★★★★★
Sh!t Theatre. Adelaide Fringe. The Studio Holden Street Theatres. 12 Feb 2020
Sh!t Theatre and its Drink Rum with Expats production is nothing less than volcanic agitprop theatre. It erupts with wild, bold, and brave political intensity coloured with flaming showers of satirical acid.
Its two British performers, Rachel Biscuit and Louise Mothersole, present themselves as hard-drinking, facile expat dropouts who, like myriad others, have found a haven of easy, boozy life in Malta. They have their faces clowned up in red and white Maltese flag greasepaint and wear nautical jackets atop summer holiday shorts. They open the show with an open bar. Free beers to arriving audience members. Thereafter, Maltese beer, Cisk to be precise, plays a large part in their shtick. So does the hell-raiser English actor, Oliver Reed who, famously, collapsed and died at The Pub in Valetta. He had just consumed 8 pints of lager, 12 shots of rum and half a bottle of whiskey washed down with cognac in a drinking competition with sailors.
The Pub is now a shrine to Reed and a prime gathering place for expatriates.
In this multi-media presentation, Sh!t Theatre introduces the expats with marvellous ink drawings, thus populating their depiction of hard-drinking Malta.
They down a few drinks as they do so, even offering nips of rum to the audience before launching off stools into their midst and creating quite a precedent in Holden Street.
They throw in singalongs and language lessons, wild abandon, and general hilarity. They sing in exquisite harmony, by the way. They even do a spot of dancing in what is an explosively high-energy performance.
But their nitty-gritty, the soul of the show, is deathly serious tales of injustice and corruption, albeit wrapped in colourful sardonic wit. Thus, we learn, among those seeking the sweet life in Malta are refugees. Some of them make it to those wee rock islands in the Med. Some don’t. Being sent back to Libya is a gruesome fate.
Then there is the intriguing piece of Valetta graffiti: "Who Killed Daphne?” There’s a tale and a half behind that question. They tell it. The audience quakes.
These two madcap, over-the-top, brimmingly talented performers turn out to be social justice guerrillas of the stage.
They have brought us a sizzlingly brilliant piece of what-the-fringe-is-all-about theatre. It is a must-see. It will be shining out as arguably the top show of 2020. And that is a big call so early in the piece and in a competitive field which exceeds 1000.
See it now.
Samela Harris
NOTE: Saluting this amazing piece of theatre, winner of the Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award of 2019, Holden Street has set up its own Fringe 2020 FOOD HUT nightly serving among its local produce fare, specialist cuisine of Malta.
When: 12 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Remember, Remember. Dunstan Playhouse. 4 Jan 2020
If ever there was proof that the seniors demographic is alive and well, it is in seeing how they pack out a theatre when offered an age-targeted comedy show. They aren’t just punctual. They come wildly early and party at the bar. The perfect audience. They never include later-comers. They are hungry for humour. They have a lot of terms of reference; i.e., years under their belts.
All this they demonstrated when the first Senior Moments production came to town last year. It was a big hit, starring Max Gilles and John Wood. Well pleased by Senior Moments, the seniors audience has raced back for more since Senior Moments 2 has been touted as “The Sequel without Equal."
It stars Max Gilles and John Howard, along with Tony Barber, Dave Callan, and Kim Lewis, with Dave Gibson adding voice. Sadly no John Wood and Benita Collings. And very sadly, no Jeff Harvey at the piano. The last Senior Moments was this beloved pianist's swan song. This production features Mitchell Price-Norgaard on the piano, a fresh-faced WAAPA graduate, and the acrobatics of his fingers on the keyboard are an absolute highlight of this production.
Like Senior Moments, this show is a string of revue skits and, in general skit tradition, they are hit-and-miss.
There are some wonderful lines. There are some ingenious ideas.
That Ned Kelly’s disguise was created especially because it would be easy for modernist artists to paint tickled this critic’s funny bone a lot. Vegan steak knives as a prize, also funny. Peter FitzSimons' epic number of epic histories, funny.
The cast keeps the show hopping along for 90 minutes, albeit the stage manager is very busy helping Tony Barber on and off stage and into the relevant lights. Barber’s role of “narrator” enables him to keep the script in his hands at all times. His voice wavers these days just as the Gilles memory wavers. He, too, carries the script when there are other than song lines. Indeed, his headliner role is more reduced in this show, albeit he is the most adored of the senior stars and is the one who always draws the eye. The younger cast members do the line-remembering and work with very good spirit. Wonderful John Howard brings the house down as Jan Utzen in the Sydney Opera House finale.
The script is again written by Kevin Brumpton and Angus FitzSimmons with the latter directing the show. The misses outweigh the hits in this incarnation. Some very promising ideas lose out with punch lines, the Mary MacKillop skit particularly, but the prime-ministers lineup has some lovely moments. For many, the parody of Slim-Dusty-style Australian C&W epics is a high spot.
In other words, there is probably something for everyone but not everything for anyone.
Revue is revue is revue.
Don’t get your expectations up. Go with an open heart and appreciate the free programmes which are a comedy act in their own right.
Samela Harris
When: 4 to 8 Feb
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
Flinders University Performing Arts Society. Bakehouse Theatre. Preview Show 22 Jan 2020
“What is the fate of English farce during the emergence of the #metoo generation?” asked Peter Goers on hearing of this Flinders production at the Bakehouse. Surely the new generation of actors would not wish to promulgate scenes of lascivious older men engaging in trysts with young women?
Well, yes. They would and they have. And they have made it as absurdly funny as playwrights Ray Cooney and John Chapman intended when thy penned Move Over Mrs Markham. None of the predatory males gets his way. And, for that matter, nor do the women old and young who are equally prepared to have devious dalliances. It takes two to tango, as they say in the classics. The sleazy blokes need sleazy playmates, however upright and proper they may ostensibly be. For that is part of the humour.
But how can one produce a classic farce within the constraints of the Bakehouse Theatre?
Well, the ingenuity of theatre designers has never let the size of that gem of a theatre obstruct the scale of a show. Here, with some cunning carpentry, they have installed a mass of very 60s-looking orange doors, plus the odd curtain, enabling the protagonist to flit from entrance to concealment to cross purposes.
The set is its own little comic period piece, its decor dominated by a clichéd Mondrian print, a floral lounge suite, a showy round bed and some old school pine furniture. Oh, and two rotary landline phones which are kept quite busy throughout the play.
As a first-time director, Scott Sharrad shines with some distinction for the astute timing and clearly well-rehearsed standard of the production. Among the things he had to overcome was directing inexperienced millennials to step into the shoes of boomers. If at first the incongruity stands out, the cast soon wins over in establishing their given characters. Among the players, it is Lucas Tennant with his excellent voice, delivery, and comic responses in the role of the hapless children’s book publisher Phillip Markham who really owns the show. Nicole Walker supports strongly as his would-be controlling wife with a lovely range of exasperated facial expressions while Thomas Hodgkison is a beguiling mass of contradictions as the interior decorator. Alistair Spenlow, Aiden Fitzgerald, Christine Pearsall, and Alana Lymn provide strong support, Lymn bringing the house down in her cameo transformation to Swedish au pair. Leanne Marshall is a picture of precision as the children’s book author with Nathan Ibele and Olivia Case filling out the cast with spirited characterisations.
Together, complete with tech team, they call themselves FUPAS and one must say their arrival on the city theatre scene is a bold and engaging one; a lively challenge of anachronisms and a test of the endurance of classic theatre comedy. The comedy definitely wins. This is a funny show. Onya, FUPAS. Keep ‘em coming.
Samela Harris
When: 22 to 25 Jan
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: bakehousetheatre.com
Blue Sky Theatre with the Gardens Open to the Public Scheme. 10 Jan 2020
Outdoor theatre is alive and well in the hands of Dave Simms.
He can take one of the corniest 18th Century plays in the history of theatre and trick it up to a funny, zany, and delicious garden entertainment. The secret not only is in the adaptation of the play to a chic and accessible period, in this case the 1920s, but the rallying of a cast of versatile actors who have the professional oomph to deliver old school projection clearly audible to all. Not only but also, they come equipped with the enviable energy and agility to bound tirelessly around expanses of deep, spongy lawn.
In the case of opening night, it was set on the vast lawned lushness of Crozier Hill at Victor Harbor but the ongoing 2020 Blue Sky season of She Stoops to Conquer will move the show on to the lawns of Stangate House in Aldgate, The Cedars at Hahndorf, and Wittunga Botanic Gardens in Blackwood.
Hence, the sets are very simple and portable, and also comical in their own way. With micro sets in a macro setting, Simms does not miss a trick. Interval aligns with sunset and powerful floodlighting materialises for the second act. For the chill of night, blue blankets are supplied to cosy up audience members. The whole picnic theatre experience has been well thought through with box suppers for those who don’t care to bring their own spread. Wine, tea, coffee, cheese and crackers are all on sale. It is very convivial, with a jolly good laugh to top it all off.
In that cause, there’s Oliver Goldsmith’s cornball story of mistaken identities, family matchmaking, trickery, loyalty, class, and manners. Charlie Marlow is agonisingly shy with women of his own class. He depends on his bestie, George, to be his wingman to get through meeting the lovely heiress his father has chosen for him. Thanks to some dastardly mischief the two friends end up thinking that her posh family mansion is a hotel, much to the perplexity of their host, her dad, Richard Hardcastle. General mayhem follows with George wooing the Hardcastle niece while Kate tries to break down handsome Charlie’s shuddering phobia by pretending to be the maid. Poor dad spends a lot of the play in apoplectic indignation while his doltish step-son Tony tries to manipulate everything and everyone. The characters have been wonderfully cast, Gary George absolutely owning the stage with the most glorious display of blustering and eye-popping incredulity as the hapless Hardcastle. Ashley Penny, with poise and polish, plays the daughter in her two guises while Simon Barnett’s astute characterisation actually makes the audience sympathise with the abject shyness of Charlie, despite the gradual realisation that he is also a total upper-crust shit. While there are super support performances from Leighton Vogt, Joshua Coldwell, Kate van der Horst, Lee Cook, Miriam Keene, Steve Marvanek, and Angela Short, it is the rumbustious comic presence of Nicole Rutty as the conniving loudmouth stepmother, Dorothy Hardcastle, which steals the show. Rutty uses a repertoire of fearless physical comedy to embody this gauche rich bitch. It is a tour de force, made all the funnier by the absolute delicacy of the exquisite 1920s dresses she is wearing. What an array of shimmering period beauty has been created to costume the women for this show and, as for the men, they are impeccably dressed from top to toe as befits fancy gents of the Gatsby period.
Betwixt and between, the snappily-dressed Gin Swings quartet jazzes the air with its music and backs the cast for the odd Charleston.
In all, Blue Sky is giving us a very classy show as befits some of the classiest locations in the state. Again.
Dave Simms fills a very special niche with these brave and whizzy productions of quaint period pieces. Indeed, so good are they that it is time to recognise him as a quiet genius of the Adelaide theatre world.
Samela Harris
When: 10 Jan to 1 Feb
Where: Crozier Hill at Victor Harbor 10, 11 and 12 January 2020
Stangate House in Aldgate 18 and 19 January
The Cedars at Hahndorf 24, 25 and 26 January
Wittunga Botanic Garden in Blackwood 31 January and 1 February
Bookings: blueskytheatre.com.au
Universal Theatrick Group, Working Title Films, Greene Light Stage, Michael Coppel Entertainment and Louise Withers Presents. Festival Theatre. 4 Jan 2019
No one wants to miss it and nor should they. They say that Billy Elliot the Musical has been seen by 12 million people already and its enduring popularity is evidenced by audiences packing out the Festival Theatre in Adelaide.
It is a cracker of a modern musical. It follows all the conventions of the classic stage musical tradition: big dance numbers, good songs, large ensemble, goodies and baddies, tears and laughter. But it has something more, something which grounds it in substance. It is a true story with a significant historic and cultural message. It is as much about politics as it is about dancing; as much about cultural tolerance as it is about hope.
Billy Elliot is a motherless kid from Durham, a blighted northern English coal mining town. There’s a touch of the Willy Wonka in his deprived home wherein the little warmth there is comes from his dotty old grandmother. Dad is a hard-drinking man’s man enveloped in the massive crisis of the 1980 miners’ strike wherein iron-fisted Maggie Thatcher was determined to break the union. Durham was a union town. Hence, like Les Miserables, the narrative embraces barricades and violence. And, literally in the middle of it all, there is a 9-year-old boy who is not like the others. He doesn’t fit in with the boxing school. He is drawn to the ballet class held in the same community hall. And thus does the unlikely transition take place, thanks to the chain-smoking dance teacher who recognises the boy’s aptitude.
The show’s success rests on the skill and star quality of an unknown child performer for which countless auditions and tuition must be invested by production companies. For this production, four Billies have been discovered along with a terrific troupe of ballet-student girls. Adelaide’s first Saturday matinee Billy was one Omar Abiad, a 12-year-old Queenslander. He’s a mighty dancer, especially when it comes to tap. He can hold a tune and, with a shrill boyish voice, deliver a torrent of glottal stops by way of a broad Pitmatic accent.
For some that regional accent is hard to decipher and, for the nature of the show, it is unselfconsciously embellished with working class vulgarities.
Abiad is a diligent Billy and he accomplishes some very challenging solo scenes; exhausting just to watch. Pinnacle of the show is his duet with his grown-up self, eloquently danced by Aaron Smyth. This is the flying scene and it is hard to recall seeing a more spectacular and accomplished flying scene. It is breathtaking.
Indeed, while Lee Hall did both the book and lyrics of this blockbuster show with Elton John composing the music it is Peter Darling’s exquisite choreography under the direction of Stephen Daldry that makes it the visual glory that it is. One cannot omit the name of Ian MacNeil who is set designer. The sets are lavish, albeit while illustrating the world of a rough, poverty-stricken community. The show opens with the miners lined up in the community hall and the grim and angry spirit of the work is immediately established. Scene changes are trucked to and fro and the world of Billy Elliot becomes vivid and complete, from grinding poverty to the utterly beautiful.
This is a show of sleek, five-star professionalism. It is hard to fault the production values. One just has to sit back and bliss out; be grateful that we can still see touring shows of this quality.
As for the rest of the cast, well, it’s all that one would expect, from clever kids such as James Sonneman, simply adorable as cross-dressing Michael, and Ella Tebbut as the hilariously irritating Debbie, along with Tall Boy Oscar Mulcahy and the squealing swarm of tu-tu girls. Lisa Sontag evokes tears and giggles in her apt portrayal of the tough old dance mistress and Dean Vince delights as her geeky offsider, Mr Braithwaite. He’s quite a hoofer! It is always a delight to see Robert Grubb at work and he does not disappoint as gruff old George. Indeed, the ensemble of rough and ready miners in their grimy working coats are a power of good work and, when it comes to the crunch of a sublime piece of choral work, they can do it par-excellence. The miners also can be policemen and the scenes of conflict between the two are most effective, as is the comical police chorus line.
Justin Smith artfully brings the audience onside in his portrayal of Billy’s unsympathetic dad but if any of the adult players steals the show, it is Vivien Davies as Grandma. Her big song, an anti-love song to a shit of a husband, brings the house down. Also notable in overall excellence of support are Drew Livingston and Damien Bermingham.
And, of course, there is a fantastic orchestra conducted by Hayden Barltrop down there in the pit.
Thus does it all add up to a classy show, a pleasure to behold, a history lesson to remember, a piece of politics to respect, and a display of showmanship and stage talent to applaud.
Samela Harris
When: 29 Dec to 26 Jan
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au