One word. Incredible.

Alright – two. Fucking incredible – because Amplified lives in the world Chrissy  Amphlett built: pub rock, sweat and Aussie music at its hardest.

The heat under the Belvoir St roof spikes like the third leg of a pub crawl as the  band thumps out that legendary Divinyl sound. Sheridan Harbridge shoulders through the dark and with the flick of her fringe , taps into the blistering charge that Chrissy Amphlett sent roaring through the country’s back alley band pits, where her rasping voice refused to retreat. 

Chrissy Amphlett didn’t just break the mould; she tore it open and showed the country what it looks like when a woman commands rock. In the 80s, when women were expected to be palatable, she fused sex with fear, stalking the stage in a Trinity school uniform and single handly turning desire into a weapon. She made discomfort a thrilling awakening. Amplified takes that spark and turns it into a cabaret of full-throttle rock and reckoning energy.

This is a show where the performer is as compelling as the icon, a rare thing and impossible to fake. You’ll walk out and immediately google; who is Sheridan Harbridge and how the hell she did do that? The answer: a transmission – Amphlett’s fire, live in the room. Instead of mimicking, Harbridge channels Chrissy’s contradictions of instinct and control, that beautiful threat of heat and danger, and runs it through her own body until the room feels the voltage all over again. She knows Chrissy, right down to her core. But she never tries to become her; she lets us meet her instead.

Amplified builds its story the way Chrissy lived her life: emotion first, events second. It doesn’t march through milestones or chart positions; it moves through the emotional weather that shaped her long before the industry tried to. And crucially, although Divinyl’s catalogue threads its way through the show it isn’t a jukebox musical, a tribute band, or any tidy nostalgia trip polishing the hits. 

Sheridan slips from commentary to embodiment in a single breath. A snarl opens a memory. A joke shields a wound. A song erupts because the emotion has nowhere else to go. The facts and stories arrive only after something in the space has cracked open, turning biography into sensation rather than history. You’ll hear hints of Chrissy’s surly, sultry rasp but you’ll get every inch of her soul.

The four piece band taps straight into the Divinyls’ DNA, a controlled explosion of tight, jagged, melodic precision that channels Amphlett’s fiery, feral instinct into high voltage, emotionally charged moments. Some songs hit with their original muscle, while others are reshaped or pared back so the feeling sits raw and immediate. There is a restless, playful charge that mirrors the electricity she carried. It isn’t imitation; it’s ignition, the kind of playing that makes her legacy still feel very much alive.

Cabaret’s no-barrier directness drags the crowd into the action, making them part of Chrissy’s mess and magic. One moment you’re rocking in your seat, feeling the pulse in your ribs; the next you’re inside a story of Chrissy canon – sitting at a kitchen table with Mark McEntee as they write All the Boys in Town, the defiant Molly Meldrum interview, the reveal of her torn school pinafore, laughing hysterically at the infamous squat-and-piss story (and yes, it’s true) – all threaded with the quieter origins of the Geelong girl raised on harsh discipline and church music. 

You’d think this blend would collapse, but cabaret done well barrels through- it thrives on tonal contradiction and somehow lands cleaner. That chemistry gives Amplified its undeniable and irresistible pulse, tipping into the atmosphere of an intimate late night gig and confession rather than a piece of theatre. The entire show crackles with a superbly crafted but deceptively loose, dangerous unpredictability.

When Chrissy arrived it was a rupture. She didn’t just perform. She changed the room. She rewired women’s self image and kickstarted a culture of unapologetic power. Some of us were struck at once and fell under her spell. For others it took hindsight to reappraise a woman who was never fully understood in her time. You could tell who in the audience had seen Divinyl’s at the Piccadilly Hotel or Selina’s – they nodded knowingly; the rest of us were newly converted.

Ferocious, transgressive, and fucking fabulous entertainment – Amplified will make you believe in female fury again.

For further details see: https://belvoir.com.au/productions/amplified/ Only a handful of seats left for Thursday 5 Feb. Get your ticket while you still can.

Get amped and flip the switch: follow Faith in Theatres for live‑wire reviews new and interviews on Insta Facebook and Tik Tok.

Because theatre needs Faith.