Things seen and unseen...

Asked to write a hit list of the best of the year to come in Melbourne theatre, I spun a yarn about the pittance that our so-called fringe artists have to live on, about project funding and the 0.01% of the Victorian state budget devoted to indie companies and projects.

That decimal point is in the right place incidentally. Just one percent of one percent. Yowza.

That Herald Sun article is on-line, here.

And, guess what? My actual prognostications didn't make the cut! The story was deemed more important than the prophecy! (I can't argue with that.) So, for what it's worth, this is a very short list -- the pointy end of a no-doubt massive iceberg -- of the shows I reckon will rock our worlds, in Melbourne, in 2011.

* After the stunning success of Thyestes, The Hayloft Project is adapting another ancient classic: Antigone. Another bloodbath!

* More fear and loathing from Black Lung: The Plague Cycle.

* Faith, religion and reincarnation are on the minds of both Stephanie Lake (creating Holy in 2011) and Phillip Adams’ (a new piece called Above).

* Last, but never least, Rawcus Theatre Company’s Small Odysseys.

If I'd been asked to do my crystal ball act re the year in ballet, the glass would have been fogged up with my drooling anticipation of what Graeme Murphy will do with Romeo & Juliet and Prokofiev's electrifying score.

Good to its word, the Herald Sun is ramping up its on-line coverage of the arts. Bout time too... Out of the 900-odd articles and reviews I've written for HWT, I reckon I've seen about five on-line. Counting this one.

Astute TN readers (aren't they all?) will already know this, but -- er -- I'm the new Alison Croggon: the Melbourne theatre crritic for The Australian. The shoes might not be big -- they're rather dainty actually -- but the heels are stratospheric. (How oddly Shakespearean that sounds! "Our aery buildeth in the cedar's top/And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun...") [Here's hoping I don't turn too many suns to shade!]

Proving that worlds sometimes begin with a whimper, my first review in the new role was just a shorty. Unusually for The Australian, it doesn't appear on-line. So, here 'tis:

What Australian circus may lack in skill levels is more than made up for in personality. Think Circus Oz, the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus and Legs on the Wall. And thanks to the establishment of the National Institute of Circus Arts in Melbourne, and regular tours from outfits as diverse as Cirque du Soleil and Archaos, local audiences are not so easily awed. Skill levels in Le Grand Cirque’s touring company range from adequate to spectacular, the acts swing from ho-hum to genuinely death-defying. But apart from a brilliant balloon routine from the otherwise obnoxious MC, Le Grand Cirque has all the personality of a diamante. Le Grand Cirque is at the Regent Theatre, Melbourne, until January 23. Tickets: $64.90-$84.90. Another production by Le Grand Cirque, Adrenaline, opens at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday January 6. Tickets: $59-$95.

This review appeared in The Australian on Monday January 3, 2011.