The 2018 Matilda Awards were announced last night at the Brisbane Powerhouse, with two productions sharing the honour of Best Mainstage Production. Prize Fighter, which premiered at the 2015 Brisbane Festival in a production by La Boite Theatre Company and has since played the Sydney Festival, returned to Brisbane last year as part of a three-month national tour. It shares the award for Best Mainstage Production with The Longest Minute, a co-production between Queensland Theatre, JUTE Theatre Company and debase productions, which received a glowing five-star review from Limelight when it played in Brisbane last year.

Gideon Mzembe and Pacharo Mzembe in Prize Fighter. Photo © Brett Boardman

The judges acknowledged Prize Fighter – the first full-length play by Congolese-Australian playwright Future D. Fidel – for its further development “that has refined it into a powerful theatrical work of excellence. The urgent heart of this production explores the compelling story of a Congolese refugee, haunted by his past as a child soldier, as he fights to build a future in Brisbane,” they said, while The Longest Minute, written by Robert Kronk and Nadine McDonald-Dowd, was acknowledged as “an excellent collaboration between Jute,...