What Did She Think?

What:  Allied Release Date: 26 December Featuring: Marion Cottilard and Brad Pitt Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard Allied  is a World War II Romance of the style we have not seen come out of Hollywood since the middle of the last century. Featuring  Brad Pitt  and  Marion Cotillard , this movie strongly references the 1942 classic  Casablanca . The story is based around two spies - Max Vatan (Pitt) and Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard) - who find themselves working together on an operation in Casablanca and posing as husband and wife. Everything about these opening scenes are unabashedly referential to the 1942 movie, from the cinematography, the colour grading which references film noir, and the second unit cinematography. Lacking subtlety, but highly referential is the dust storm surrounding the spies as they break protocol and have sex because they may die the next day. Pitt and Cotillard also base their characters on  Humphrey Bogart  and  Ingrid Bergman . Unfortunately, Pitt&

What: The Burley Q Club When: 3-17 December  Where: Greyhound Hotel Sina King - photo courtesy of Encore PR The  Burly Q Club  is an exciting new burlesque/dinner theatre experience produced by Miss Burlesque Australia 2011, Sina King. The show is currently being presented at the Greyhound Hotel in St Kilda and is a raunchy and rollicking recap of the fun and feathers of the heyday of American burlesque. Burlesque began in the mid 1800's in Britain as a lower class form of comedy revue. A century later and across the oceans Americans added the art of strip tease to the line up to compete with the emerging movie industry for entertainment dollars. By the 1960's burlesque - or burly Q as is was fondly called - was a dying art form. Dying but not dead yet, a resurgence of burlesque has emerged over the last two decades, the most prominent advocate probably being the luscious  Dita von Teese . Australia has never let burlesque die out completely - probably because of

What: Professor Rosi Braidotti When: 9 December 2016 Where: Victorian College of the Arts Rosi Braidotti - all photos by Samsara One of the great secrets of every university town is the public lectures available to the community. University of Melbourne is a well-spring of current thinking and ideas and they run an ongoing series of free public lectures on everything from the physics of entropy through to the randomness of chance and probability. Last night I attended an incredibly inspiring lecture by world renowned philosopher  Professor Rosi Braidotti . Braidotti is currently a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and is a pioneer in European Women's Studies. Speaking in Federation Hall at the Victorian College of the Arts, Braidotti addressed the question of what it is to be a feminist in a post-human age. Braidotti is an incredibly lively and engaging speaker and it was impossible to not get caught up in her indignation of the past, frustration in t

What: The Tempest When: 2 - 11 December Where: St Kilda Botanical Gardens Written by: William Shakespeare Directed by: Jennifer Sarah Dean Musical Direction by: Ben Adams Choreographed by: Camilla Cream Performed by: Madeline Dunkley, Carly Ellis, Andrew Isles, May Jasper, Khisraw Jones, Victoria Mantynen, Jonathan Peck, Hunter Perske, Emma Louise Pursey, Mitch Ralston, John Reed, Paul Robertson, Charles Sturgeon, Jessica Tanner, and Lara Vocisano, Costumes by: Rhiannon Irving Stage Managed by: Gin Rosse Photo courtesy of Melbourne Shakespeare Company Summer fun with garden productions of Shakespeare has begun and the newest company in the line up, Melbourne Shakespeare Company, are kicking off the season with a laugh packed romp through The Tempest. Hidden away in the beautiful St Kilda Botanical Gardens the shipwrecked souls from Milan sing and swig and bemuse and beguile their way through an hour and a half of enchantment and intrigue. Watching this production was t

What: Mr Phase When: 1-3 December Where: La Mama Theatre Written by: Christopher Brown Performed by: Christopher Brown and Solomon Brown Mr Phase 2002 - photo by Tao Weis Mr Phase is showing at La Mama Theatre as part of their current Explorations series. You may have a dim memory of this work prodding at your brain and you would be right to think you have seen it before - or a version of it at least. Christopher Brown first developed Mr Phase in 2002 with the Next Wave Festival and then presented it in 2003 as part of the Melbourne International Festival. Over a decade later he has decided the world has shifted enough to bring Mr Phase out of the closet and take another MRI for a health check. The Explorations platform at La Mama is not about finished work. It is about artists developing ideas and exploring concepts and showcasing work which they may go on to sculpt into fully formed performances. You might think this is not the right place for a pre-existing work,

What: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name Where: The Owl and Cat Theatre When: 28 November - 16 December Written by: Thomas Ian Doyle Directed by: Sarah Vickery Performed by: Toby Rice, Gabrielle Savrone, and Fiona Scarlett Fiona Scarlett and Toby Rice - photo courtesy of The Owl and Cat Theatre The Love That Dare Not Speak It's Name is Doyle's latest project and is the first of a series of three planned presentations which form 'The Upstairs Trilogy'. It is the beginning of something like a theatrical mini series and as with all good 'first episodes', this one is engaging, intriguing and left me eager to see part two. The Owl and Cat is an intimate theatre - not unusual in Melbourne. What is unusual is that the creatives truly understand what this means for the theatre which is presented in that building. Not only that, but this depth of understanding means that they have been able to utilize and understand the spaces available thro