Murray Bramwell

There may not be a Fringe this year but there is still going to be some Autumn comedy. The Big Laugh festival organised by the Adelaide Festival Centre is bringing back some familiar faces and more than a few toothy smiles.

Running for a couple of weeks is The Complete Works of Shakespeare. All thirty seven plays in ninety seven minutes. Compiled by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, originally known as the Reduced Theatre Company, this …

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. …

I, CONnolly

Gerry Connolly
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The title of Gerry Connolly’s latest one person show is indicative of the performer himself. The literate pun has the same chill of cautious pre-meditation and self consciousness that characterises this and Connolly’s other live work. Shielded by television post-production or confined in the careful structure of something like Clarke and Stevenson’s Royal Commission, Connolly’s gifted impersonations have a steely presence. In his own show he seems to lack that last …

1991

A Royal Commission into the Australian Economy

by John Clarke and Ross Stevenson

Space Cabaret

Susan Haynes/Allen and Unwin

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

John Clarke and Ross Stevenson conducted their first Royal Commission during the Melbourne Comedy Festival back in 1988 and it quickly became the hit show of the season. So when they set up a new inquisition- this time into the Australian Economy- it was certain to attract interest. All the same, it was a bold move …

1990

Great Interviews of the Twentieth Century

John Clarke

Susan Haynes/Allen and Unwin.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is rumoured that while ratings for Channel Nine’s A Current Affair sit steadily in the high thirties, for the last five minutes on a Friday they clear forty. The reason is John Clarke, who, with henchperson Bryan Dawe, has perfected the political interview to such an extent that not even politicians need to be present. Speaking for the PM, Premiers, Cabinet Ministers, …

1990

An Evening With

Peter Ustinov

Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Peter Ustinov may not quite be a polymath but he’ll do until one comes along. His accomplishments are extraordinary. In addition to his work as an actor he has distinguished himself as a director in theatre and opera , as a playwright, travel writer and autobiographer. He can  speak a dozen languages and has been honoured with Academy Awards, Emmys, Grammys, a chaise in the French Academy and, …

Billy Connolly

Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Despite disconcerting colour pix in TV Week recently revealing that Billy Connolly had sheared off his hair and beard for a filum, his familiar trademarks were mostly back for his return Australian tour. All the same, he was still a bit dubious about the reduction in fungus- I look like a fucking social worker, he roared and then off he went for two and a half hours of rumination, digression and comic …

1990

Murray Bramwell

There is something likeably democratic about the Fringe’s published programme. In alphabetic order under general headings, it is the great leveller- events are listed with sublime even-handedness. The good, the bad and the ugly are all equal in the sight of the Fringe creators.

The only trouble is that this doesn’t make it easy for the poor punter looking for a winner or even something each way.Add to that the absence of a comprehensive box office at …