★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Goodwood Theatre. 25 Feb 2023
Done To Death, By Jove! is a hoot! It’s a two hander where at least six are needed (actors that is, not six hands!). It’s a who dunnit and borrows from the style of The 39 Steps, The Play that Goes Wrong, segments from the TV series The Two Ronnies, and arguably from the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society etc formula. We have on stage two consummate award-winning actors – Nicholas Collett and Gavin Robertson – who both give an object lesson in physical humour and general stagecraft. It’s a delight, especially in the last fifteen minutes of the sixty minute show when the pace hots up and its bordering on chaos (of the best kind!).
So, what’s it all about?
Collett and Robertson take to the stage as Sir Nicholas and Sir Gavin, both mainstays of a touring theatre company that has experienced a major mishap. The truck carrying the cast, crew, set, properties – the whole box and dice so to speak – has broken down en route to the theatre. What to do? Because the show must go on, the two Sirs valiantly travel on to the theatre and hastily cobble together what they can by way of costumes and properties and perform the show, playing all roles by themselves. You get the picture. There are lots of madcap costume changes, sound effects that go wrong, missed lines, false starts, and a set that doesn’t entirely work. Yes, it’s a hoot!
In an attempt to solve the case and find out who murdered Lady Fanshawe, the two Sirs play the roles of Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, and Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, as well as numerous witnesses, including two hilarious Scottish twin sisters, and a florist who could also be a flautist depending on your accent! Because the tech crew is stuck on the broken down truck, the two Sirs operate the laptop that has the sound effects on it, but it all gets hopelessly out of order which adds to the comedy.
But it could have been funnier, if the script was as strong as it was in the last fifteen minutes or so. Earlier in the play, the script calls for the two characters to break the fourth wall a little too often and to have side conversations between themselves as they sort out the myriad problems they need to solve. Initially its funny, but the script seems to rely a little too much on this stratagem, and the gag starts to wear thin. But, in the last quarter hour the style of the script comes into itself, and it is oh-so-funny!
Nicholas Collett and Gavin Robertson are an absolute delight, and it is obvious that they are having the time of their lives presenting this very silly but very funny play … that all goes wrong!
Kym Clayton
When: 25 to 26 Feb
Where: Goodwood Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Theatre Travels and Olivia Ruggiero. 23 Feb 2023
Vocal artist Olivia Ruggiero sings like an angel. The title of the show announces her two musical interests: Broadway for American musicals and diva for opera. Olivia performs in Adelaide already well-awarded. Her collaboration with director Carly Fisher resulted in Puppets which won Broadway World Sydney’s Best New Play, and Olivia receiving the best solo performance award last year.
Together, they created a syllabus of musical favourites and some less known but more fun numbers for Broadway Diva. When you are not lulled into a submissive buzz, you are enchanted by Olivia’s expressions or empathising with her prodigious love of her craft. Hers is a family story with Gran introducing her to musical theatre and Mum handing out flyers. Olivia presented a balanced mix of medleys and complete songs, all ably accompanied by Thomas Saunders on the keyboard. I Don’t Know How to Love Him of Jesus Christ Superstar was a moving emotional introspection. Jeanine Tesori’s (the most prolific and honoured female theatrical composer in history) very funny song about the frustrated Girl in 14B is a highlight of lively interpretation. A couple of short arias including an animated rendition of Puccini’s O Mio Babbino Caro were a very welcome change-up from Broadway.
Olivia looked fantastic in a firm-fitting sequined gown and she stayed cool in the evening heat. While her songs are imbued with heartfelt meaning and interpretation, her conversational tone with the audience, while honest, is a little too practiced. That slight fault is overwhelmed by her talent, love of craft and gumption. Brava!
PS – The show is presented in the lovely sunken gardens behind the cottage on the Holden Street Theatres premises. Being outdoors, the black vinyl seats cooked in the 40 degree sun for eight hours. Even at 7 pm, my bum was boiling, like a steak sizzling on a hot rock.
David Grybowski
When: 21 to 25 Feb
Where: The Barbara Hardy Garden – Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★
Palmerston Project Pty Ltd. 24 Feb 2023
The White Mouse was Peter Maddern’s “twice-over sold-out” – whatever that means – 2020 Fringe hit, but that’s not the case this year. The story of Nancy Wake certainly deserves attention and better treatment than in Peter Maddern’s script. Maddern’s play postdates Russell Braddon’s 1956 biography and Wake’s autobiography in 1985. She got the Peter FitzSimons treatment in 2001 and the German point of view in 2012. There was even an Australian mini-series in 1987. And now Maddern’s play.
Who was she? Kiwi-born and Sydney-bred, she got francophiled though her marriage to a French industrialist before WWII. Wake bravely parachuted into central France and fought with and lead some French Resistance prior to and after D-Day. She received medals from France, the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Everybody wanted a piece of her action.
Maddern’s script is maddeningly crammed with background information that disrupts the narrative. There is way more exposition than action. We use our imagination to accept that a bare stage is actually a forest hide-out in central France. Often the direction doesn’t make any sense. People inexplicably sit away from the representational campfire instead of around it. Or can you imagine Nancy Wake turning her back on a captured rabid Nazi Youth-now Panzer tank crewman she’s interrogating, alone, after she casually puts down her revolver and picks up a cup of tea? Or turning off the radio in the midst of an announcement that the Allies have landed on France’s Mediterranean coast, like it was boring? How about Nancy returning from operations in a bright white blouse? It was rather confusing that Wake’s fellow fighter and her husband in a flashback in Paris were played by the same guy in exactly the same way.
Maddern’s and Emily-Jo Davidson’s Nancy is constantly heroic and a natural leader, so no drama there. And the French seem to be doing quite well against the Nazis, so, oh well, good on’em. I’m not surprised there is no directorial credit, but the other two cast members go unmentioned in Palmerston Projects’ media.
While the education about this amazing war hero is most welcome, the production is flaccid.
David Grybowski
When: 17 to 26 Feb
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Emma Beech. The Mill. 23 Feb 2023
There we are. A seated audience. There she is. Emma. The black clad, tall authoritative storyteller. An improvisational experience is to be had, the show blurb promises. How does that work?
Well, there’s a scripted bit outlining things. We can say stuff. Ask questions. Emma can ask questions. Emma will decide what she does with responses or random chat. Not in a fashion we might necessarily expect.
Nothing occurs in a fashion expected in this created-from-the-ground-up show.
An expressed liking for the doors of the performance space, a love of Dublin or a question about the gold chain on Emma’s black slacks prompts tales from Emma’s life that take on an extraordinary otherworldly life, as each tale links up in the afterglow of the previous one.
We become conscious that some power has seized the words uttered by audience members and extracted from them something deep, complex and challenging. We sit transfixed by the quixotic nature of the stories told. They seem so unreal yet here they are.
How bizarre it is these stories have been prodded out into live expression by a couple of words from an audience. That the sum total of an hour has created a once only moment of thought, reflection and new understanding of the great and small issues of life.
Tonight’s audience experience is unique to us only. Please take the chance to make yours.
David O’Brien
When: 22 Feb to 18 Mar
Where: The Mill – The Breakout
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Gavin Robertson & Nicholas Collett in Association with Virtually Creative. Goodwood Theatre. 22 Feb 2023
Brits Gavin Roberston and Nicholas Collett have been acting, directing, playwriting and creating theatre separately but also quite comfortably together since the ‘80s. They are so congenial with each other they can probably wear each other’s underwear.
The opening deceit is that four of the cast are held up in traffic and the two actors will take on the multiple roles of all six. I fell for it, of course. In this hilarious spoof of the murder mystery, Collett smears his mouth with Miss Marple’s lippy, Robertson holds up Poirot’s moustache with his blue-taped finger, and the pair play Holmes and Watson as a Laurel and Hardy act.
They unleash the devices of classic good old British comical theatre and radio for farce, quick costume changes, hats galore, sound effects, mix-ups, double-takes and behind-the-scenes antics by the actors playing the actors playing the characters. They employ every accent known to the British Isles. It’s fast, funny and furious. When you have famous fodder for mirth like our quartet of detectives and all the implicated townfolk from Midsomer you can muster, I guarantee you, your troubles will melt away into smiles and laughter and yes, wonderment at the shear virtuosity of Robertson & Collett. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 17 to 26 Feb
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au