Culture
Live reviews
★★★★
Sydney live reviews
This laugh-out-loud 90-minute play is the perfect antidote to your problems
Our reviewers give their verdict on all the latest performances.
- by Michael Ruffles, John Shand, Bernard Zuel and Peter McCallum
Latest
★★★
Sydney live reviews
A decades-old secret refuses to remain buried
Our reviewers give their verdict on all the latest shows around the city.
- by John Shand, Millie Muroi, George Palathingal, Peter McCallum, Harriet Cunningham and Cassie Tongue
A ruckus and a proposal as one of the world’s biggest acts hits the Melbourne stage
With a line-up featuring Chappell Roan, Geese, Lucy Dacus, Role Model and Wet Leg, this year’s Laneway Festival took crowds on a fantastical ride.
- by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen
★★★½
Sydney live reviews
Blockbuster in busker style: Ed Sheeran opens Australian run with swagger and pyrotechnics
The red-headed superstar plays heavily on his everyman appeal.
- by Kate Prendergast
★★★★★
Melbourne live reviews
Wildly silly and littered with obscenity: This show will make you laugh until it hurts
The Book of Mormon remains one of the funniest Broadway musicals of all time, not least because it’s willing to slaughter every sacred cow in sight.
- by Cameron Woodhead
Tradition and modernity collide in this story of loneliness
La Mama springs back to life with the opener of its 2026 season, 月を見る夜 Moongazing – a bilingual play written by Maki Morita modelled after the aesthetics of Noh theatre.
- by Sonia Nair, Will Cox, Tony Way, Cameron Woodhead and Andrew Fuhrmann
This is about the best version of Pirates of Penzance you could see
Featuring one of the most parodied songs in the English language, this is the most joyous Gilbert and Sullivan work around.
- by Bridget Davies, Nadia Bailey, Andrew Fuhrmann, Jessica Nicholas and Sonia Nair
★★★★½
Sydney live reviews
Lizzy Hoo’s glee is infectious as she milks her dad for best lines
Hoo mines single life, failed dates and her sweet natured father, Chan, for comedy gold.
- by John Shand and Shamim Razavi
Even this pop star thinks having her gig at the tennis is a bit weird
On the rest of her tour, Reneé Rapp plays normal evening shows. Here, she’s been folded into the tennis, playing a gig timed to fit before the women’s final.
- by Will Cox
Can love conquer all in this collision of tennis and relationship drama?
Australian Open is a queer domestic comedy that serves up aces of absurdity, rapid-fire volleys of wit, and heavy groundstrokes of camp and cringe.
- by Cameron Woodhead, Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen, Jessica Nicholas, Sonia Nair, Andrew Fuhrmann and Will Cox
★★★½
Stage shows
Cultural elites skewered as mayhem descends on dinner party in new David Williamson play
The veteran playwright takes aim at status-obsessed Sydney in laugh-out-loud new work The Social Ladder.
- by Chantal Nguyen, Kate Prendergast and Joyce Morgan