Selections from some of the reviews of The Demon Barber highlighting Michael's contribution to the show. I encourage you to go along and see the show at Perth Theatre. The show's run finishes on 24 November 2007.
"The show's greatest asset is its teetering three-storey set, which features a ramshackle old Fleet Street house ranging upwards from the pie-shop entrance at street level, through Sweeney's spectacularly red-painted barber's shop on the first floor and up to Marra's three-piece band, groaning away Tom-Waits-style in the attic. Marra's wry songs are also difficult to appreciate fully on a single hearing." - Joyce McMillan - The Scotsman
"Now Perth Theatre associate artist Graham McLaren presents his version, which he has written, directed and designed. His starting point is a “penny dreadful” story about Todd accompanied by a score by Michael Marra. McLaren’s design is outstanding, creating a portrait of 18th century London, oozing with crime and corruption, that chills the onlooker. Shaven headed men with chalk white faces menacingly people the stage, while Kai Fischer’s lighting threateningly suggests the evil that lurks in every shadow. The three-piece band comprising composer Michael Marra, John Sampson and Bill Murdoch are perched high on the roof of Sweeney’s premises, and sometimes again the words of the grimly humorous songs are lost upwards." - Joy Watters The Courier
"On the roof sit Michael Marra and his fellow musicians, resplendent in Tiger Lillies pasty-face-and-titfer ensemble as they serve up a junk-yard commentary on events down below. As emotively illustrative as Marra's gravel-voiced punctuations are, they're pretty much the only thing this stylistically derivative mish-mash of student-revue-level theatrics has going for it" - Neil Cooper - The Herald
