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The rating system is simple:

★★★★★ – Terrific, world-standard. Don’t miss.

★★★★ – Great, definitely worth seeing.

★★★ – Good. Perfectly entertaining. Recommended. Individual mileage may vary.

★★ – Fine. Flawed and not really recommended, but you may find something to appreciate in it.

★ – Bad (& possibly offensive).

See more reviews over at The Queer Review.

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Written by Grace Malouf. NIDA in association with Bakehouse Theatre and Talia M-K presents. KXT on Broadway. 24 Jun – 4 Jul, 2026.

I get a real thrill out of a play that brings me a new idea or a new conundrum to mull over, and, to quote the great Danny Zuko, “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying”. First, Do No Harm has strong performances and a fantastic premise to work from.

Surgeon Melissa (Kate Bookallil) and her former-Olympic swimmer partner Robbo (Richard Hilliar) have a healthy, athletic, smart 19 year old son, Alexei (Josh Merten). Training to be an Olympic hopeful himself, Alexei hits a wall in training. When they send him to a sports psychologist, who refers him to another psychiatrist, Alexei starts to open up about the unease he’s always felt about his body. When he approaches his parents with a request for unexpected elective surgery, the family is thrown into a dilemma that tangles with medical ethics and body autonomy. What can a parent do when their adult child wants something they find abhorrent?

For a small independent show with a short run, the performances are truly excellent. Of all the characters, the most complex and difficult is that of Alexei, in which Josh Merten is a standout. Merten gives Alexei an authentic sense of self that ripples through the events of the play. It’s a beautifully rich performance marked by its conviction.

Kate Bookallil and Richard Hilliar are polar opposites as Alexei’s parents. Hilliar’s Robbo is a big, gregarious, emotional man with a firm foundation in his own beliefs. Bookallil’s Melissa is the serious, driven parent with a high powered career that often keeps her apparently aloof from family matters. They demonstrate their love for Alexei in different, sometimes contradictory ways. They’re great characters, giving the narrative a yin and a yang from which to bounce around the plot’s moral and ethical questions.

I can only imagine how much deeper and richer these roles could be with a longer process to work on them. It’s great stuff.

Playwright Grace Malouf, a screenwriter and MFA graduate from NIDA, has constructed a juicy scenario for the characters to respond to (I’m trying REALLY hard not to name it so as not to give out spoilers), and is happy to play with your expectations.

For the first third of First, Do No Harm I had a sinking feeling. Thinking I knew where the story was going I was getting fidgety expecting another well-meaning but undramatic polemic that did little more than preach to the already liberal choir in the audience. And Malouf is deliberately pushing us in that direction. It’s a heavy-handed misdirect and one I suspect would be better served as subtext for the audience to intuit than to be so clearly signposted, but…

Once the real matter is revealed, I was all in.

This is the kind of moral/intellectual/ethical grey area many modern plays are lacking. First, Do No Harm had suddenly earned my interest.

The story is unavoidably exposition heavy – this deals with a genuine medical issues and the knotty nuance of medical ethics – and Malouf succeeds in communicating the details without losing the emotional core. There are side-stories that weave in and out of Alexei’s core narrative that, to be honest, didn’t quite land for me and I could happily see excised. Melissa’s career prospects didn’t add the level of intrigue that was intended and I was far more invested in the family drama. There are some minor pacing issues, and the climactic event suffers from being awkward and un-theatrical – hard to execute convincingly in a stage environment – and could do with a reframing.

But it’s undeniable that Malouf has constructed an impressive debut play – and thank the theatre gods above for a new, fresh take on a topic that has wider resonance, supported by engaging performances all round. Great situation, great characters – this is a fantastic way to burst out the gates and I personally look forward to more from everyone involved.

Written by Jen Silverman. Australian Premiere. Ensemble Theatre. 19 Jun – 25 Jul. 2026.

Two women, both seeking a later-in-life change, share more than just a home in Jen Silverman’s play The Roommate. This may sound like I’m damning with faint praise – but it’s just nice to sit back and enjoy an easy, funny, mild play that’s produced perfectly. It’s not much to ask for, but sadly, it’s all too rare.

Meek Iowan divorcee Sharon (Lucy Bell) is setting out on a new, unexpected chapter of her life. Single for the first time in decades she’s decided to rent out a room in her big home to a flatmate. Enter Robyn (Belinda Bromilow), a slightly shady lady from New York with a lot of secrets. Together they embark on an all-new adventure that breathes new life into them both.

The closest analog I can think of would be the Netflix series Grace & Frankie (which coincidentally debuted the same year as The Roommate – there must have been something in the water back in 2015), it’s a flawed comparison but you get the vibe of two very different women sharing space and growing to appreciate each other in unexpected ways. As the warm but brittle Sharon rubs up against the guarded but generous Robyn she starts to see there is more to life than her failed marriage and distant, adult son (a nice voice cameo by Jeremy Waters).

From afar it looks like Silverman has recycled rote caricatures – the friendly but naive mid-Western mother and the tough, streetwise, jaded New Yorker – but their writing layers in textures and specificity, which Bell and Bromilow fully utilise. Both Sharon and Robyn are mothers, both have failed marriages, both are trying to leave parts of their past behind them and start afresh and both performers bring a whole history to their characters.

Bell’s Sharon is a delight to watch. A bundle of awkward uneasiness wrapped in civility and innocence, her joy at finding new hobbies and new experiences is as heartwarming as it is funny. Quirky without veering into annoying, Bell manages to embody every new discovery in her whole physicality. Against her, Bromilow’s Robyn is more calm, an observer cautiously interacting with the wildlife she’s discovered. Her guardedness never reads as rough or aggressive, but as wounded and wary. Both characters have hidden depths. Together the two navigate a whole relationship in the 95 minutes that tugs at your heart enough to elicit an audible awww in the final scene.

Director Lee Lewis keeps the action tight, in a small kitchen space, focused on the two women at the play’s core. This focus lets the characters go deeper, the dynamics of the story are writ in their reactions, not in large movements or set changes. Madeleine Picard’s sound knows when to step to the foreground for effects, as does Matt Cox’s naturalistic lighting.

Yes, this is a domestic two-hander about women in their 50s. It has no gigantic plot twists or shocking revelations. But it has a rhythm, a grace and an attention to character that elevates it above its apparent simplicity. And this production captures all that with refreshing and enjoyable ease.

Written by Lachlan Parry. Presented by the Australian Theatre for Young People with support from Purple Tape Productions. The Popsy, ATYP. 16-27 Jun, 2026

Three short comedies combine to make up Straight Panic, the triptych of one-act plays by Lachlan Parry poking fun at the gays, the straights and most importantly, the 00s. It’s not deep, it’s borderline with its humour, and it’s devoid of meaning — but it passed the three-laugh rule.

From the travails of the staff at Myer trying to deal with cruising gays loudly fucking in the bathroom, to poor rich-kids of homophobic conservative politicians, and the “no homo” bros of Cronulla, Lachlan Parry flips the idea of “gay panic” around. Mocking heterosexual Sydney for the way it struggles to respond to its homo neighbours makes for easy comedic picking.

Director Lily Hayman aims for camp, sketch comedy and hits the mark (the transitions between the individual plays are as entertaining as the main action). The cast — Andrew Fraser, Evelina Singh, Esha Jessy, Pierse Cant and Emma Kew — lay it on thick with impeccable timing and silly voices, playing different caricatures in each story. Emma Kew in particular was a real standout for the sheer breadth of her roles.

The design team of Soham Apte, Daniel Herten and Tyler Fitzpatrick have delivered an effectively multipurpose space that manages to cover each story with a clean simplicity that stays visually interesting.

These three short stories show that playwright Parry understands structure and can work a joke. Combined with a good ear for dialogue, it’s a strong start, but Straight Panic feels less like a show and more like a writing exercise put on stage. Not all of the stories justify their near-identical sub-30-minute running time (the middle piece especially feels like it’s just running out the clock) and there isn’t much of a sense of message holding the three pieces together other than a single joke. Things get a little shakier with the writing that makes some glib choices with one piece set at the start of the 2005 Cronulla race riots, and another liberally using pejorative gay slurs.

Straight Panic has some genuinely funny, if juvenile, moments, but in the end doesn’t really make a case for its existence on the stage (other than to give the assembled talents some more experience). All theatre is ephemeral, but this feels more ephemeral than most.

Written by Yve Blake, based on Macbeth by William Shakespeare. World Premiere. Bell Shakespeare Company. Neilson Nutshell. 6 Jun – 18 Jul, 2026.

Proving “fair is foul, and foul is fair”, we enter the world of child TV stars in Mackenzie, where pristine public image hides murderous jealousy and fame brings out the direst cruelty. It’s Macbeth, but done as a very dark teen comedy. And there are a few songs too (but it’s not a musical).

On the set of the tween TV hit The Dahlia Show, the producers have a problem. Dahlia’s “best friend” has been axed from the show and they need a last-minute replacement. What about that weird background kid with the bowl-cut, the one named Mackenzie (Kimberley Hodgson)? When they send the awkward thirteen-year-old for a makeover, the hairstylist has a vision — literally. She sees a future in which Mackenzie is number one on the call sheet and the biggest teen star in the world… but only until a younger performer comes to usurp her. To hang onto her Teen Choice Award crown, Mackenzie must become a deadly diva with no room for remorse.

Okay, I’ll cop to a big misunderstanding — and it’s all my fault. I thought Mackenzie was a musical, despite the marketing clearly saying this is a “play with songs”. With Fangirls’ Yve Blake on writing duty, the teen pop setting and an MT-performer cast, I assumed there’d be more songs than there are. It does have big “musical theatre” energy and there are a couple of Blake’s signature catchy pop pastiches in the show, but they’re very secondary to the action.

With that out of the way, we turn to this tonally hyperactive show: part Lizzie McGuire/Hannah Montana parody, part Kath & Kim comedy, part Heathers teen murder fantasy, part Showgirls dark camp. It takes the broad strokes of Macbeth — including a subtle riff on Lady Macbeth’s “damn spot” and a twist on “none of woman born” that will either make you rejoice or rile you up — and layers in the sick underbelly of washed-up child stars, pushy stage “momagers” and paparazzi up-skirt shots. It’s a lot, no doubt. Wildly genre-smashing but equally wildly entertaining, it has all the ingredients of a cult classic.

Blake’s script hits the familiar touchstones of the teen-star life we know from tabloids and Netflix exposé documentaries, threaded together with the kind of love that comes from someone with a genuine connection to that era and those stories just as she showed with Fangirls’ take on boyband mania. The Disney Channel-esque setting gives the story real leeway for its big tonal swings (those shows got away with wild storylines on a handful of props and dedicated performances — just like live theatre does). The more steeped you are, or were, in those shows and their stars fates, the more fun you’ll have.

The “ridiculously talented”^TM Virginia Gay directs with real verve, channelling the hyperactive energy of kids TV while letting the emerging teen angst breathe. The clash of tones, crazy wigs and threadbare budget actually enhance the Kids TV vibe rather than distract from it. While the staging is disappointingly minimal, lacking the colour & life of the marketing, Mackenzie moves like a sleek bullet train that never gives you time to get off or question it too deeply.

The six-strong cast, alongside the Bell Shakespeare backstage crew, have mastered the art of the quick change, covering multiple roles — often in the same scene. Jane Watt is the show’s MVP, nailing a host of roles including the prophetic hairdresser Pickle and the TV producer. Billie Palin matches her, covering smaller roles including show caterer Gayle. Ryan González is reliably funny and adorable as Mackenzie’s co-star Beau, with comedic timing expertly on point. Anusha Thomas is irrepressible as both teen superstar Dahlia and Mackenzie’s long-suffering assistant. Nikki Britton gives us the full emotional range as Mackenzie’s pushy mum Ruth — this show’s Lady Macbeth — moving from comedically grotesque stage parent to a genuinely affecting finale. At the centre is Kimberley Hodgson, whose chameleonic performance takes Mackenzie from excited tween to distraught accomplice to avaricious mini-mogul — emotionally grounded throughout the bizarre extravagance that surrounds her.

There’s no shortage of real life tween-actress-turned-pop-star for generations of audiences to relate to — whether your touchstone is Hilary Duff, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato or Sabrina Carpenter, it’s much the same story. But I can’t help wondering: who is this show for? The discussion of incest rules out the family-friendly crowd looking for teen-accessible Shakespeare, despite the hyper-pastel marketing appeal. Shakespeare purists will run a mile from this Macbeth-lite, devoid of classic language (yes, I’ve quoted more Macbeth in this review than you’ll find in the play). The musical theatre crowd will want their stars belting ballads and bemoan the paucity of tunes. The opening night crowd loved the insider jokes about independent theatre, but will a mass audience? Can this “Diet Shakespeare” satisfy both unfamiliar newbies and devotees looking for a fresh take? Mackenzie hits the same dilemma its lead character does – can it make itself a bit sexy so it’s appealing, but not try to be so sexy that it’s cringe?

In a world littered with the used-to-be-famous, whose adult lives are often “but a walking shadow” selling real estate or working behind the scenes, Mackenzie doesn’t really grapple with the aftermath it plays with and in the end, that’s totally fine. “Come what come may”, this is a camp, murderous pantomime covered in candy floss, and it knows exactly what it is.