1989
Selected Poems
Peter Bland
John McIndoe
1987, 79 pp.
Murray Bramwell
I was about fifteen when I first read Peter Bland. By some oversight his first collection, My Side of the Story, had found its way on to the shelves of my high school library. I presumed it be an oversight because nothing about my high school days led me to believe that such a subversive book of poems could ever have been knowingly put there. Here were these …
Continue Reading Back to top1989
DRAFT
My Gorgeous Life
Dame Edna Everage
Macmillan
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
Despite having become more global than ozone since her first appearance in 1956 (at the behest of playwright Ray Lawlor), Dame Edna Everage has rarely committed herself in print. Virtually silent on the page since the Coffee Table Book of 1976, her recently released memoir My Gorgeous Life candidly and caringly reveals details that have somehow escaped the tungsten glare of publicity in which she is perpetually …
Continue Reading Back to topBilly Bragg
Dom Polski Centre
John Hammond
Tivoli Hotel
A lot has happened for Billy Bragg in the two years since he toured last. He has performed in the Soviet Union, toured the US with Michelle Shocked, and his latest album, Workers Playtime, has everywhere sold well at its user-friendly budget RRP.
It is only to be expected that the one-time busker and all-time prolo model would be smoother and more urbane this visit, presenting a set designed for …
Continue Reading Back to topRicordi
Doppio Teatro
Lion Theatre
As their name suggests, Doppio Teatro (Dual Theatre) is a bilingual theatre company with a single-minded commitment to the promotion and celebration of ltalo-Australian culture. Since its inception in 1983, Doppio has staged productions for the Festival Fringe, Piccolo Spoleto and Come Out as well as schools and Italian clubs in the metropolitan. area and regional centres.
Under the guidance of artistic directors, Christopher Bell and Teresa Crea, Doppio Teatro has, with productions such as …
Continue Reading Back to top“We have retrieved a lot of necessary ground but nobody wants to know about that”
Leigh Warren, Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre
interviewed by Murray Bramwell
FUNDING cuts continue to loom for most performing companies in much the same way that Birnam Wood moved on Dunsinane, although, at the moment it seems to be the dance companies who are particularly vulnerable. Recently, Sydney’s Once Extra Company lost funds altogether while elsewhere, artistic differences are resulting in resignations and uncertainty. …
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Reviewing the Reviewers: Thoughts on the Place of Criticism in the Theatre
1989
Murray Bramwell
To say that theatre reviewing is a strange and sometimes excruciating ritual is hardly a revelation. Yet the reasons for this and the assumptions on which they are based are rarely considered except in times of crisis. Of course, in the theatre that means quite often. The theatre, after all, is a volatile, sometimes giddy creature and much inclined to generating and attracting hyperbole. In fact, theatre is often seen as synonymous with crisis. No other art …
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