Theatre Review: LoveMusik

 The Show: LoveMusik based on the book by Albert Uhry, Music by Kurt Weill

The Theatre: Downstair at the Belvoir Street Theatre

The Company: Neglected Musicals

Stars: 5

The limited run ends tonight. (24-28 June)

A couple of things happened last night. I caught up with a friend from my writing retreats. We went to see a show. I got to see a phenomenal piece of theatre. What more do you want? 

Seeing this was a pure fluke. I like to see interesting theatre, but Sydney can be a bit of a cultural backwater. The one show that mildly interesting me was David Wenham in The Iliad, but the ticket prices were too steep. Then I looked up what the Belvoir Street Theatre was doing and this came out. A musical about Kurt Weill and his wife, Lotte Lenya. It had a four-day run in their smaller space. At $70 a ticket, it fit the bill. Even more so, my friend is a German teacher and there were some German themes that ran through this. 

We turned up. the 80-seater theatre was full. On the small stage there were a number of chairs, with some props underneath and a keyboard. 

For the next two hours we were mesmerised. 

What I didn't know before seeing this was that the company behind this performance, Neglected Musicals, is a company that does just this - it takes musicals which are rarely performed, or never been performed in Australia. They go on a very limited run. The cast get one day's rehearsal, they go on, script in hand with a piano accompanist.

Theatre by the seat of your pants stuff. 

A very talented professional cast. 

Utter magic. 

The musical revolves around the lives of the composer Kurt Weill (best known for writing the music for Mack the Knife) and his wife, Lotte Lenya and Weill's relationship with Bertholt Brecht. 

Weill and Lenya's life is striking. Fraught, poignant, and incredibly interesting. The musical takes them from the excesses of the Weimar Republic, to their escape to America in the 1930s, to Weill's burgeoning celebrity, to life in New York and Hollywood, to Weill's death in 1950. This musical covers a lot of ground. 

I was blown away within minutes. 

The music was great. The story cohesive. The fact that the actors had a day's rehearsal to put on a musical of this calibre is incredible. 

This is theatre by the seat of your pants. Looking at the cast's bios, there was a lot of musical theatre experience. This shone through. This was performed by a group of actors at the top of their game. 

Most daftly, the cast wouldn't take a second curtain call. No idea why. They had the whole audience by the heart. 

In some ways, this reminded me of shows that La Mama or The Red Stitch Actors Theatre put on. It's great to know that Sydney has such an outlet. 

For me, I'm just honoured that I got to see this on this limited run. As somebody who doesn't normally like musicals, this one fit the bill. 

Today's song:

Sunday Stealing: Meme Schmeme Part Two

I'm just back from the theatre. Normally, I would be making a go of a review of this play, but I really want to mull this one over a bit more. It was fantastic.

Regardless, here are the Sunday Stealing questions for this week. It's easier than writing about the incredible piece of theatre I was lucky enough to see. 

I LOVE TO be in water. Be it a bath or a shower or a swimming pool or the sea or jumping in puddles or getting caught in the rain. I love being in water. 

I SOMETIMES wonder what would happen if my hard won, oft used filter left me and I got to say exactly what I was thinking when I was thinking it. I do have a filter. Some might think that I don't have one, but I do - and I know I only use it selectively anyway, but yeah... that could be fun. 

I FEAR this romp towards the right. The Christian Fundamentalist lurch to controlling women's bodies is absolutely obscene. 

I MISS living in England. I loved it over there. I know it's a very different place from when I left it over twenty years ago, but I still miss it. Britain is far more accepting of the barking mad - of which I class myself. I fitted in better there. 

I CRAVE lots of things. Ice cream. Sex. The turn of a beautiful sentence. Long, slow kisses. A holiday. Bahn Mi for lunch. A wander around a cathedral. Rain. Kinder politics. Better journalism... want me to go on. 

I CHERISH time with friends. Education. Kindness. 

I AM IMPATIENT WHEN _people walk slowly in front of me. I'm just back from Sydney. Sydney people do this all the time. I want to slap them about the head. 

Today's song: 

Movie Review: Toy Story 5

 Movie Number 25 of 2026

The Movie: Toy Story 5

The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens

Runtime: One hour 47 minutes

Stars: 4

Argh! The first Toy Story movie came out in 1995 - 30 bloody years ago! 

Now, in the age of tech and devices, will a Toy Story movie stand up? 

Yes, it does. This is delightful - with some great messaging, a lot of laughs and a comfort factor. This is a kid's movie adults can happily watch, get a hit of nostalgia and wonder at the creativity of some people. 

The premise is fairly simple. Woody, Buzz, Jessie and the rest of the gang's jobs are challenged when they're introduced to electronics, a new threat to playtime.

Jessie (Joan Cusack) is still leading the charge with the toys. Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) is still pining over her, and Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep have retired nearby. But when Bonnie's parents succumb and buy her a Lily Pad tablet (Greta Lee), the toys feel they've been made redundant, being relegated to the garage or the opp shop. 

What follows in an hour and three quarters of delight, as the toys try to get back together and find Bonnie some friends. 

The film has a lot to say about kids today, the dependance on devices and the seeming lack of imagination kids have today.

I won't say much more. Written and direct by McKenna Harris and Andrew Stanton, they know what they're doing. This will appeal to kids and much as it will the adults who are taking them along - as well as the couple of middle-aged women looking to see something light on a Friday night. 

Today's song:

Bogan Nachos

 I'm very lucky with my neighbours. They're nice people. They're quiet. And we all have a chat in the stairwell every so often. Easy neighbours. Helpful neighbours. We don't live in each other's pockets, but it's good that we are friendly enough to say hi. 

Tonight, I ran into Ross, who lives downstairs. 

He's a long, stringy country boy from rural Queensland. He's in the process of changing careers, as being a mechanic wasn't working for him anymore. He's currently got a warehouse job at a high-end French bakery down the road. Lucky bloke.

Being from rural Queensland, there's no flies on Ross. He's lovely, and willing to learn. He admits that his tastes aren't refined, but he's open minded. I love this about him. 

We had a chat about tea. He spent the day sorting out a bulk order of French tea.

"I thought there was two types of tea - English Breakfast and Earl Grey," he told me. 

"Nah, there are lots more to see and try. Doesn't matter if you don't like them all, but if you're willing to try, then good for you."

"Yeah," he said, "It's like the macaroons..."

"You mean macarons - macaroons are made of coconut but your nana. Macron is the French President. Macarons are the things your bakers make."

"It's so hard, this French stuff."

"You'll learn. If you want a hand, I can give you some tips."

We then got onto the subject of dinner. He was heading out to the supermarket.

"I've got bogan nachos for dinner tonight."

"Bogan nachos?"

"Easy dinner, because I'm wiped. You get a packet of Doritos, tip a can of baked beans over then, and some grated cheese. Chuck them in the oven for ten minutes, and voila!"

"But isn't that how everybody makes nachos?" he asked. "By the way, Doritos - corn chip of champions."

"Absolutely agree."

I must say that bogan nachos are the bomb. 

According to Matt Preston of Masterchef fame, you can soup up bogan nachos and make them for the cashed-up bogans.

Sometimes I love being Australian. 

Today's song:

Engineer Lunch

Today was my monthly engineer lunch day. I went into the office because of this - otherwise I could have worked from home. But as it was engineer lunch day, I dutifully went in. 

Engineer lunch?

I have lunch with an engineer. We've been doing this for the best part of years. 

Dave and I were in the same team at a Telco back in the late naughties. Yes, I was working in an engineering team. 

Dave is one of those quiet people who normally doesn't say boo to a goose. He's universally respected across whatever company he works at, but he's one of those typical engineers that normally look down when speaking to you... you know, complete introvert, a cow lick, wears lots of blue, grey and brown and is generally nondescript. 

Except, being on this strange team, we got to know each other. 

And after I got made redundant at the back end of 2010, we made a promise to meet for lunch once a month. 

15 years on, we still meet for lunch once a month. 

Other than we're both well into our 50s, think similarly on most things political and laugh at the youth of today, we have very little in common. Other than we have lunch with one another once a month.

Today, we talked about lots of things over Grill'd burgers. His daughters finishing school, aging parents, possible holidays, and my last writing retreat. 

"I read my book while I was down the Great Ocean Road. Read my book and patted the dog and that was it."

"No naked swimming?"

"Nope. I was tending the fire that I'd lit. For a change, I was happy on the couch with a coffee, a crochet hook and a spare dog."

"Heaven?"

"Yeah."

"And the book?"

"Not awful. I now need to find some accountability monitors?"

"Somebody to check in with?"

"Yep. I've set myself a goal to finish the first draft by the November Gunnas. Wanna be my accountability monitor. You don't have to read it, but you can see that there's progress."

"Why not. I've got faith in you."

And this is why we have lunch once a month.

Today's song: 

1997: The Music

In preparation to get writing this last bit of this bloody novel, between adding closed captions to work videos, I did some digging. 

How good was 1997 for music. 

I mean, seriously, I can play a heap of these songs, and I'm transported straight back to West Hampstead. We're in the days of the best of Britpop. 

The year got off to a great start with Blur going into their experimental phase. I love their 1999 song Tender more, but this one has legs. 

Then there's the song that every time I hear it, I remember having a friend stay at the flat. She's been on a Contiki Tour around Europe and was used to getting woken up at all hours to this song. If a Contiki Tour wasn't purgatory enough, being woken to Hansen each morning would have had be jumping off the nearest aqueduct. (Said person is now a very senior Doctor - I wonder if they have memories of sleeping on our couch.)

We can't go past 1997 without a nod to Natalie Imbruglia. This is one friend's favourite song - I think he was a little in love with her from a long distance. I still love the song. It was all over the pubs in 1997. Now, I know her cousin. Two degrees of separation. 

My theme song for the second half of 1997 was this banger. I will admit to quite a bit of alcohol was drunk back then. 

It's hard to believe that Chumbawumba came up with the theme song of 2026. (This is so worth a listen.)

The Verve had one of the biggest albums of the year. Although they will always remind me of my cousin, who also slept on my couch for a few weeks around this time, who used to drink all the milk (bless her) we shared a love of this album. The songs still stand up. 

I remember The Prodigy coming out with this and initially hating it. The downstairs neighbours, a group of Aussies and Kiwis, told me to stick with it. It will grow on you they said. Like warts they said. It did. Admittedly, they were more into clubbing than I was. But they were right.

And another one of my theme songs. 

I could go on. 

1997 wasn't that bad. Fantastic music in a crap year. 

And the best song of the year. See below. This is would be my karaoke song if I was ever stupid enough to get up at karaoke. 

Today's song: 

Annus Horribilus

I spent most of this last weekend at a table in a chapel down the Great Ocean Road reading a manuscript. 

My manscript. 

87,000 words, that I wrote in 2019. 

I barely moved from my position at the back of the chapel. I'd set up ADHD corner - my computer, crochet, my manuscript, computer peripherals - the complete dog's breakfast, bit if you're going to hunker down and read 87000 words, you want to feel at home. 

I did it too - got through the whole thing. If you think about it the modern-day novel runs to around 100,000 words, that's around 80% of a book. I had a pen in hand, making a few slashes, making a few notes, but mostly I read, and took in what it was I'd done. 

A little surprisingly, I wasn't about to slit my wrists or stick my fingers down my throat. It's okay. Sure, it needs work, but this is, as we Gunnas call it, the down draft. Then you do the up draft, where you sort out all the issues and really knock the whole thing into shape. Then there's the dental draft, or the proof edit. 

Structurally, it's pretty sound. I like the meandering through London in the 90s. Although they have to be taken out, I really like the song lyrics at the start of each chapter. I want to make a playlist of these songs to go with the manuscript. Having the songs playing helped me write this. 

However, when I got to the end of the manuscript - this book which mirrors my own life, it abruptly stopped. 

1997. 

My Annus Horribilus. 

Far too much happened that year. Okay, my Dad died in the April, Lady Di went in July and lots of other things which threw everything off-kiltre. 

It's the year when everything came to a head. 

It's no wonder I stopped writing this. 

Six years on, a lot more life and some more perspective, I think I'm ready to tackle this again and finish it off.

I have put myself down for the November Gunnas retreat. I want to have the first draft finished by then. 

As Dev says, you're always doomed to stop writing at ME-FA or LA-TEE (This is a Sound of Music reference - Doh, Rey, Me, Fa, Soh, La, Tee, Doh. You're likely to give up at that 30% or 70% mark. 

It's time to bite the bullet and get this out there. 

I can do this.

1997 was an Annus Horribilus, bit it was 30 years ago. It can't hurt me. 

Wish me luck. I have four months to knock this out. 

Today's song: