The Streets at St Kilda Foreshore; Back to Te Maunga at La Mama; Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the MSO;

MUSIC
Streets ★★★★
St Kilda Coast, 5 March

Mike Skinner didn’t seem to notice the golden sunset over St Kilda’s palm trees. The fourth wall of his Birmingham flat remains in place as the tragicomic interior monologue of the 2004 classic: Don’t Come for a Big FreebieIt came back like a default mood.

He set out with the zipper of a glossy black plastic raincoat, accompanied by an appropriately simple musical/dramatic foil cast. It Should Have Been So Easy As if it pained him to remember, even as some of the sold-out crowd raised voices to help the rhymes sink in.

The album can only be read differently now. No longer a warm take on a rickety underdog at the cutting edge of the British garage scene, in 2026 it resembles more of a period social drama: three acts of hope, misery and bittersweet resolution set between the great decline of enthusiasm and the rise of the smartphone.

Skinner knows it’s all about the words, and he delivers them cleanly with all his rhythmic cunning against the minimal accompaniment of drums, keyboards and the occasional guitar, their timing blurring around the edges like any good night out.

Roo Savill sings of her love It May Well Be And Get Out of My Houseperfect but suitably empty: the product of our hero’s blunted imagination that he can never quite understand.

Skinner never breaks character – it’s not even “proper Melbourne”. – to club paranoia Blinded by the lights and couch potato happiness I wouldn’t have it any other way give way to heartbreaking accident Dry Your Eyes. It’s not a nostalgic wink he’s selling; This is an open wound.

He caps off his aloof party style with an encore set that brings old raves back to life. A handful of classics, mostly from abroad Original Pirate MaterialIt culminates in a crowded surf that carries him across the parking lot. It’s a fitting end to what he thanks us for sharing: the “emotional highs and lows” of an evening.
Reviewed by Michael Dwyer

THEATRE
Back to Te Maunga ★★★★★
La Mama Courthouse, until March 22

Maunga (ancestral mountains) is a sacred well in Maori culture that provides guidance, protection and connection to the environment. Inside Return to Te MaungaThis spiritual backdrop is the looming specter of grief, friendship, and stark explorations of responsibility.

It’s been 10 years since their best friend Jake passed away, and Tāne (Joe Dekkers-Reihana) and Isaac (Jordan Selwyn) are commemorating the anniversary of his death in a place of great personal significance, an isolated log cabin Tāne inherited where many of their childhood adventures took place.

However, it becomes increasingly apparent that Tāne has invited Isaac to the hut for a specific purpose; It’s a revelation that reveals decades of simmering resentments and forces them both to confront their guilt in their friend’s death.

This seed of mystery raises the stakes and proves an opportune stage for a tightly wound story that is both broad and deeply felt to emerge.

Joel Te Teira’s masterful script transcends time and space, drawing a complex web of shared history, relationships, and trauma. Tāne and Isaac are Māori men with distinct connections to culture, place and home; This push and pull gives way to exciting physical and intellectual confrontations as they examine their place in the world.

These lived-in characters are beautifully evoked by Dekkers-Reihana and Selwyn, who have undeniable chemistry as two lifelong friends. They switch seamlessly between Te Reo Maori and English while challenging the personification of mākutu (curses), karakia (Maori spells, chants and prayers) and tikanga (Maori social knowledge). It is Te Teira’s evidence that these cultural emblems are never over-explained to non-Maori audiences, but grounded in sufficient context that their meaning is obvious.

Often jumping joyfully around the stage with a guitar in hand, Dekkers-Reihana brings irreverence, warmth and a knack for perfectly timed physical comedy to the character of Tāne, whose strong sense of who he is and macabre humor mask imperceptible anxieties about the future.

Restrained and fragile, Selwyn’s well-adjusted Isaac is the perfect foil. Returning to Aotearoa after making a life for himself in colonial London, Isaac’s pragmatism about Jake’s death paints a picture of someone whose grief has separated him from himself and his whānau.

Zoë Rouse’s beautifully kept set, an unassuming cabin peeking through the foliage, limits the escalating drama and lends it an inescapable urgency. Harrie Hogan’s masterful adjustment of the game’s lighting is a masterclass in build-up and release, mirrored by the chilling unease of Ethan Hunter’s sound design.

Under Keegan Bragg’s direction, these disparate elements come together in a stunning meditation on loss, culture, and connection.

Return to Te Maunga It is less preoccupied with finding a definitive solution to the much-publicised gulf between tradition and modernity and more interested in charting a forever evolving, ever-changing and self-redirecting mode of Maori masculinity.
Reviewed by: Sonia Nair

MUSIC
Jean-Yves Thibaudet ★★★★★
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Center and Hamer Hall, 3-7 March

Forty years after making his Australian debut in Melbourne, Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s latest visit to the city confirmed him as one of the world’s great masters of pianistic color and poetry. His extraordinary mastery was evident in his eloquent passage through both books of Debussy’s Preludes in front of a disappointingly underfilled hall at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

Although he rejected the impressionist label, Debussy’s music is full of pictorial metaphors; notes that require color nuance, balance and perspective to reveal his artistic vision. Thibaudet developed these sensibilities like few others.

Inside Dancers of Delphi And Canopic JarWhile Thibaudet draws the elegant, simple lines of classical Greece, Destroyed Cathedral or scary Footsteps in the SnowHe became like an artist slowly but skillfully applying layers of color to the sound canvas. Reached an exquisite artistic peak Moonlight Spectators’ TerraceThe rays of moonlight punctuated the night atmosphere in an unforgettable way.

Realizing that part of the genius of the preludes lies in the great contrasts, Thibaudet played the changes with enthusiasm. There was humor, especially in the portrait of Charles Dickens’ character Samuel Pickwick, with exaggerated quotes. God Save the Kingand there were vivid scenes from nature What the West Wind Saw. Hints of exoticism and popular song revealed Wine Gate And Anacapri Hills.

lyricism Flaxen Haired Girl it was rendered far less effective compared to the technical wizardry on display. Alternate Triads And fireworkThibaudet’s hummingbird hands ignited a truly pyrotechnic finale.

More showmanship was on display at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Season Opening Gala at Hamer Hall, where Thibaudet was the soloist in Gershwin’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto. As bright and sparkling as soloist Vivienne Westwood’s concert outfit, the concerto gave Thibaudet plenty of room for pianistic prowess as well as smoky sensuality.

Under the direction of chief conductor Jaime Martín, other American works have featured Gershwin. Takeoff came with John Williams’ exciting but stylistically derivative Star Wars: Suiteand the official program concluded with a lively rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. One repeated flying contact by Williams Extraterrestrial ET left the audience in a good mood.

Recalling Thibaudet’s innate harmony with French piano music, I hope he returns soon with plenty of Ravel.
Reviewed by Tony Way

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