to say that the performances by Kala Gare and Raj Labade as Sybylla and Harry are especially memorable.

It’s exciting to watch; ironic humour abounds; thoughtful on social issues; and emotionally honest.

A brilliant career for Melbourne Theatre Company; a brilliant theatre experience here in Canberra.

Kala Gare as Sybylla 
My Brilliant Career - Melbourne Theatre Company 2026

©Frank McKone, Canberra