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December 12, 1995

Ray Davies

Filed under: Archive,Music

1995

Her Majesty’s
Adelaide

Murray Bramwell

Just when you thought nostalgia isn’t what it used to be- along comes Ray Davies. Except that this one-Kink show, which has been touring the known world since its acclaimed debut at the Edinburgh Festival, is much more than a greatest hits fest. Drawing from Davies’s recent “unauthorised autobiography”, X-Ray, the two hour show is an intelligent, wonderfully wry mix of music and memoir.

Raymond Douglas Davies is the exceptionally talented leader of …

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December 01, 1995

And There’s More

Filed under: Archive,Interviews

1995

Murray Bramwell talks to Barrie Kosky about the 1996 Adelaide Festival

Barrie Kosky is looking almost weary. With a twenty-four hour stubble and his number two razor-cut in undefined grow-back phase, he is not saying no to a late morning coffee. He tells me he has just completed his seventh Hills hoisting, a six o’clock spruik in the Festival Theatre organised for anyone-who-might-be-interested. But even as he describes his glittering reprise the energy returns. Kosky is, without doubt, one …

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Drang und Storm

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

Hamlet
The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Company B
Belvoir
The Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is more than thirty years since the Polish writer Jan Kott declared Shakespeare not only our contemporary but the playwright for all of Europe. The idea liberated Peter Brook’s King Lear and gave acrobatic freedom to his version of the Dream but then it lapsed again. Shakespearean performance from the UK has, with notable exceptions -Cheek by Jowl, some of Michael Bogdanivich’s work with …

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Tomorrow the World

Murray Bramwell

After the announcement of State Theatre’s Australian Playhouse season for 1996 comes detail of the Adelaide Festival Centre Trust’s World Theatre program. The world, it seems, is a somewhat closer place than we might have thought given the level of Australian content in the line-up. Perhaps now that State has committed itself to a five year plan we will have a better sense in future that the left hand knows whether the right hand has already signed the …

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November 01, 1995

Finding the Pulse

Filed under: Archive,Music

The Blackeyed Susans
Crown and Anchor

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

“You realise you are about to hear the best band in Melbourne.” I am lip-reading a friend’s emphatic prediction while G.T. Stringer wind up their set in the bonsai confines of the Crown and Anchor. Led by sax player Trevor Ramsay the band is sharp and accomplished. More evidence of the depth in the batting in Adelaide. A plug for their new CD and the crowd gives them a well-deserved …

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October 01, 1995

Sightings

1995

Murray Bramwell

Over the past six weeks or so  there has been  a profusion of new work and interesting ventures – more than this reviewer could keep up with. I am sorry to report that, despite repeatedly surrendering the X Files, I failed to get to everything on offer. Among my regrets is the Oddbodies Theatre Co-op’s production of Kafka Dances, the well-regarded new play written by Timothy Daly and directed by Sean Riley.  By all accounts …

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Suspended Re-animation

1995

The Floating World

by John Romeril

State Theatre

Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is timely to have State Theatre’s revival of John Romeril’s APG classic, The Floating World. Timely in that its subject matter- the experiences of Australian soldiers on what was then called the Burma-Siam Railway- coincides with the Australia Remembers project. But on closer inspection its themes sit uncomfortably with the blandness of the current celebrations. Fifty years on, Australia is remembering- but about as selectively …

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Binary Vision

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

1995

Arcadia
by Tom Stoppard
State Theatre in association with
The Sydney Theatre Company
Playhouse, September, 1995.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Arcadia, like its setting, Sidley Park, is a major property. Probably Stoppard’s best work since the plays from the Seventies such as Jumpers and Travesties, it marks an impressive return to form. It is maddeningly over-written and plagued with tropes he should be able to resist by now. But it is also propelled by ideas and energies which, in …

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September 13, 1995

Joe Cocker

Filed under: Archive,Music

1995

Festival Theatre

Adelaide

Murray Bramwell

It was once just a Lennon and McCartney throwaway. With a Little Help from My Friends, a Ringo song that George Formby might have written. Then, out of nowhere , came  a version that transformed it into a soul gospel classic. Joe Cocker, gas fitter from Sheffield, had discovered some serious pipes of his own and was being hailed as the rival of Ray Charles and Otis Redding.

Celebrating twenty five years in …

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September 01, 1995

Very Like a Whale

Moby Dick
Adaptation by Nigel Triffitt

State Theatre
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

This production first surfaced at the Melbourne Festival in 1990 and now State has refitted it for its current season. Nigel Triffitt has always been full of bright ideas and this adaptation of Moby Dick is among his best. Melville’s sprawling novel, part metaphysics, part ripping yarn, has ample theatrical potential and time has only added to its curiosity and appeal.

The account of Captain Ahab’s pursuit …

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