January 17-19
Award-winning playwright Caleb Lewis’ Songs for the Deaf featured in both the 2004 Adelaide Fringe Festival and the 2006 Melbourne Fringe Festival programmes. Now, early in 2008, Lewis himself will direct the Hong Kong performances of what amounts to a collection of three black-humoured bittersweet vignettes of urban life at the Fringe Club’s Fringe Theatre. You Don’t Send Me Flowers, Bunny and Rocket Baby are the titles of the short sketches in this dramatic triptych that is part of the Australia On Stage portion of this year’s City Festival. From January 17 to 19, showtime is 9:15pm for this hour-long offering. Tickets cost $180 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

January 18 and 19
How bad is A-Yue Chang (aka Chang Cheng-Yue)? Known for ruffling feathers and raising eyebrows with his off-the-cuff remarks and seriously rockin’ music, the bad boy of Taiwan music made Hello Kitty lovers’ hate list with an international Kill Kitty Tour a few years back! At the same time, though, there’s no disputing that the singer has successfully won over music fans with a repertoire that includes karaoke-friendly ballads along with loud rock. And no doubt many of his fans will be busting to attend the January 18 and 19 A-Yue Live in HK concerts at the HITECH Star Hall. The music will get going at 8:15pm. Tickets are $400 to $100 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

January 18-20
It is not every day a performance arts piece is touted as “probably the most subversive production to come from Guangzhou in recent years”. But that is how Ghosts of West Hill is being sold. Relying on Chinese opera conventions, it is an experimental theatre offering with an all-female cast whose storytelling relies more on sound and body movements than dialogue or text. The group staging the work, Theatre of Human Comedy, used to go by the rather nondescript name 1752 Theatre Group even though dedicated to staging innovative and original productions. The ghosts will be visiting the Fringe Club’s Fringe Theatre from January 18 to 20: all three evening performances are scheduled to start at 7:30pm while the Sunday, January 20, matinee commences at 3pm. Tickets are $150 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

January 19-31
How would you feel if your father, a terminally ill septuagenarian, one day out of the blue declared his love for his pregnant caregiver? This is the scenario in uber-playwright cum scriptwriter Raymond To’s Love You Forever, a dramatic production to be staged by the HK Repertory Theatre from January 19 to 31. And would your opinion change if the carer reveals she does not want a single cent from the elderly man’s fortune? To find out how the story unfolds, be at the HK City Hall’s Theatre at 7:45pm on any evening (except Monday, January 21 and 28) or at 2:45pm on January 20, 26 and 27. Tickets are $240 and $180 for Friday to Sunday performances, and $220 and $170 on Tuesdays to Thursdays, from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

January 23-26
“Let the Body Flow. Let the Mind Grow.” Thus exhort the folks behind the Bare Stage Dance Project 2008 which aims to both celebrate the organic, physical energy of dance and reaffirm its meaning as a simple but forceful expression of human emotions. True to their mantra, they will be flowing to music especially chosen by artists and non-dancers who love dance. Their performances, part of the City Festival 2008 programme, from January 23 to 26, will take place at 7:30pm at the Fringe Club’s Fringe Studio. Tickets are $150 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288

January 24-26
He may have been baptized in 1850 as Patrick Lafcadia Tessima Carlos Hearn but the European man who spent the final 15 years of his life in the Land of the Rising Sun is better known by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo, particularly to readers of his Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things and other writings. In homage to him and his supernatural works, the London and Tokyo-based Performance Exchange will present Ghost Tales, a theatrical celebration of the macabre this January 24 to 26 at the Fringe Club’s Fringe Studio. Performances commence at 9:15pm and tickets are $140 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

Friday, January 25
Soho is the name of ‘happening’ sections of London, New York and Hong Kong (as well as, believe it or not, Buenos Aires). And it is at the HKSAR’s Soho-located Le Rideau Theatre Cafe (tel: 2850 8833) that the Stand Up in Soho! show that includes stand-up comedians from the UK and USA as well as the Fragrant Harbour all will be angling for laughs on Friday, January 25. The jokers’ antics at the performing arts bistro are due to begin at 9:30pm. Entry is $150.

January 25-27
It works for hawkers of consumer goods, so why not for the performing arts? In any event, ‘Get two for the price of one’ may be the thinking behind the HK Musical Theatre Federation’s decision to offer an intriguing double-bill of If Again, a decadent dance musical about a gang of high-living lowlifes, and Can’t Help It ... My Feet Love to Dance, a spectacle of song-and-dance numbers from the 1920s through to contemporary Broadway and Hollywood musicals. The production will run from January 25 to 27 at the Sai Wan Ho Civic Theatre. Evening performances are scheduled for 8pm while the Saturday, January 26, matinee is set to start at 3pm. Tickets are $180 and $120 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.

Tuesday, January 29
Formed in the aftermath of 9/11, My Chemical Romance plays a brand of music it describes as “violent, dangerous pop(!)” and “rock” but which others have categorized as pop punk, alternative rock, post-hardcore, punk revival and – for all of frontman Gerard Way’s protests – emo. What’s indisputable though is that the group has garnered much musical acclaim over the past few years, including a Grammy Award for its most recent album, The Black Parade. On Tuesday, January 29, this quintet from Jersey City, New Jersey, will give their debut Hong Kong performance at the AsiaWorld-Expo’s Hall 10. The concert is due to kick off at 8pm and tickets are $780 and $480 from HK Ticketing, 31 288 288.

January 30 and 31
Two major Chinese opera companies, Hong Kong’s Jingkun Theatre and the Shandong Peking Opera Theatre, have come together to present a couple of traditional Chinese opera programmes, complete with Chinese and English surtitles, at the tail end of this month. Wednesday, January 30, will see the staging of the award-winning The House Wulong, whose story starts in Shandong but descends all the way into the underworld, while on Thursday, January 31, centre stage belongs to Yu Sanjie, an A Dream of Red Mansions tale considered to be an Imperial Chinese literary and opera classic that has also been made into a film. Showtime is 8pm on both evenings. Tickets are $280 to $100 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.