Features
Kirsty and Amy: The Comedy Road Trip
Comedians Amy Hetherington and Kirsty Webeck first met at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF), where they were playing at the same venue. It wasn’t long before they were...
Q&A with Penny Arcade
Off The Leash was rather thrilled to correspond with legendary New York performer Penny Arcade in the lead-up to her show Longing Lasts Longer, a hilarious and biting satire of...
Between Tiny Cities
It sounds like the plot of the best dance movie you’ve never seen – two b-boys from different cities and utterly different walks of life, face off in a breakdance...
Review – Fringe Art and Vikings
Darwin – what happened? When I agreed to bring my hills-hoist and grindhouse cabaret up to the Darwin Fringe, little did I know I was going to experience one of...
Bamboo Moon (The Tale of Princess Kaguya)
Staged at twilight in the leafy Botanic Gardens, Bamboo Moon is based on the ancient Japanese story The Tale of Princess Kaguya and stars a youthful cast from Darwin’s Corrugated...
Q&A with Kuah Jenhan
Comedian Kuah Jenhan's show Like This Like Dad was inspired by his very traditional Chinese father. Off The Leash caught up with the sought-after Malaysian comedian ahead of his Darwin...
Tracks Dance: Man Made
Tracks’ last Darwin Festival show, Landed, followed three characters returning home to Darwin after a life away from it. Emotions, belonging and connection to place are a crucial theme of...
Hello, Goodbye and Happy Birthday
Two celebrations at the "bookends of life" lead proceedings in Hello, Goodbye and Happy Birthday – birthday parties for an 80-year-old and an 18-year-old. But while the theatre audience is...
Comics' Corner – Darwin Festival Funnies
By Will Crawford. If you like your stand up smart, angry and full of dubious advice to the world's gentrifiers, then the sharp, biting satire of visiting New York comic...
A Midsummer Night's Dream
It's no surprise that Shakespeare's most delightful and fantastical play found further life as a ballet. Set to a romantic score by Felix Mendelssohn, the Melbourne City Ballet brings the...
Comics' Corner – Fringe Festival Forecast – A Jovial July
July sees Darwin electrified by some dynamic comic talent. If Adelaide has Mad March, Darwin now has Jovial and Juvenile July. Maybe it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue but...
Coranderrk
In 1881 the Kulin clans, facing the imminent loss of their land and freedoms, brought about a Parliamentary Inquiry to continue living on the Victorian Aboriginal reserve of Coranderrk as...
Terror Australis
Leah Shelton was performing in a glitzy variety show in Las Vegas when she had the idea for Terror Australis, an anti-burlesque cabaret show exploring Australian culture’s dark undercurrent. Off...
The Sound of Waiting
"The power of empathy is greater than the power of death," says playwright Mary Anne Butler as she premieres her powerful new play The Sound of Waiting. Butler wrote the...
Shirley Valentine
Trapped in a domestic rut with an ungrateful, boorish family, middle-aged Liverpudlian housewife Shirley Valentine is going to waste in suburban drudgery. But you can’t exactly call her downtrodden. When...
Thérèse Raquin
Émile Zola's 19th Century novel Thérèse Raquin comes to the Darwin stage this month in a critically acclaimed play by Melbourne’s Dirty Pretty Theatre. The play follows a young woman...
The Swagman's Ghost
The swagman has appeared under many guises: hero, sheep thief, martyr. Now Darwin playwright Levin Diatschenko offers another version of the fabled itinerant: a travelling mystic who delivers justice and...
Laugh It Off
An annual, carefully curated showcase of local talent, Laugh It Off revels in what it means to be ‘Territorian’ – and, in salutation to Territory Day, there’s a special Territory...
Rope Burn
Two best mates. One gets cancer. Hilarity ensues. Rope burn is a new Australian play by Ava Karuso about friendship, boys and one of humanity's most frightening diseases. Ben and...
Seven Deadly Sinners
Seven of the best NT comedians – and self-confessed sinners – lay bare their wretched souls in the biggest NT comedy show yet. Top End Comedy has come a long...
