This bonkers Wuthering Heights rivals Kate Bush for nuttiness

THEATRE
Wuthering Heights
Roslyn Packer Theatre, 1 February
Until 15 February
Reviewed by KATE PRENDERGAST
★★★★½

Kate Bush aside, has there been a more arrestingly idiosyncratic interpretation of Wuthering Heights than this?

For this production, which premiered in 2021 at the Bristol Old Vic and which is touring in Sydney with a British cast, director Emma Rice (former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe) has summoned the wretched ghosts of Emily Brontë’s imagination and transformed her literary masterpiece into a high-spirited pastiche of camp gothic, avant-garde meta, Python-esque silliness, and highly theatricised folk musical, with singing, dancing, puppetry and a live band to boot.

At almost three hours, against a large, mood-shifting screen of hyper-saturated clouds, it feels at times as though we’re watching a miraculous contraption of odd parts that shouldn’t achieve lift off – but does. With shades of Edward Gorey’s dour wit and Alice in Wonderland’s diabolical whimsy, we find ourselves soaring dizzily through the story’s seemingly endless succession of vengeance-driven entanglements and inopportune deaths. (Felicitously, the cast helps us keep track of this complex web with a few Brechtian props and direct-to-audience Cliff Notes summaries.)

The production feels at times as though we’re watching a miraculous contraption of odd parts.Credit: Steve Tanner

Vicki Mortimer’s set is a dream sketch of a cursed house, comprised of exposed stage wings, shifting doors and demented vertical sculptures of chairs and ladders. Ian Ross composes songs for the cast and the band at the back.

In one of the play’s most inspired updates for the stage, the Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights and its companion estate are embodied in a Greek chorus led by a magnetic Nandi Bhebhe. Wearing a denim suit jacket, raggedy skirts and a crown of brambles, Bhebhe also acts as a (roundly ignored) counsel to characters and a narrator to the audience. In contrast to the frail and abject humans, the landscape – so much a “character” in the books – is cast as wise and enduring.

At the heart of this tale, of course, is the toxic romance of Heathcliff (John Leader) and Catherine (Stephanie Hockley). While ambiguous in Brontë’s text, Rice leans into the insinuations of the adopted Heathcliff’s possible slave background, inviting reflections on the abuse he endured and goes on to brutally bestow, and why he loves that horrible brat Catherine, his kindred soul who finds him her equal.

The eleven-strong cast are top-tier, unforgettably costumed by Mortimer. Often, more actors than are directly involved in a scene gather in some capacity on stage, creating an ever-present feeling of movement, with all but the leads inhabiting multiple roles.

Leader is transfixing as our anti-hero protagonist: a Nosferatu-like monster of glacially slow movements and tormented desire. A desolate visage cut by a cruel smile, and a low, hoary voice that sounds like a gust from the mouth of hell. Hockley’s vixenish Catherine is memorably odious, and Sam Archer is a hilarious al dente-legged dandy as Lockwood and Edgar Linton. Rebecca Collingwood’s Linton Heathcliff – a sickly little terror of princely demands – is another standout for laughs. Robyn Sinclair and Matthew Churcher deliver a sweet, unlikely ending.

It is the upstart, restless, ever-surprising comic inventiveness that perhaps most distinguishes Rice’s unique style, and here works to leaven the grimness of Brontë. You find it in all the play’s elements. For instance: when little Isabelle, hoping to impress Heathcliff, announces she likes “sliding down the banisters because it tickles my tuppence!” Or the way one character flaps another’s coat to create the illusion of a blowing gale. Or Catherine’s absurd yellow socks and high heels.

Arguably overlong and perhaps an acquired taste, this Wuthering Heights is a strange and intoxicating marvel of an adaptation.

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THEATRE
Peter and the Starcatcher
Capitol Theatre, February 2
Until February 9
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★

The trick is to see this through an eight-year-old’s eyes. Luckily, I mostly operate with a 10-year-old’s mentality, which is close enough, so can tell you that sitting through the duller parts is worth it because the second half becomes seriously funny. The pity is that by then some of the younger kids were getting sleepy, given the 140-minute length (including interval).

The play’s worlds are created much as children create make-believe games, with minimal concreteness and maximum imagination. Two planks held vertically can signal a door, and a spoked wooden wheel shouts “ship”. Then there’s the clever stuff grown-ups can do, like make ingenious puppets of a cat, dog, crocodile, birds and fish.

Peter and the Starcatcher has a cast of 12, minimal scenery and a sackful of magic tricks.Credit: Daniel Boud

Peter and the Starcatcher is a 2009 US play by Rick Elice (based on a novel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson), which serves as a prequel to JM Barrie’s Peter and Wendy. This Dead Puppet Society production, directed by David Morton, inserted local flavour into some gags, added technical flourishes, and fleshed out the original music (although it’s definitely a play with music rather than a musical).

It has a cast of 12 (who sometimes assist the three on-stage musicians), minimal scenery and a sackful of magic tricks to join the comedy. The humour is calibrated to catch all age groups, as it ranges from fart jokes and pantomime routines to having a missing trunk described as being “as elusive as a melody in a Philip Glass opera”. For those with longer memories, some of the silliness is reminiscent of The Goodies.

Otis Dhanji plays a spiky, wary unnamed orphan, dismissively called Boy, who, as the story unfolds, gains the name and powers of Peter Pan, with a little help from Teacher (John Batchelor) an outrageously Scottish mermaid. Paul Capsis is hilarious as the nasty Bill Slank and others, and Olivia Deeble delivers some acrobatic surprises while portraying the relentless jollity and bossiness of Molly, Wendy’s putative forebear.

Ryan Gonzalez enjoys one of the zaniest characters in Fighting Prawn, an Italian cook out for revenge after suffering ignominy in English kitchens, and Lucy Goleby delights as Mrs Bumbrake, Molly’s licentious nanny, while the rest of cast (including Alison Whyte and Peter Helliar) maintain the ham standard. Colin Lane (Of Lano and Woodley fame), skewers many of the best lines as pirate captain Black Stache, and has a winning way with the audience.

If the first half began to wear, with a surfeit of shouting relative to laughs, act two had wings from the get-go, and not just in terms of comedy and tighter story-telling. Now the magic and the images taking shape became more fantastic and transformative, and, wonder of wonders, the show could change gear in a finger-snap and give you an odd cramp in the heart region. But be quick: it’s only on until February 9.

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MUSIC
The Flaming Lips
Hordern Pavilion, February 2
Reviewed by JAMES JENNINGS
★★★½

Oklahoma experimental rock band The Flaming Lips have long staged live shows that are a theatrical spectacle, often featuring people dressed in animal costumes, cannons firing an endless supply of confetti and lead singer Wayne Coyne surfing across the crowd inside a plastic bubble. So when the band promise to play 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety, you better believe there are going to be giant, inflatable pink robots on stage.

But while Yoshimi may include what may be the Flaming Lips’ best song, the happy-sad heartbreaker Do You Realize??, which is a treat to hear live, it’s not exactly the band’s greatest album (that would be 1999’s psych-pop classic The Soft Bulletin). There are stellar moments like Fight Test and Are You a Hypnotist??, but there are also moments when you’re glad there are giant balloons bouncing across the crowd to distract you.

Songs often serve the spectacular visuals in a mixed-bag of a set.Credit: Jordan Munns

A half-great album means a half-great show, so by the time an interval arrives before a second set of songs from across the band’s catalogue, there’s a sense of slight deflation, like the pink robots who’ve by now had the air sucked out of them. (Another gripe: Coyne’s constant cajoling tonight for the crowd to “keep screaming” feels like a comedian ruining the vibe by demanding an audience laughs more).

Thankfully, things pick up when set two begins with an energetic version of nonsensical 1993 alterna-hit She Don’t Use Jelly, which brings the joy levels back to peak.

From there it’s a mixed bag, with songs often serving the visuals rather than the other way around. Flowers of Neptune 6 gives Coyne an excuse to dress like a flower and tell a story about Kacey Musgraves; Christmas at the Zoo appears to have made the set list simply to invoke a cheer when the word “kangaroos” is flashed on a screen; and 1996’s Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now) is played simply for the novelty of it actually being 2025.

Still, Coyne’s banter about spreading love and being there for each other is commendable, as is the choice of encore songs: The Soft Bulletin’s A Spoonful Weighs a Ton and Race for the Prize, which proves that at their best, The Flaming Lips’ music can outdo the visual spectacle, rather than the other way around.

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MUSIC
Luke Combs
Accor Stadium, January 31
Reviewed by MILLIE MUROI
★★★½

Not even a “shoey” mid-song could arrest Luke Combs’ powerful voice on Friday.

“There’s no stopping me,” he sang in bop 1, 2 Many after tipping back a boot of beer.

Australia wasn’t on the radar when Combs dropped out of college to chase his country-music dream a decade ago. But now, the North Carolina native said, “No one listens to my music as much as they do here.”

Luke Combs at Accor Stadium.Credit: Venues NSW/Gregg Porteous

The former bar bouncer, bathed in golden light as he strolled across the stage, had a subdued start, crooning songs such as The Kind of Love We Make (2022) and Forever After All (2020).

While an earlier change of pace may have helped infuse more energy and variation into the performance, Combs’ swaggering yet comfortable stage presence, strong gravelly voice, and candidness made for easy listening.

Stand-outs in his set included heartstring-pullers One Number Away (2018), where an ending run showed off his immaculate vocal control, Beautiful, Crazy from his debut album, which prompted a marriage proposal in the mosh pit, and Must Have Never Met You (2017), also from his earliest album, where his masterful belting took centre-stage.

Even so, there were often times when the instrumentals nearly drowned out Combs’ vocals in the open-air venue.

The band’s skill, however, was excellent and aptly showcased: from electrifying guitar riffs to Combs’ tradition of giving each band member their own platform through generous solos embodying the wide-ranging talent in country music.

While the visual production was nothing spectacular, the three-time Grammy nominee’s stage presence and captivating voice propelled the show.

Luke Combs treated fans to an unreleased song.Credit: Venues NSW/Gregg Porteous

Accompanied by just his guitar, Combs played an unreleased song: Wish Upon a Whiskey, a poignant number boasting some of his best artistry.

As the evening progressed, the energy from both the stage and the audience ramped up, with a rendition of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit Fast Car drawing the greatest excitement from the crowd.

One of Combs’ first songs, written in 2014, Hurricane – which he credits with changing his life – helped continue the final momentum of the show along, with twangy honky-tonk Lovin’ on You (2019).

While far from Combs’ first rodeo, including in Australia, where he last toured in 2023, his gratitude towards his fans was clear. He threw himself into every song with plenty of heart and turned out a wholesome night with an easygoing but unflappable energy.

Combs may not have thought he’d be playing outside the southern states of the US when he began playing in bars but, a decade on, his passion and vocal prowess continue to make a mark in Sydney.

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