1990

Our Country’s Good
by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Melbourne Theatre Company
Playhouse, July, 1990

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

So tight are the copyright requirements for Our Country’s Good that before you can say Timberlake Wertenbaker you have been obliged to remember that the play is based on Thomas Keneally’s novel The Playmaker. Drawing from historical documents, notably the journal of Lt Ralph Clark, the Playmaker, is an imaginative recreation of the staging on June 4th, 1789, of The Recruiting Officer, the …

1990

Murray Bramwell talks to Geraldine Turner and Simon Burke, stars of the revival production of Anything Goes, Cole Porter’s hit musical from 1934, which opens its Adelaide season at the Festival Centre tonight.

Cole Porter might well have been a character in any of the more than fifty musicals and movies for which he wrote hit songs. Wealthy, stylish, smart, he embodied the kind of chic that epitomised New York in the ’30s and ’40s. But a crippling horse …

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
FIEPP
Cast: Kristy Andruszko, Boris Conley, Andrew Gill,Kevin Harrington, Sarah Herlihy, Val Levkovicz,Rodney Sharp, Julie Tompson, Hugh Wayland.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by William Shakespeare
Cast: Michael Barker, Jane Bayly, Maude davey, Russell Fletcher, Simon Hughes,Roger Selllick, Phil Sumner, Doris Younane, Caitlin Morris, David Wicks

Directed by Glenn Elston

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

FEIPP are never going to have problems with the Trade Descriptions Act. The acronym stands for Fantastic Entertainments in Public …

1989

Shirley Valentine
by Willy Russell

State Theatre Company/
Sydney Theatre Company
The Playhouse,

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Playwright Willy Russell not only touched the zeitgeist with his stage hit, Educating Rita, he also hit paydirt. The screen version launched Julie Walters as a performer with presence and showed there could be life after flab for Michael Caine. Essentially, Educating Rita was Pygmalion Revisited with just a smidge of feminism to keep it a la mode. On film, at least, …