THEATRE REVIEWS.

THIS WIDE NIGHT.

This Wide Night was produced by Claire Sara and myself as a passion project in June and December of 2019 - it was directed by Elias Jameson Brown and written by Chloe Moss.

4.5 Stars ★★★★☆ ArtsHub

4.5 Stars ★★★★☆ The Music

“An unadorned small masterpiece.”

“Both actors handle the material with a nuanced, tender energy”

“Director Elias Jamieson Brown executes a confident, tense, bare-bones production, where there is nowhere for his actors to hide, and the long littleness of life is fully on display in an inescapable, Beckettesque fishbowl.”

- Anna Westbrook, ArtsHub

“Brown has guided his actors to astonishing performances.”

“I was moved to tears several times in the show, by both Robinson and Sara – seeing their tough exteriors crumble… an extraordinary piece of theatre.”

- Keith Gow, keithgow.com

“At once simple in its execution and complex at its core, This Wide Night is a testament to the power of theatre not as a vehicle for sympathy from above, but engagement in the lives of others.”

“Both performances are inexhaustibly absorbing — director Elias Jamieson Brown’s work here is excellent… “

The play is mesmerising in its authenticity “

- Cameron Colwell, The Music

"The performances are excellent, catching all the ebbs and flows of dependence and of feeling trapped, of need and rejection."

- Michael Brindley, Stage Whispers 

"Refined Performances that tapped into a rawness of the human condition that was tangible."

Stevie Zipper, Theatre Unzipped

"A watershed moment of what the raw power of committed and sophisticated acting, writing and directing can achieve."

Peter Blackburn, Theatre Director

“The director Elias gave it such room to breathe. It was terrifically moving and everybody in the audience was knocked for six. It was really something special.” - Iain Sinclair, Theatre Director

secrets

Secrets was created by myself, in collaboration with Nick Steain, and produced by Fiona Crombie in collaboration with Nick and again, myself in July 2022.

4.5 Stars ★★★★☆ ArtsHub

“On the face of it, this shouldn’t work. There’s no narrative thread, no ‘development’. But it does work – and we are held from start to finish. Director Ben Grant has elicited detailed, nuanced performance from this talented cast – with Robinson and Qian particularly fine in their connection with the audience.”

- Michael Brindley, Stagewhispers

The script is timely and relatable…the audience’s role feels more that of a silent therapist than a voyeur, bearing witness to what is now a modern-day phenomenon; the voluntary and purposeful yanking of skeletons from cupboards, in the hope that giving voice to what we’ve kept hidden will stop it from haunting us.

- Sarah Halfpenny, Artshub

It’s very powerful and intimate- we left full to brimming with the experience.

-Hannie Rayson, playwright 

 A joyous and deeply humane way to spend an hour.

- Michael Cathcart, ABC Radio 

In the end, the stories are reassuring: we recognise common experiences, and we realise we are not alone. 

Michael Brindley

The show is one of the shows that you NEED to go and see this year.

An absolute ensemble performance that has to sit be seen to be believed. A very, very important piece of theatre

David Griffiths, Subculture Entertainment