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December 01, 1987

Celt Following

Filed under: Archive,Music

Celt Following
The Chieftains
Festival Theatre

Even when they’re just tuning their instruments the Chieftains sound better than most bands. Their mellifluous harmonies have been generating journalistic blarney for more than twenty four years, in which time the group has produced some fifteen albums including some very successful music for films.

In their time the Chieftains have rubbed tin whistles with just about everyone- Eric Clapton, Van Morrison and Mike Oldfield for instance. They even played the curtain-raiser for the …

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November 01, 1987

Acting Funny

Filed under: Archive,Comedy,International,Theatre

Acting Funny
Rowan Atkinson
Opera Theatre.

It is often said that what makes comedy tick is timing. And Rowan Atkinson is expert at it. His performance is rehearsed down to the last pucker, the lines scan like iambic pentameters and it all works like a charm.

As part of the highly successful Not The Nine O’Clock News team, Atkinson’s comedy was distinctively visual and oddly endearing. He can, and has, sparred in more savage comic arenas with the pugnacious Mel …

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October 01, 1987

The State of Play

Filed under: Archive,Interviews,State Theatre Company,Theatre

John Gaden, Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia, reflects in midseason.

I first met John Gaden in October last year when the State Theatre Company was announcing his appointment as its new AD. 1985 had been a troubled year for State with a number of productions in succession hitting the wall as the local press grew more toxic and audiences more disheartened .

So Gaden’s appointment was greeted warmly from all sides. As a popular actor …

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A Sporting Chance

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

A Sporting Chance
by Katherine Thomson
Magpie Theatre Company SA
Directed by Chris Johnson
Design: Ken Wilby and Mark Thompson
Music: Ian Farr, Movement: Belinda Saltmarsh
Cast: Sharon LeRay, Michael Habib, Annabel Giles,
Michael Kitschke.

Work for Magpie’s A Sporting Chance began in April this year when Sydney playwright and actor, Katherine Thomson began researching attitudes toward sport among thirteen and fourteen year olds. She spoke to numbers of high school students-in particular from Fremont High School in Adelaide’s northern …

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September 01, 1987

Blood Sports

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge – Patch Theatre Company
A Sporting Chance – Magpie Theatre Company
Blood Relations – Sydney Theatre Company/State Theatre Company

Having conjured up Possum Magic, South Australian writer Mem Fox and illustrator Julie Vivas followed with another highly successful picture book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. It has now been adapted for the stage by Sheryn Dee and Mem Fox and presented by the Patch Theatre Company in the Festival Centre Space.

Wilfrid has played to …

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Pale Intimations

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Pale Intimations
Blood Relations
by David Malouf
State Theatre Company and Sydney
Theatre Company
The Playhous

When a writer of the stature of David Malouf turns to the theatre we are sure to have high expectations. But there is already enough evidence that novelists do not necessarily playwrights make. Locally, Nigel Krauth’s Muse of Fire, Barry Dickins’ Beaut/and, and, more recently Patrick White’s Shepherd on the Rocks have shown us that.

The reasons are not surprising. A novelist has complete …

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August 10, 1987

Mixed Relics

Filed under: Archive,Books

The New Review Anthology
Edited by Ian Hamilton
Paladin

In 1968 Ian Hamilton edited a collection called The Modern Poet -Essays from The Review. It was a greatest hits from his little magazine of the Sixties which included commentary by Colin Falck, John Fuller, Hamilton himself writing on Robert Lowell (he was later to produce Lowell’s biography) and A.Alvarez, the firebrand of English criticism, breathing heavily against gentility and raising the literary stocks of Sylvia Plath, John Berryman and, …

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August 01, 1987

Telling Works

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

The Winter’s Tale
State Theatre Company

A Touchy Subject
Vitalstatistix

There have been a number of productions of The Winter‘s Tale lately. But the State Theatre Company has made glorious summer with a version that represents some of its finest work to date. The Winter‘s Tale forms part of a cluster of plays in Artistic Director, John Gaden’s 1987 programme. It began with his and Gale Edward’s Much Ado About Nothing back in February and links with …

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Intriguing

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Christopher Hampton
State Theatre Company
Playhouse

By now everyone and their chien has heard about Les Liaisons Dangereuses. It has been cleaning up awards and bouquets ever since it first appeared in London in 1985 and umpteen productions have been performed world wide. Now, with the State Theatre Company’s production we at last have a chance to see what all the fuss has been about.

Playwright Christopher Hampton has taken bold liberties with Choderlos de Ladas’s …

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Friendy reminder

Filed under: Archive,Books

Friendly Street Poetry Reader No.11.
Edited by Elaine Golding and
Peter McFarlane
Friendly St Poets, P.O. Box 79, Unley SA 5061

The Friendly St Reader is the official record of the Friendly St readings held at the Box Factory on the first Tuesday of every month. This is now the eleventh year of the readings, and the Reader, and it is further proof of the durability of this Adelaide phenomenon.

The first readings took place back in 1975 at the …

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