With the great Bev Kennedy and her band pumping away from the back of the small downstairs Seymour Centre stage, the respective actors from the festivals’ ten mini musicals came out and gave their works their best shot. The results were not always great but every piece had its merit.

There were a great variety of subjects on show, predominately given breezy, comic treatments. Amongst the works was a religious piece on Joshua finding a way to get her heavily pregnant wife to Bethlehem, (‘The Road to Bethlehem-a scene taken from Victorian playwrights Matthew Frank and Dean Bryant’s new full length musical, ‘The Silver Donkey’), a reflective, wistful piece about two women singing about the changes that motherhood has created in their lives (‘In My Arms’), a very funny, satirical look at mental health review boards (‘The Alleged Adventures of Blenderman), a poignant work about a girl who wants to share her love of astronomy with her new boyfriend by taking him up an observatory hill (‘Short Sighted’), and a lyrical piece about a man looking for much more than good looks from any prospective girlfriend (‘The Pretty Girl’).

This year’s Artistic Director Michael Huxley can take credit for putting together a good Festival. The Festival received entries from around the world. Entries had to run maximum ten minutes, and had to have a original score/libretto.

The winners of this years’ festival were:- Best Actor- James Miller for ‘Blenderman’, Best Actress- Catherine Shepherd for ‘The Pretty Girl’, Best Production- ‘The Alleged Adventures of Blenderman’, and the Best Musical- Australian Institute of Music category- went to ‘The Pretty Girl’.