John Shand

Belinda Bromilow sprang into the world’s imagination wrangling butterflies. Such was the impact of the Sydney actor’s performance as the eccentric Aunt Elizabeth (whose hobby was training butterflies) in Stan’s series The Great that she’s been mobbed by fans from an airport in Zimbabwe to a restaurant in Portugal. Created and written by Bromilow’s husband,

Ensemble Theatre, June 23 6.5/10 “There’s a great liberty in being bad,” Sharon tells us, with all the zeal of the reformed do-gooder. She’s only come to mischief in her mid-50s, having “retired” from her marriage (preceded by her husband), and advertised for a housemate – or “roommate”. Sharon (Lucy Bell) lives in Iowa City,

Hayes Theatre, June 24, 8/10 Finally! Theatre that embraces the bizarre! It makes you realise how just mundane so much art of all stripes really is; how it sets about fulfilling expectations, rather than subverting them. House of Rot is Uber-theatrical, as it dances between Dada, theatre of the absurd and musical cabaret. Like a

Roslyn Packer Theatre, July 4 8.5/10 We all suffer from doubt. Even the politicians. They’ve just perfected hiding theirs behind a veneer of certainty. John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 Doubt makes most plays seem absurdly one-dimensional. It was true of Sydney Theatre Company’s 2006 staging, of Shanley’s 2008 film with Meryl Streep and Philip

Old Fitz Theatre, July 12 6.5/10 Like a single parent and a teenager sharing a cupboard-sized flat, this is two clashing plays trying to inhabit the same stage. British playwright Martin Crimp’s wrote it following the 1986 unsolved disappearance of young London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh, presumed murdered. But he frames the play as a

Hayes Theatre, July 14 8.5/10 They’re still creepy and kooky, but they’re also infinitely more of a scream than in the ’60s TV series, of which this 2009 musical is the lovechild. Common to both shows is the centrality of Morticia, on TV played by the lustrous Carolyn Jones, and here by Erika Heynatz in

Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House, July 18, 6.5/10 Who knew? Jane Austen seems to have been exhumed, forcibly led to the altea, ordered to place her hand on a dogeared copy of Pride and Prejudice, and married off to a cross between a Carry On movie and some modern-day piece of music hall. Had she

Theatre Royal, August 5 7/10 Tevye’s is such an indomitable heart as makes him larger than life: a force of nature who wears with all that 1905 Imperial Russia can throw at a poor Jewish dairy farmer. Beyond coping, this champion of tradition even learns to adapt to a changing world. He can find joy