murraybramwell.com

May 01, 1987

First Person Singular

Filed under: Archive,Comedy,Theatre

I Hate Mime
Chris Willems
Price Theatre

Chris Willems says he hates mime but nothing could be further from the truth. What he hates is the fact that white mime has become so refined that it has lost all its nutrients.

I Hate Mime is Willems’ third solo show and it follows Son of Romeo, his highly successful lip readers’ digest of Romeo and Juliet. Though unlike Romeo, with its familiar narrative, Willems’ new work is a more …

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April 01, 1987

Shakespeare, Fo and Fun

Much Ado About Nothing
State Theatre Company

Turning the Tables
The Red Shed Company

Ra Ra Zoo
The Space Cabaret

The State Theatre Company opened their 1987 season with a rousing production of Much Ado About Nothing. Much Ado is not much done. It is probably ten years since it was last performed in Australia but it is a favourite of director John Gaden and he has long wanted to stage it.

Much Ado poses both difficulties and delights …

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ASSITEJ Comes Out to Play and Learn

Come Out

The Come Out Festival started in 1974 because many professionals in the arts and education were peeved that the Adelaide Festival was taking no notice of young people in the performing arts. They set up in various parks in inner Adelaide and the momentum began. It was then decided that Come Out would utilise the Adelaide Festival’s administrative resources in the “off” year between Festivals and plan a full-scale programme of the kind that has been offered now …

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Simply Red

Filed under: Archive,Music

Simply Red
Billy Bragg
Le Rox

Billy Bragg is the busker who turned busker. He used to wander the streets performing with a fifty quid electric guitar and a 60 watt amp on his back. Now he tours the world and performs at Le Rox with a fifty quid guitar and his 60 watt amp on the ground. There is much to be pleased about with Billy Bragg. At a time when record production takes an expensive month of Sundays …

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March 01, 1987

No Holds Bard

Much Ado About Nothing
by William Shakespeare
State Theatre Company.
The Playhouse

In setting events in the Messina of 1890, directors John Gaden and Gale Edwards have made their production of Much Ado About Nothing both impetuously Sicilian and priggishly Victorian; thus recognising the volatility and harshness of Shakespeare’s comedy.

The play is a tangle of slander, spite and cant as Hero, daughter of Leonato, is dishonoured by accusations of infidelity and then spurned in high dudgeon by her gullible …

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Swanky

Filed under: Archive,Music

The Eurythmics
Memorial Drive

Last time the Eurythmics were in Australia they were Tourists. The
Tourists, it must be said, were never much chop. One of their singles scraped into the Top Ten but no one would have thought that Gorbals rocker, Dave Stewart, and the singer in the Mary Quant tat, Annie Lennox, would do more than sink without trace when the band dispersed in 1980.

Instead, with five hit albums in a row, the Eurythmics are here again …

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Ole

Filed under: Archive,Cabaret,Comedy

Ole
The Castanet Club
Space Cabaret

When the Castanetsplayed the Fringe last year they lacked lustre. The
Little Sisters area at the Living Arts Centre didn’t help matters, of course.

Despite the best efforts of the organizers it was a swine of a venue. On their return season to the Space Cabaret, the Castanet Club were quite transformed. They performed virtually the same show with the same jokes and routines but this time it all worked.

Watching the Castanets is …

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February 28, 1987

Much Ado About Much Ado

A long-term dream will come true for John Gaden when the State Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing opens at the Playhouse tonight. Gaden – and actors William Zappa and Celia de Burgh explain the attraction of the Shakespearean comedy to Murray Bramwell

It was November last year when John Gaden first asked William Zappa whether he knew Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and whether he would be interested in playing Benedick. Zappa recalls:

“I’d been staying with a friend …

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January 01, 1987

Playing About

Wild Honey, State Theatre Company
Those Dear Departed, Stage Company
Stitch in Time, Vitalstatistix
Bazaar and Rummage, Red Shed Company

The State Theatre Company’s final production for 1987 is Michael Frayn’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Wild Honey, directed by Aubrey Mellor. The ur-manuscript of Wild Honey aka Platonov aka A Country Scandal languished in a bank deposit box in Moscow until 1920 before being dusted off and whipped into various shapes by various translators.

Frayn has taken bold …

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Prize Pumpkins

Filed under: Archive,Books

Prize Pumpkins
An Inflection of Silence and Other Poems
Edited by Christopher Pollnitz
University of Newcastle Press

The viewless wings of poesy were never anybody’s idea of the way to make money. The rewards for writing poetry must certainly be in heaven because they are mighty scarce on earth. Writers may get grants and free board and lodging in universities from time to time but that is about the size of it.

So when poetry prizes are offered worth several …

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