Things to do in Melbourne this week

The Australian Ballet is ending its 2019 season with this beloved classic production of The Nutcracker. The company's artistic director, David McAllister says he first saw Peter Wright’s production, originally made for the Birmingham Royal Ballet, in the early 1990s, and considers it one of the best Nutcrackers he’s ever seen. (And he has seen a lot of Nutcrackers.) “The transformation scene is just magical,” he says. “I remember the first time I saw it, I couldn’t work out how they made the tree grow and take over the entire stage.” “It’s timeless. And I like to say: every four years there’s a new bunch of four year olds who need to come and see The Nutcracker, which is why it’s usually about four years between drinks for us.”

Melbourne is home to some of the most daring and fabulous drag and cabaret talent on the planet. Local drag queen and dancer Valerie Hex (James Welsby) has brought together several of our faves, and with their powers combined, they are Yummy. The show is part cabaret, part circus, part drag show, part dance show, part performance art, but 100 per cent party. It’s been touring the world since 2015, wowing audiences with its electrifying soundtrack and spectacular performances, with queens serving looks that hit the perfect balance between ultra-glam and fabulous trash. After winning the Green Room Award for Best Production (Cabaret) in 2018, the crew is back with an all new show, featuring new solos and group numbers. Yummy Deluxe is playing for the entire Melbourne Fringe at the Fringe Hub at Trades Hall. But if your taste tends towards the darker and naughtier side of cabaret, head along to their two shows of Yummy Up Late at the Spiegeltent in Federation Square.

Melbourne Fringe is known for being the festival where we can see new work from independent artists. Polygamy, Polygayou is a new musical created, without a cent of funding, by some of Melbourne’s best indie cabaret artists and comedians. It might continue to develop and change until it becomes an international cult hit, which will be described as “Hedwig meets Book of Mormon meets Showgirls.” Or this will be your only chance to see it. Either way, you’ll get the bragging rights of “I saw the very first season” or a great story about how “I once saw a super camp, super queer, super feminist musical about polygamist sister wives becoming a superstar group called the Spouse Girls”. Alice Tovey, Margot Tanjutco and Hayley Tantau have each won adoring fans, award nominations and critical raves for their solo work in cabaret and comedy. Each confront ideas of what women are expected to be on stages, in relationships and in life, and refuse to accept the limitations of these expectations. Charity Werk was a 2018 Raw Comedy competition finalist and is already questioning expectations about how women are represented by drag. Evelyn (Werk) was Edgar’s first wife and somehow never got pregnant. But they lived in Mormon(ish) Old South Wales where polygamy’s cool and the problem could be solved by Catherine (Tovey), whose dad who was happy to give her away to be wife number two. She also didn’t get pregnant. Then along came Brandi (Tanjutco) who knew her skill was in being a sugar baby

The mysterious and macabre works of Edgar Allan Poe are scary enough when they're just on a page, but what happens when they burst to life across 36 rooms in a two-storey abandoned North Melbourne warehouse? That's what audiences will experience at A Midnight Visit, a large-scale site-specific theatre work encouraging visitors to choose their own adventure and encounter unusual characters across a number of surreal environments. The show premiered in Sydney last year in a former furniture factory to stellar reviews. Its Melbourne season is currently playing at 222 Macaulay Rd, North Melbourne. Time Out Sydney wrote: "With A Midnight Visit, it’s okay to let the story be second to the experience – to the simple pleasures of finding yourself in an unexpected crawlspace, of carefully looking through a doorway with bated breath, of suddenly looking at a beach in the middle of an old, repurposed building. It won’t be like any other night out." There are four to six sessions a night, with performances running from Wednesday to Sunday. Tickets range from $44 (for previews) up to $79 for Friday and Saturday nights, and you'll need about 70 to 90 minutes to explore the building at your own pace. 

When you go to the circus you expect to see some high-flying acrobatics, but even Circus Oz is astounded by the heights they reach in their latest show. Aurora takes guests on a dizzying journey with perilous feats, spectacular projections and harmonious soundscapes. Aurora is truly an out-of-this-world adventure, drawing upon the world’s natural elements as inspiration and creating a space where the performers explore what is, what was and what could be.  As the show’s name suggests, Aurora partly reflects the beauty of the night sky, and is drawn from the pristine elements of nature. The acrobats fly and swing across across the stage using Chinese poles, Washington trapezes and sheer determination.  As the artists gracefully fall to Earth they’ll also keep the show powering along with humour, intricate foot juggling and hula hoops that seem to spin magically around the acrobats. At the heart of the 70-minute show is the idea that humans can strive towards a better future – the sky’s the limit.  Aurora marks Circus Oz’s stellar return to the Royal Botanic Gardens big top for 2019 after staging the equally spectacular Precarious there for Melbourne Festival 2018. It’s been more than 40 years since Circus Oz first launched in Melbourne (yep, they’re locals!) and the team is still able to pump out new and exciting performances every year. Aurora is showing for just under three weeks from Wednesday, September 18. The show is appropriate for all ages and also offers Auslan-i

After the phenomenal success of The Flying Dutchman earlier this year, Melbourne Opera no doubt had zero problems assembling an outstanding cast for their production of Bellini’s masterpiece, Norma. Widely regarded to be the pinnacle of Bel Canto opera, the title role is considered to be one of the most challenging of opera’s soprano roles and has been played by greats including Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland. Luckily, the company has got hold of up-and-coming superstar Helena Dix, fresh from making her debut as Alice in Falstaff at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, to play the powerful priestess who makes a terrible mistake in love and must suffer the consequences. She’s joined by Helpmann and Green Room award-winning mezzo soprano Jacqui Dark as Norma’s competition Adalgisa, London based tenor Samuel Sakker as Pollione and Eddie Muliaumaseali’i as Oroveso, in a production directed by Suzanne Chaundy and conducted by Greg Hocking and Raymond Laurence.

There are few performers and creatives who scream “Melbourne” quite as loudly as Moira Finucane, who crosses just about every genre and always makes an impression when she steps on stage.  In 2017 she debuted a show called The Rapture to, um, rapturous reviews. Now she’s back with a sequel of sorts; a cabaret that’ll take us to the end of the world and back again. To create the show, Finucane travelled to Antarctica, and her performance is inspired by all that she saw there – imposing glaciers, vast expanses of nothingness and penguins. She’ll be joined by an array of artists who’ll help bring this experience to life, including torch singer Mama Alto, opera singer Piera Dennerstein, 85-year-old performer Shirley Cattunar and First Nations singer Ray Dimakarri Dixon.

If you've never heard of Laser Beak Man, here's what you need to know: Tim Sharp, a Queensland artist who has autism, created the mystical superhero when he was just 11 years old as a way of sharing his humour and imagination with the world. The character has been adapted into books and a Cartoon Network series, and its success has seen Sharp's work exhibited all around the world. But one of Laser Beak Man's most formidable forms is as the star of his own stage show. This production from Brisbane uses spectacular, colourful and wildly funny animations alongside live puppets from Queensland's Dead Puppet Society (and even a few flying puppets). In the stage show, Laser Beak Man loses his powers (namely, the ability to shoot lasers from his beak) and has to beat his nemesis, Peter Bartman, to restore peace to Power City. All of this plays out to live soundtrack of '60s-flavoured rock performed live by Ball Park Music's Sam Cromack. Laser Beak Man is recommended for ages eight and up, but that doesn't mean it's only for kids. Grown ups will get plenty from the visual spectacle, smartly funny storytelling and stellar soundtrack.

Arj Barker is looking for guinea pigs. Well, not actual rodents, but audience members he can test out new material on for a big upcoming theatre tour. It's pretty standard practice that stand-up comedians will book in a bunch of smaller shows to test their funnies before getting in front of big crowds and critics. Even the best can't always tell what gags will soar and which will fall flat, so they need live opportunities to hear an audience response. But Barker is doing things a little bit differently to prep for his tour next year: Each Monday, from August 19 through October 14, he'll be performing in the basement of the European Bier Café and charging just $20 a ticket. No two nights will be the same, and you'll have the unique pleasure of witnessing his comedic failures as well as his wins. There may also be special guests on some nights. He hasn't exactly got this all locked in yet, which is why the show is dubbed Arj Barker's Safe Space. Barker has been a comedy star since the early 2000s, with his own show Arj and Poopy, several specials and even an appearance on Flight of the Conchords. But he's enjoyed maybe the most success in Australia with his regular appearances at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. He even married an Australian woman in 2017 and spends a lot of his time here.

From August this year, Melbourne audiences will step into a world of pure imagination with the new musical version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The show, which just wrapped up a three-year run on the West End and a short stint on Broadway, is heading south from Sydney, where it's been selling out performances at the Capitol Theatre. It will have its Melbourne premiere at Her Majesty's Theatre. The musical is based more on Roald Dahl's 1964 book than the beloved 1971 film, but does feature a couple of the songs you know and love, including 'Pure Imagination', 'Candy Man' and 'I've Got a Golden Ticket'. The rest of the music is penned by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, who are best known for writing the score for the musical Hairspray. You already know the plot: the eccentric master chocolatier Willy Wonka opens up his mysterious factory to four young children, looking for an heir to take over the kingdom. Four of the children have been spoiled rotten and *spoiler alert* suffer horrible fates inside the factory – Augustus gets sucked up a tube after gorging himself on chocolate, Violet turns into a giant blueberry, Mike's TV addiction gets the best of him and Veruca gets her comeuppance via squirrel – but the poor, young Charlie Bucket manages to prove his integrity. The musical was an audience favourite in London, but received a cooler reception in New York, where it got mixed reviews. Time Out New York's critic wasn't the greatest fan – you can read his two-star r

Melbourne's theatre scene might look to be totally dominated by a certain boy wizard in 2019, but there's another big show headed our way from Broadway.  Come from Away is set to open at the Comedy Theatre in July. The historic theatre will get major refurbishment and new seats (anybody's who's sat through long show at the theatre knows the seating is a necessity) in time for Come From Away's Australian opening. The musical has been a bit of an unexpected hit in North America, set in a small Canadian town in the days following the September 11 attacks. Written by Canadians Irene Sankoff and David Hein, it tells the true story of Gander, where 38 international flights carrying 7,000 passengers were forced to land, effectively doubling the population of the town with stranded passengers for several days. The vibrant score has Celtic flavours, and the show's cast recording was nominated for a Grammy Award. The musical started out with a 2013 Ontario production, and then went on to tour the US before landing on Broadway in early 2017. It was nominated for seven Tony Awards last year and picked up the award for Best Direction of a Musical for Broadway veteran Christopher Ashley, who'll be overseeing the local production. Read Time Out New York's four-star review here.

The title says it all really. Melbourne comedian Kieran Bullock’s new Melbourne Fringe show will feature him struggling to construct Swedish flatpack furniture live on stage while chatting with the crowd. Bullock has plenty of experience with both scripted stand-up and improvised comedy, so you can be sure that every show will be a little bit different. In some, he’ll be just doing a straight, leisurely build, in others he’ll be racing against the clock, or he’ll be racing against a guest, and he’s promised to attempt to break a Guinness World Record in at least one of his shows.