The annual Short and Sweet Festival kicked off at the Newtown Theatre last night with a selection of ten short plays. This was a very patchy start to the Festival!

These were my picks of the best of the ten pieces:-

Vee Malner’s ‘Aerobic Blues’, neatly performed by Lynden Jones and Samantha Hickey, a cleverly written piece about two people who had been romantically slighted by the same person and decide on revenge!

Steven Hopley’s ‘The Last Biscuit’ was another clever piece about a dating couple who have had dinner and are silently sitting on the sofa watching television. Over the theatre’s loudspeaker system we hear the thoughts racing their heads and the actors also express how they are feeling with their body language. This was a well played poetic piece.

Peter Holland’s ‘All Hail’ was a clever piece about a wife’s ruthless ambition to get her husband to fulfill his acting ambitions.

Pat Brennan’s ‘Putting your best foot forward’ was another clever piece about two men in a theatre dressing room as they put on their make-up before going on stage. The interest in their story comes from one actor being a veteran and the other performer is just starting out. There’s a neat twist in the ending.

Then there were the plays that had interesting ideas but never really took off! Amongst these were Nakkiah Lui’s ‘The Prisoner and The Soldier’, Donna Garofali Parise’s ‘Afternoon Tea with Scones’, Craig McNulty’s ‘The Pink Dress’ and Frank Davidson’s ‘A Match Made in Heaven’.

Finally, there were two plays, Erika Stoffels ‘The Regal History Of Our Willy’ and James Searles’s ‘Embedded’ that lacked any discernible vision or direction.

A large cast of actors worked hard to bring the writers work to life. My pick of the performers were Michele Anderson in ‘All Hail’, Cindi Knapton in ‘Afternoon Tea with Sex and Scones’, Andy Leonard in ‘Putting Your Best Foot Forward’, and Lynden Jones and Samantha Hickey in ‘Aerobic Blues’.

Short and Sweet’s Week One at the Newtown Theatre plays until January 10. The gala finals will be held at the Parade Theatre, NIDA on Saturday March 13.