murraybramwell.com

October 01, 1991

The Rough with the Smooth

Filed under: Archive,Music

1991

Joe Jackson
Thebarton Theatre
Coppel/SA-FM

Elvis Costello and
the Rude Five
Entertainment Centre
MTV/SA-FM

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Someone once said that after the Beatles made it big the pigeon-chested weaklings got all the best girls. That’s not entirely true – Buddy Holly had already made it despite his nerdy horn rims and so did English rockers like Adam Faith even though he, clearly, never ate his vegetables. In fact, the ectomorphs have ruled the earth since the beginnings …

Continue Reading Back to top

Resuscitated

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1991

Jonah

Book and Lyrics by John Romeril

Music by Alan John

State Theatre Company

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is not hard to see why John Romeril would be attracted to Jonah. With its temper democratic; bias offensively Australian, Louis Stone’s naturalistic tale of the Botany Road push, circa 1905, gathers around it many of the elements of Romeril’s own work. It is accessible and generous-hearted, a likeable yarn with a darkly  mythic logic.  The story of Jonah …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 08, 1991

Journeying to Capricornia

Filed under: Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

1990

The State Theatre Company production of Capricornia opens in the Playhouse tonight. Director, Kingston Anderson talks to Murray Bramwell about the process from novel to stage.

You might say that Kingston Anderson’s professional career has been dominated by a single word -Capricornia. This  point is not lost on him either. “Justine Saunders and I have a joke that we will meet in the street when we are eighty and say `When will you be doing Capricornia again?'”

Anderson was …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 01, 1991

Phantom Ibsen

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

Ghosts
by Henrik Ibsen
Big Ensemble
Lion Theatre.

Of all Ibsen’s plays, Ghosts is the most scarifying. Its themes are darkly deterministic, its social criticism relentless. Ibsen’s plays spoke not just for his own country but for all of Europe, haunted by the ghosts of dead ideas, old and obsolete beliefs. As his central character, Mrs Alving says – “They are not alive in us but they remain in us none the less, and we can never rid themselves of …

Continue Reading Back to top

A Sport’s Round-up

Filed under: Archive,Books

1991

Oval Dreams

Brian Matthews

McPhee Gribble

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Brian Matthews has written a fair swag of occasional pieces but I have two particular favourites. One is a conference paper on Australian poetry, which began with a droll account of his childhood in St Kilda, the other an essay, published in these very columns , on the subject of Channel Nine cricket. The former, written fifteen years ago, for me signalled new possibilities for academic writing. Yes, Virginia, …

Continue Reading Back to top

August 01, 1991

Encrustation

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1991

King Golgrutha

by Stephen Sewell

State Theatre Company

Playhouse, July 1991.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

What has always distinguished Stephen Sewell is his wish to make theatre do things that most believe it can’t or shouldn’t do. When the collective concentration span is diminishing  he writes plays that run till eleven thirty, when it is prudent to be ironic he offers unabashed earnestness. Sewell breaks rules almost as if he doesn’t realise they exist with the consequence that he …

Continue Reading Back to top

July 20, 1991

Welcoming the Bright (and Dark) World

Filed under: Archive,Interviews

1991

The State Theatre Company is currently in production with a new Australian play. Murray Bramwell talks with playwright Stephen Sewell about his latest monsterpiece -King Golgrutha.

A newly commissioned play is always an event, a new work from Stephen Sewell even more so. For nearly fifteen years Sewell has created very distinctive theatre- beginning with The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea, Traitors and Welcome the Bright World and prominently, with plays premiered by the State …

Continue Reading Back to top

Welcoming the Bright (and Dark) World

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1991

The State Theatre Company is currently in production with a new Australian play. Murray Bramwell talks with playwright Stephen Sewell about his latest monsterpiece  -King Golgrutha.

A newly  commissioned play is always an event, a new work from Stephen Sewell even more so. For nearly fifteen years Sewell has created very distinctive theatre- beginning with The Father We Loved on a Beach by the Sea, Traitors and Welcome the Bright World and prominently, with plays premiered by the State …

Continue Reading Back to top

July 01, 1991

Kelly Country

Filed under: Archive,Music

1991

Paul Kelly and the Messengers
with Archie Roach
Tivoli Hotel

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Paul Kelly has to be one of our most eclectic songwriters. The influences crowd in from all directions. Irish folk, American country, Dylan, Guthrie, Costello, even bands like UK Squeeze- they all seem to be in there somewhere. Not that there is anything derivative about Kelly, it’s just that he has such good antennae for all the sounds that sound good.

He has been making …

Continue Reading Back to top

June 01, 1991

The Four Hoarse Men of the Apocalypse

Filed under: Archive,Music

1991

The Highwaymen
Memorial Drive
May, 1991.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

This is the age of the conglomerate. After the takeovers, the buy-outs and the barracuda raids have come rationalisation, employee-led rescues and all the other attempts at damage control. No less so in rock and roll. Lately, there’s been a whole lot of corporate huddling going on. Take the Travelling Wilburys for example – bigger than you know-who and not even deterred when Roy Orbison collected his dividend. In …

Continue Reading Back to top
« Newer Posts — Older Posts »