When The Fiery Maze – featuring 16 songs with music by Tim Finn and lyrics by the late Dorothy Porter, one of the rock stars of Australian poetry – was performed at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne last year, reviewers felt that the traditional theatre space was too formal a venue. Well, The Fiery Maze has found a perfect niche in the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent as part of Sydney Festival.

^{Tim Finn and Abi Tucker. Photo by Prudence Upton}

Conceived by Finn and Porter as a rock concert album, a recording of it was made in 1995 featuring the mesmerising vocals of Abi Tucker. Porter died in 2008 and the songs languished in Finn’s bottom drawer until Tucker contacted him a few years ago and asked what had happened to them.

If you go to The Fiery Maze expecting a cabaret show or a piece of music theatre you’ll come up wanting, but as a music gig with a loose narrative it’s richly satisfying. Essentially it’s an alt rock song cycle progressing from the dizzy thrill of first love and erotic passion through to the souring of a relationship and the heartache...