
Contemporary twists and turns, with music you know you know, however treated in their particular manner, with these particular musicians, these timeless favourites are reinvented again.

Confessions of a Control Freak is quite a big bit of fun and does what good theatre does best – makes the audience feel a little bit less alone in their struggle to control their lives.

The piece is like a smorgasbord of sound and rhythm, a twenty-four course meal full of the savoury and the dulcet, and let’s not forget, one roast swan and plenty of drink. It’s varied, rhythmic, melodic, playful and dramatic.

There are flaws – American accents slip, actors overreach and lines fall flat – but, taken on its own terms, Other Desert Cities is smoothly crafted and deeply evocative theatre.

A long stretch of beach. A man and his son living in a humpy, keeping out of sight from the townsfolk. Nets to be mended. A wife and mother recently passed away. Three orphaned pelicans.

Christa Hughes took one of the most eclectic audiences I’ve ever seen (older, younger, rakish, trendy, male, female, other... even aged white-bearded bikies!) and placed them firmly in the palm of her hand.

After sell out seasons across the globe, where they baffled audiences with seemingly impossible physical feats, the group has temporarily set roots at the Malthouse Theatre.