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December 19, 2015

The Best of 2015

Filed under: 2015,2016,Archive

“When you hear music,“ jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy once remarked, “After it’s over, it’s gone, in the air, you can never capture it again.”

In varying degrees that is true of all live performances. They have their moment, their season and then are gone. Sometimes they remain vivid, but eventually, even excellent productions and outstanding performances drift into imperfect recollection and generalised hearsay.

I hope this website, for all its sometimes unwelcome opinions, is a useful record of some of …

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December 01, 2015

Submission to the Senate Inquiry into the Impact of the 2014 and 2015 Commonwealth Budget decisions on the Arts.

Filed under: 2015,Archive,Commentary

Dear Senators

I have been a theatre reviewer for national publications, including The National Times, The Australian Financial Review and currently The Australian, since 1985.

My comments refer particularly to theatre funding in Australia but inferences can be made across all of the performing arts.

I am profoundly concerned by the recent changes to arts funding announced in the 2015 Budget by Senator Brandis : both in the reduction of allocation to the Australia Council and the siphoning of as …

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November 10, 2015

Giggles and japes in a Dream of a show

The Popular Mechanicals
by Keith Robinson, William Shakespeare and Tony Taylor.
From the original direction by Geoffrey Rush.
State Theatre Company of South Australia
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
November 10. Tickets: $ 27 – $ 69.
Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
Until November 28.
Duration: 90 minutes.

Puck called them “hempen homespuns”, Shakespeare called them Rude Mechanicals : these are the six artisans who perform a daffy royal command performance for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta in …

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October 20, 2015

Confronting examination of death and drugs

Mortido
by Angela Betzien
State Theatre Company of South Australia
and Belvoir, Sydney.
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
October 20. Tickets: $ 27 – $ 69.
Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
Until October 31 .
Duration: 2 hours 20 minutes.
The Belvoir season opens in Sydney November 11.

“Freud reckoned love and hate, sex and death are twin impulses”, explains the philosophic Detective Grubbe, in Angela Betzien’s brand-new crime psychodrama. “Existence is an endless circle of life and death, …

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October 14, 2015

A Lighter White

The Aspirations of Daise Morrow,
Based on a short story by Patrick White.
Brink Productions with the Zephyr Quartet
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
October 13. Tickets: $ 25 – $ 48.
Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
Until October 24.
Duration: 80 minutes

Patrick White called his short story Down at the Dump but in their visually captivating , splendidly lucid stage adaptation, Brink Productions have re-named it The Aspirations of Daise Morrow. Aspirations, we know, are things we …

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July 29, 2015

Reversal of Misfortune

Betrayal
by Harold Pinter
State Theatre Company of South Australia
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
July 28. Tickets: $ 27 – $ 69.
Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
Until August 15.
Duration: 100 minutes

When Harold Pinter was asked by his biographer whether drawing on real people and personal events for his 1978 play, Betrayal constituted any kind of moral dilemma or breach of trust, he replied : “I think every writer does that one way or another . …

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June 23, 2015

Nights of laughter leave festival on a firm footing

Filed under: 2015,Archive,Cabaret

Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015
Adelaide Festival Centre

Steve Sheehan’s Tristan and Isolde
with Norma Knight
Festival Theatre Rehearsal Room
June 16

Naughty or Nice
Ray Jessel
The Space
June 20

Love Songs for Sir Les
Barry Humphries and Guests
Festival Theatre
June 20.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival has closed shop and it is all smiles in the counting house. With 45 sold-out shows, and the best box office numbers in its 15 year history, the festival is stronger and more …

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June 08, 2015

Boisterous gala ushers in festival without rules

Filed under: 2015,Archive,Cabaret

Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015

Variety Gala Performance
Festival Theatre
June 5.

Peter and Jack
Teddy Tahu Rhodes, The Idea of North
Greta Bradman with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
June 7.

Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015
Adelaide Festival Centre
Bookings BASS 131 246;
adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au
until June 20.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival mid-winter revels have begun. Now in its 15th year, it is currently in the mischievous care of that Lord of Misrule, Barry Humphries.

Soon after he was appointed, he impishly …

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May 31, 2015

Puppeteers delight youngsters with the whole world in their hands

Adelaide
Come Out Children’s Festival
May 22 – 30.

Argus
Dead Puppet Society
Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre
May 23.

A Kid Like Me
Presented by True North Youth Theatre Ensemble
The Parks Theatre, Angle Park
May 20.

History of Autism
by Julian Jaensch
Company@ Autistic Theatre
The Opera Studio, Netley
May 30.

The biennial Come Out Children’s Festival has been an Adelaide fixture since 1974 and it gathers in tens of thousands of children, from littlies to high school …

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April 30, 2015

60th year of Seventeenth Doll

The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
by Ray Lawlor
State Theatre Company of South Australia
Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre.
April 28. Tickets: $ 27 – $ 69.
Bookings : BASS 131246 or www.bass.net.au
Until May 16.
Duration: 2 hours 40 mins including interval.

It is now sixty years since The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was first performed. It is extraordinary to think, that in 1955, it was closer in time to the opening night of Chekhov’s Seagull than …

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