Panti: High Heels in Low Places review

Drag artist Panti Bliss rose to prominence in 2014 after her speech about homophobia went viral, where even the Pet Shop Boy remixed her impassioned words into a song. As part of this year's Midsumma Festival, Panti's High Heels in Low Places is the opportunity for Melbourne audiences to be personaly regaled by The Queen of Ireland's stories, experiences and thoughts.

Panti has an innate ability in creating a welcoming, open and safe atmosphere in the room as she walks into the audience, introducing herself to various people, and on the evening I attended, actually meeting one of her cousins for the first time!

Made In China review

You wouldn't expect the seedy underworld of Dublin to have much in common with martial arts, but in Mark O'Rowe's dark comedy, Made In China, these two worlds collide for three men, who are all facing their own power struggle with each other and gang politics. One wants to get out, one wants to get in and the other one want to remain on top.

Unfortunately, the story moves at an incredibly slow pace, with nothing happening until roughly the final 20 minutes of this two-hour play. Even when the plot reaches its climax, it still feels drawn out and lacks any suspense. There is minimal character development, which has these people come across as monotonous beings. Even by the end of the show, there is very little that has actually changed for these people in the greater scheme of things. 

High up in the gang food chain, Kirby (Stuart Jeanfield) is such a weird character that his menace and aggressiveness is farcical, and not in a good way. In fact, I found a lot of the humour in this to be quite a miss, particular the cringe inducing sexual overtone scenes with Kirby and his Nik Naks crisps. Hughie (Vaughn Rae) is more or less a passive pawn in his power struggle with Kirby from beginning to end. Damien Harrison as Paddy is fortunate enough to play a character that at least gets to go on an emotional journey and is somewhat changed by the end of the proceedings, even if the way it occurs seems forced.

In Search of Owen Roe review

In Search of Owen Roe is a story that begins from nothing. It is about Vanessa O'Neill's journey to discovering who her great-grandfather, Owen Roe, was. From a patch of grass on an unmarked grave in which he is buried under, O'Neill captivates us with her rich family history as she slowly begins to unravel the mystery of her great-grandfather.

O'Neill, is a wonderful storyteller and her ability to interweave various time spans into the show and play a variety of characters is quite masterful. Her use of some subtle but effective props strengthen the performance, especially Annie Edney's creation of O'Neill's family tree and the map of Ireland. It was extremely beneficial as an audience member to have these guides to refer to intermittently, to keep us grounded with all the characters and time periods.

I feel more emphasis was needed on Owen Roe himself however, as at times it felt like the story went off on a tangent. As touching and emotive as it was to hear about O'Neill's father's battle with Alzheimers, it was not what I ultimately wanted to learn about, as it did not do much to further Owen Roe's story. My attention was all on Roe and some refinement to ensure that he remains the focal point of In Search of Owen Roe is necessary.