Until Sat, October 20
Three of Australia’s leading comedians along with puppeteers – they won the Festival Directors Award at the 2006 Melbourne International Comedy Festival – conspire to make kitchen utensils and assorted food items come to comic life in Men of Steel, a hit puppet extravaganza about a pair of gibberish-spewing cookie cutters who escape from a drawer and head off in search of culinary treats. The madcap show, which makes use of a language of its own invention, runs from October 17 to 20 at the Fringe Club’s Fringe Studio. Performances are scheduled to commence at 8pm. Tickets are $150 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

Until Wed, October 31
Can the dark and scary be fun? Those who celebrate All Hallows Eve certainly think so, as do those behind the Haunted Halloween at HK Disneyland that seeks to show visitors the Dark Side of Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Through to the night of Wednesday, October 31, the Lantau Island theme park will boast special ghoulish attractions like the Glow in the Park Halloween Parade, Space Mountain-Ghost Galaxy and the Main Street Haunted Hotel. Opening times are 10am to 8pm on non-Halloween Sundays through to Thursdays and 10am to 11pm on Friday, Saturday and Halloween itself. Regular admission costs $295 but goes up to $350 on weekends and designated ‘peak days’. For further information, call 1830 830.

Another place you can get into the spirit of Halloween is Ocean Park, which has added over 40 new attractions (including seven never-seen-before haunted houses and three ‘hair-raising’ scary zones) and 250 plus performers to its usual draws. The Ocean Park Halloween Bash 2007 will go on into the night of Halloween itself. During the promotional period, the amusement park – which normally closes earlier in the day – will additionally open from 5:30pm to midnight on October 18 and October 31 as well as every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and public holiday. For details (including ticketing options and prices), call 2552 0291.

October 19-21
Hailed as one of the most promising and creative music personalities of his generation, German conductor Thomas Hengelbrock has earned much of his reputation with a music group he founded in 1991. The Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble specialises in lively and stylistic performances of 16th to 18th century music, a good example of which would be The Italian Feast of early Baroque madrigals, operatic excerpts and masquerades they will be presenting – complete with beautiful costumes and eye-catching masks – at the HK Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre on the evenings of October 19 to 21. Showtime for this unconventional programme is 7:30pm. Tickets prices run from $580 to $150 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

October 24-25 and 27-28
Penned into the Mediterranean Arts Festival programme as its Egyptian dance representative, Leila Haddad was actually born in Tunisia of a Syrian father and Tunisian mother and is currently based in France, where she earned Masters degrees in English and Italian literature before deciding to fully devote herself to the performing art known in the Arab world as Raqs el Sharqi and commonly referred to in English as ‘belly dancing’. On October 24 and 25, Haddad will perform Zikrayat: Homage to Oum Khalsoum (an Egyptian diva in whose honour poet Ahmed Rami wrote over 200 poems of love and admiration). Then on October 27 and 28, she will give a solo dance presentation, In the Trail of the Ghazawee, that details the historic influences of the ancient dance form she interprets. All four performances are scheduled to commence at 8pm at the HK City Hall’s Theatre. Tickets are $340, $220 and $120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

October 24-November 5
No, it’s not a typo. Since our previous issue went to print, an additional show has been added to popular singer-actor Eason Chan’s Johnnie Walker Keep Walking Eason’s Moving On Stage 1 concert series at the 12,500-seater HK Coliseum. With the commercial promoting these Cantopop concerts reputedly costing $600,000 and the HK Coliseum’s normal 4-sided stage being specially changed to a triangular one, you know that Eason and co really mean business. Showtime is 8:15pm, tickets are $480, $300, $200 and $100 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

October 25-28
“Halloween Is a Good Time to Celebrate the Stories of Edgar Allan Poe.” So proclaimed no less an authority than the Voice of America in an October headline a couple of years ago. The folks behind Bigbox Theatre agree and so seek to treat you a few short days before Halloween to a theatrical evening of selected works by the American master of the macabre. Stark Raven Mad: Confessions of the Grotesque and Arabesque by Edgar Allan Poe, their third Poe-inspired show since 2004, will be staged at Le Rideau Theatre Café from October 25 to 28. The October 28 performance is scheduled to start at 8pm, half an hour earlier than all the other evening shows. Tickets are $170 in advance or $200 at the door from Le Rideau, 2850 8833.

October 26-28
Arlecchino is the Italian word for ‘harlequin’. He also happens to be the title character of Arlecchino: Servant of Two Masters, a commedia dell’arte – think classical Italian comic improv theatre – work written in 1747 by Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni and still entertaining in this day and age. And on the subject of age: would you believe that Feruccio Soleri, the sprightly player of the title role in this Piccolo Teatro di Milano presentation coming to town in late October, has passed his 78th year? Probably not after seeing him performing in one of the three close to 3-hour-long shows to be staged at the Sha Tin Town Hall Auditorium from October 26 to 28! On October 26 and 27 the show will start at 7:30pm while on Sunday, October 28, the matinee is set to begin at 2:30pm. Tickets are $420, $280 and $150 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

October 27 and 28
The HK Cricket Sixes gets its name from the teams of only six players. With rules and a venue (the Kowloon Cricket Club) that encourages aggressive batting, dynamic play and a frenetic pace though, the sixes could also refer to the high number of sixes (and fours) hit over the course of this high-profile international tournament. The 2007 HK Cricket Sixes takes place from 8am to 5pm on October 27 and 28. Two-day tickets cost $500 each and are available from various outlets including the Kowloon Cricket Club (10 Cox’s Road, Jordan, 2367 4141), HK Cricket Club (137 Wong Nai Chung Gap Road, 2574 6266), and HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

Tue, October 30
The Man with the Golden Gun took James Bond to Hong Kong (among other places) but come Tuesday, October 30, the HK Cultural Centre’s Concert Hall will play host to a classical music performance by The Man with the Golden Flute. As a bonus, the Flute Recital by Sir James Galway will feature another accomplished flutist in the form of his wife, Lady Jeanne Galway, in concert with the distinguished Sir James himself and pianist Philip Moll. The ‘for one night only’ concert will begin at 8pm. Tickets are $550 to $200 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.