Affectionate homage to disco classics not enough to ignite the drama

1 month ago 17

By Cameron Woodhead and Marcus Teague

January 11, 2026 — 1.01pm

MUSICAL
Saturday Night Fever ★★
The Athenaeum, until January 25

A pop-cultural touchstone of the late ’70s, Saturday Night Fever was the film that made John Travolta a megastar and turned disco into a global phenomenon.

Its soundtrack album remains one of the bestselling in history, with all those chart-topping bangers from the Bee Gees defining the sound of a musical genre that never really goes out of style. The songs alone should make a jukebox musical an appealing proposition, though the transition from screen to stage isn’t exactly a smooth move. If you’ve only seen the PG version of the film, you might not be aware of just how dark the storyline gets in the R-rated release: gang violence, gang rape, family violence, suicide, pervasive male chauvinism and misogyny.

Ethan Churchill (centre) strikes an iconic pose as Tony Manero with the cast of Saturday Night Fever.

Young Italian-American Tony Manero (Ethan Churchill) is stuck in an uninspiring job. His home life is tormented by a violent alcoholic father (George Kapiniaris), and his friends are toxic in the masculinity stakes: brawling with rival ethnic gangs and hanging at a local discotheque trying to seduce young women into having sex with them.

Tony seeks an outlet in a disco dancing competition, discarding his first partner Annette (Izzi Green) for Stephanie (Regan Barber), a better dancer with ambitions to move to Manhattan. Meanwhile, Tony’s brother (Matthew Casamento) leaves the priesthood, and Brooklyn’s mean streets claim their due in misery.

This national touring production from Drew Anthony Creative does feature numbers that pay affectionate, hedonistic homage to disco favourites. Still, the fun factor is seriously undercut by the way the show strives to press the songs into dramatic service, sandwiching the music between competing and contradictory demands.

Churchill and Regan Barber on the dancefloor in Saturday Night Fever.

The musical tones down the heaviest material, yet it attempts to lend a naturalistic authenticity to a world of disaffected, working-class Brooklyn youth. It largely fails, with many over-earnest, quickly sketched scenes serving as little more than flimsy filler between songs.

A few musical arrangements do work well theatrically – Green’s plaintive rendition of If I Can’t Have You neatly channels the angst of an unrequited crush, for instance. Others look and sound terribly awkward. It’s no shade on Sam Hamilton to say that the Bee Gees’ Tragedy is a ridiculous accompaniment to his character’s suicide.

Barber’s sassy Stephanie out acts Churchill, who could use more comedic and charismatic gloss in the Travolta role, and the thing that might have carried the musical through its humdrum sequences – the magnetism, the spectacle, the epiphanic transcendence of losing yourself in dance – doesn’t quite make itself felt on the cramped Athenaeum stage.

Saturday Night Fever does provide visual interest – elaborate projections, colourful period costume, spots of impressive choreography – and it isn’t so awful you want to “burn that mother down”, as they say in Disco Inferno. But there’s little synergy between music and storytelling, and it isn’t a jukebox musical I can heartily recommend.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

MUSIC
Travis ★★★
Festival Hall, January 10

Scottish band Travis haven’t toured Australia since 2001. The reason, says lively elfin frontman Fran Healy to a crowd loud with expats, was their management: “So we sacked them.”

The four-piece are here to perform their 1999 breakthrough The Man Who, in its jangly, melancholy-pop entirety, followed by a set cherry-picked from their back catalogue.

A band ticking off a track list can feel perfunctory, but Travis poke fun at this by going full PowerPoint presentation mode – literally. With a laptop on stage, the white-haired Healy introduces each song via a slide show and recollections of it. It sounds like a slog, but his easy charisma makes it a sweet romp through the band’s journey from students in Glasgow to indie pop stars of the early 2000s.

Travis frontman Fran Healey at Festival Hall.

Opener Writing to Reach You was apparently inspired by Healy’s gas heater, Franz Kafka and Wonderwall; The Fear was written above a pub called The Horseshoe (the Scots in the crowd cheer); As You Are is about a poem an old man handed Healy on a train. Before Driftwood, Healy says he came up with the melody while doing the dishes, then plays the original voice memo of it. It’s a lot of fun.

Though Healy is a great raconteur — and his voice remains lovely — Travis’ music still isn’t about much.

Healey takes the Festival Hall crowd through the stories of the songs from Writing to Reach You.

Gaslight, from the band’s 2024 LP L.A. Times, is a response to someone who wronged Healy, but the vague lyrics on screen locate no such venom. Fortunately, there are earworms in Why Does it Always Rain on Me? – which has the crowd pogoing – a stirring Side and closing highlight Sing to keep spirits up.

“It’s less about the songs and more about the memories we attach to them,” says Healy, perhaps a little too insightfully at one point. At least tonight will be a nice one.
Reviewed by Marcus Teague

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.