Polly Simons

Australian Book Review • 22nd December 2021

Secrets and broken hearts

When Anne Shirley dreamed of finding a ‘bosom friend’ in Avonlea, she did more than conjure Diana Barry into existence. The heroine of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908) imprinted on us an almost impossible standard for what to expect from our earliest female friendships: a lifelong source of joy sustained by a mutual devotion to each other’s best interests.

Australian Book Review • 25th May 2021

Stop Girl | Belvoir St Theatre

Picture this: it’s 7pm. The news begins. There’s the jingle, a few stories about Australian political goings-on, then a piece about a war-torn country overseas. What do you see? A foreign correspondent, flak jacket on, standing in a bombed-out street or a hospital ward full of bloodied bodies. They speak for a few minutes, describing the horror. The news moves on. We go back to our lives. But what happens next for the reporter?

Australian Book Review • 25th May 2021

Playing Beatie Bow | Sydney Theatre Company

Ruth Park’s novels were as much about Sydney as the people who live there. In Park’s famous The Harp in the South trilogy, the slums of Surry Hills are almost as lively and characterful as the Darcy family, whose story it relates. In Playing Beatie Bow, the changing face of The Rocks underpins every part of the narrative.

Australian Book Review • 30th December 2020

A Jealous Tide | The painterly eye of Anna MacDonald

Rivers seem to be something of a preoccupation for Melbourne writer Anna MacDonald. They feature prominently in her 2019 essay collection, Between the Word and the World, and are both setting and centrepiece to her first novel, A Jealous Tide.

Australian Book Review • 14th December 2020

My Brilliant Career | Belvoir St Theatre

My Brilliant Career may not be Belvoir’s first post-pandemic show, but it’s surely the most joyous. Hot on the heels of a government exemption raising audience numbers to seventy-five per cent capacity, the mood on opening night was exuberant – almost as exuberant as Sybylla Melvyn, My Brilliant Career’s impossible yet impossible-not-to-love protagonist.

Time Out Melbourne • 13th August 2019

Meet the 25-year-old playwright taking over Australian theatres this year

It’s safe to say that 25-year-old Thai-Australian playwright Anchuli Felicia King is pretty busy right now. After premiering her first (yes, first) play, White Pearl, at London’s Royal Court Theatre in June, she’s about to take it to Sydney Theatre Company and then Washington DC. Then there’s her play Golden Shield, which is about to open at Melbourne Theatre Company. Meanwhile, Slaughterhouse will premiere at Belvoir’s independent space, 25A, in October.

Time Out Melbourne • 5th October 2018

I'm Spartacus! The Australian Ballet's men stand up in a new production

When the Australian Ballet’s Spartacus toured America in 1990, it nearly brought New York to a standstill. Crowds in Times Square stopped to gawp at the giant poster of leather-clad dancer Steven Heathcote as the rebellious gladiator, while at ground level promoters were kept busy replacing posters stolen by overeager fans. The tour was a triumph.

Time Out Sydney • 20th December 2017

How citizenship dramas prevented Inua Ellams from attending his Sydney Festival debut

When Barber Shop Chronicles opens as part of Sydney Festival next month, it will do so without one very important person. Instead of seeing the accolades that will almost certainly be lavished on the play on its first outing outside the UK, writer Inua Ellams will be in London.

Time Out Sydney • 13th October 2017

This is the most coveted theatre ticket in London – and you can see it for $25 in Sydney

Brendan Cowell may have left the Inner West behind when he moved to London last year, but Sydney has not seen the last of the actor, writer and director. In fact, when Cowell appears as part of National Theatre Live’s broadcast of the London production of Yerma, there is likely to be quite a crowd at his beloved Dendy Newtown.

The Sunday Telegraph • 19th August 2017

Legendary nude cabaret Crazy Horse Paris is coming to Sydney

WITH long hair and sky-high stilettos, a woman in silhouette poses on all fours above a curved seat, her back dipped into a perfect arch. To the sound of Anthony And The Johnsons, she slides slinkily down and into a seamless high kick. “To be a Crazy Girl is to be a woman who is sure she is beautiful, who is sure that she can hold an audience, even if she is the only one on stage,” explains Svetlana Konstantinova, the former dancer turned show manager of the famous nude cabaret, Crazy Horse Paris.

dailytelegraph.com.au • 1st February 2017

Grittier Cabaret is back in all its glory and debauchery

IT’S been 50 years since Fred Ebb and John Kander’s tribute to the decadence and debauchery of 1930s Berlin hit the stage, but Cabaret is still as anarchic as it ever was. Anyone expecting a re-enactment of the Bob Fosse-choreographed razzle dazzle of the 1972 movie musical is in for a surprise however. With producer David M. Hawkins and director Nick Christo at the helm, this is a grittier, more sinister and more nuanced version — and infinitely better for it.

Time Out Sydney • 11th January 2017

Review: Prize Fighter

AT an age when most Australian teens are contemplating nothing more stressful than the HSC, Future D. Fidel escaped war-torn Congo into Tanzania and spent eight years in a refugee camp searching for his sister, before finally being accepted as a refugee in Australia. His story is nothing if not incredible, and riveting.

The Sunday Telegraph • 26th June 2016

Your A-Z guide to winter in Sydney

DON'T hibernate for the holidays. Get set for your best winter yet with our ultimate activity guide.

Time Out Sydney • 23rd June 2016

Review: The Block Universe

ACTOR Sam O’Sullivan has been a fixture of Sydney stages for a while (next up he appears in Ensemble Theatre’s production of A History of Falling Things), but until now his writing talents have remained relatively under the radar. That’s about to change, I suspect. The Block Universe (or so it goes) is his first full-length play and it’s an impressive debut.

dailytelegraph.com.au • 11th February 2016

Unmissable Secret River more powerful with time

WHEN The Secret River opened in January 2013 as part of Sydney Festival, Sydney knew it was witnessing something special. Three years later, just how special is becoming clear. Andrew Bovell’s adaption of Kate Grenville’s book is a landmark work. An Australian classic, perhaps even more important now than it was then, given how little has changed. This restaging for Sydney Theatre Company has director Neil Armfield back at the helm, and brings back a few familiar faces, namely Trevor Jamieson and Nathaniel Dean as the play’s two protagonists, Dharug man Ngalamalum and pardoned convict William Thornhill.

dailytelegraph.com.au • 28th July 2015

Heathers is loud, proud and wonderfully sassy

EVERY decade had its teen movie — the 70s had Grease, the 90s Clueless and the Noughties Mean Girls. But all err on the side of saccharine in comparison toHeathers, the 1988 blacker-than-black high school cult classic starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater that flopped at the cinema but went on to became a cult classic. Heathers is a sugar-free zone — and the musical based on the film is no exception. Like all good teen movies, it starts with an outsider, in this case smart-mouthed Veronica Sawyer (Jaz Flowers), whose talent for forgery brings her to the attention of the alpha females of Westerberg High, known as The Heathers.

couriermail.com.au • 22nd September 2014

10 things you never knew about Wicked

WHAT is it about Wicked? Ever since it debuted on Broadway a decade ago, the emerald-tinted tale of Glinda the good witch and Elphaba the ‘wicked’ witch of Oz, has entranced audiences the world over. Now back in Australia as part of its 10th anniversary tour, here are 10 things you probably never knew about the blockbuster show.

The Sunday Telegraph • 14th September 2014

Family fun for not a lot of funds

THINK you need a fistful of cash to make it through the school holidays? Here's 20 family activities that will give you change from $20.

Stage Noise • 6th September 2014

Sugarland | Stage Noise

A plea to tweet, check in on Facebook and text friends (after the show, of course) sets the tone for the first few minutes of Sugarland. It’s clear we’re in teen territory.

Stage Noise • 8th July 2014

Hedda Gabler | Stage Noise

In Adena Jacobs’ adaption of Ibsen’s masterpiece, much has been made of the fact that Hedda is played by a man: Ash Flanders, one half of queer theatre duo Sisters Grimm. What I don’t understand after seeing it however is: why? Flanders is suitably cold and dispassionate as Hedda, but whether he adds anything simply by dint of his gender is debatable.