murraybramwell.com

October 01, 1996

Guys and Dolls

Summer of the Seventeeth Doll
Ray Lawler

Melbourne Theatre Company
in association with State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

I have to say that I greeted the revival of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll with some trepidation. Its reputation, shall we say its legend, is a kind of tyranny – not least probably, to Ray Lawler himself. The Doll is an acknowledged turning point, a setting for historical watches, a kind of cultural synecdoche. It is also a convenient …

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September 01, 1996

Writing and Re-righting

Dead White Males
by David Williamson

Sydney Theatre Company
in association with the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

There is nothing that David Williamson won’t grab by the tail and swing into the theatrical arena. Whether it is the protocols of the New Rich, the ethical obligations of lawyers and journalists, the complexities of sexual harassment procedures, the truth of anthropological research or-as in Dead White Males- the arcana of cultural and literary theory. It …

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Pressing Issues

The Torrents
by Oriel Gray

State Theatre
The Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The Torrents stands in our theatre history as a road not taken. Or a twin separated at birth and raised in obscurity. As the co-winner of the 1955 Playwrights’ Advisory Board competition, Oriel Gray might have expected greater recognition for her work as playwright with the New Theatre in Sydney. In fact The Torrents was only staged twice -by New Theatre in Adelaide in 1956 and in …

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Boots and All

Tap Dogs
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

From the moment it premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company’s Wharf in January last year Tap Dogs has been a thumping success -as Adelaide testified when we saw them in the Space only a month later. National and international tours followed, including headline performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Currently there are two companies performing, one in the UK the other on extended tour from Perth to Lismore and all watering holes …

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August 01, 1996

Infarction

The Shifting Heart
by Richard Beynon

State Theatre
Playhouse

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

In 1957 The Shifting Heart created considerable impact for its young playwright Richard Beynon. In fact, at the time, prospective producers were wary of the currency of its themes. Triggered by a newspaper report about the suicide of a Polish immigrant -the Mr Leczycki named in the play’s dedication- The Shifting Heart examines, in the microcosm of Collingwood’s Bianchi family, the social and cultural tensions created by …

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Abdication

The Queen and I
by Sue Townsend
adapted by Melissa Reeves
Her Majesty’s

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Take a script by Sue Townsend, already a success in the UK, add adaptations from Melissa Reeves, gather together a strong cast of Australian and English actors, have it directed by Max Stafford-Clark, toss in some songs by Ian Dury and you ought to have some sort of a hit. Alas, The Queen and I is a royal mess.

Sue Townsend, creator of …

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May 01, 1996

Marshall Arts

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

Link Wray

The Tivoli

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It was Plato who said that when the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city crumble. He was talking about Link Wray, of course, and the D chord which in 1958 changed everything. The record was Rumble and with its majestic sweeps and menacing repetitions it secured the electric guitar as the twentieth century’s preferred instrument of hedonism.

With brothers Doug and Vern, Lincoln Wray has played every …

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Unplugged

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

Fairport Convention

Royalty Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Fairport Convention are a bit like the family axe. It has had so many replacement heads and handles that it is hard to know whether you recognise it after all these years. Twenty six albums later-more than forty if you add up all the solo ventures- Fairport continues to lay claims to being at the still centre of the turning world of British traditional music. They run their own record label, …

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April 16, 1996

Adelaide Music

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

Simply Red

Entertainment Centre

Adelaide, 15 April, 1996

Murray Bramwell

The last time I saw Simply Red they were touring the second album Men and Women. Their mix of reggae, soul and Brit pop had, even with their debut Picture Book, made immediate impact. The band was on its way and they knew it. Singer Mick Hucknall set the pace;  brash, cocksure and blessed with vocal gifts to rival Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. Like other UK …

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April 01, 1996

Two Persons Singular

Filed under: Archive,Comedy

The Corridor of Uncertainty

Flacco and Sandman
Arts Theatre
10 March

In the profusion of performed comedy in Australia there are few acts as exquisitely theatrical as Paul Livingston’s Flacco. For about ten years this fragile eggshell mind has amazed both himself and his audience with his metaphysical delvings and his literary peregrinations. As he says himself, he wants to be put out of his mystery. But it is Flacco’s lot to become curiouser and curiouser- and weirder and weirder. …

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