murraybramwell.com

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 …

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Divining a Future

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Festival,International,Theatre

The action raced from musical soundscapes to didactic melodramas. From animalistic lycra to a japanese tale of love and ogres. Whilst Tiananmen Square rubbed shoulders with a local paper mill, Murray Bramwell was getting to know the nature of the beast itself.

Now that Come Out has gone back inside for another two year period of planning and preparation, it is a good time to take stock. This has been the ninth festival and with its theme, Designing Our Future. …

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Two

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1991

Florence Who?

by Roxxy Bent

Junction Theatre

Red Like the Devil

by Teresa Crea

Doppio Teatro

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Now in their new possie in Thebarton, Junction Theatre continue their Art and Working Life series with Florence Who? by Adelaide writer Roxxy Bent. Commissioned by the Australian Nursing Federation, the play takes a lively look at the practices and politics of a profession often distorted by stereotype. Roxxy Bent, widely-regarded for her quirky writing for Vitalstatistix, noted that …

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Comfortable Words

Filed under: Archive,Books

1991

A Common Prayer

Leunig

Collins Dove

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

For the past twenty years Michael Leunig has turned wisps and smudges of paint and ink into sublime visual comedy. His Franciscan bestiary of parrots, foxes, cats, small dogs and ducks have been ubiquitous since the days of the Nation Review and latterly as spirits of The Age. These creatures have followed stars in billycarts and given solace to the downcast humanity who mope and muse and wonder …

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Radiant

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1991

Happy Days

by Samuel Beckett

State Theatre Company

Playhouse., July, 1991

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

“What’s the idea ? he says -stuck up to her diddies in the bleeding ground- What does it mean? he says -What’s it meant to mean ?” Playfully self-referential, Samuel Beckett pre-empts the familiar response to his work. What is he trying to say ? What do his plays represent ? His patient reply was always that his plays mean what they are, if …

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Comfortable Words

Filed under: Archive,Books

1991

A Common Prayer
Leunig
Collins Dove

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

For the past twenty years Michael Leunig has turned wisps and smudges of paint and ink into sublime visual comedy. His Franciscan bestiary of parrots, foxes, cats, small dogs and ducks have been ubiquitous since the days of the Nation Review and latterly as spirits of The Age. These creatures have followed stars in billycarts and given solace to the downcast humanity who mope and muse and wonder in …

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Interview with Michael Leunig

Filed under: Archive,Interviews

1992

From Wanted For Questioning: Interviews with Australian Comic Artists

(Editors) Murray Bramwell and David Matthews, Allen and Unwin, 1992.

Michael Leunig

One of the first things I discovered when I came to Aus­tralia in 1972 was an extraordinary paper called the Nation Review. Toey, opinionated, snide, courageous, it was a paper with highly distinctive styles and personalities and it had cartoons in it like none I’d seen before. Not like those in Punch or Private Eye or The New …

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Interview with John Clarke

Filed under: Archive,Interviews

1992

From Wanted For Questioning: Interviews with Australian Comic Artists

(Editors) Murray Bramwell and David Matthews, Allen and Unwin, 1992.

John Clarke

John Clarke had already had a whole career before he arrived in Australia in 1977. In New Zealand he achieved the kind of national prominence that Paul Hogan achieved in this country. Enjoying equal success in television, radio and live performance, Clarke and his alter ego, Fred Dagg, almost single-handedly created new comedy in New Zealand. Humorists like …

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