murraybramwell.com

April 01, 1996

Simply Red

Filed under: Archive,Music

Simply Red
Entertainment Centre
Adelaide

The last time I saw Simply Red they were touring the second album Men and Women. Their mix of reggae, soul and Brit pop had, even with their debut Picture Book, made immediate impact. The band was on its way and they knew it. Singer Mick Hucknall set the pace; brash, cocksure and blessed with vocal gifts to rival Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. Like other UK stylists such as Eric Burdon, Joe Cocker, Paul …

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March 03, 1996

Adelaide Fringe Theatre and Other Soloists

Filed under: Archive,Fringe

The 1996 Adelaide Fringe program lists sixty-two entries under Theatre, not including another ten or so roosting under the heading of Comedy. The range is huge in both style and quality. There are a variety of spins on Shakespeare, revivals of classics such as Marlowe’s Edward II and Buchner’s Danton’s Death, as well as productions of contemporary playwrights Wallace Shawn, Edward Albee and Stephen Berkoff. There is also a gratifying array of new and self-devised work.

Lotus War , written …

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March 01, 1996

Break-out

Claustrophobia
devised by the Maly Company

Maly Theatre of St Petersburg
Festival Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

In both Gaudeamus and Claustrophobia, the Maly Theatre present us with a profusion of mixed messages. The company, youthful, vibrant and full of theatrical charm performs material which is often bitter, predatory, and seething with cynicism. The vignettes of life in the Construction Battalion in Gaudeamus show a vicious, divisive group of young people brutalised by circumstance. And the closing tableau with the …

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Artful Dodges

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

Adelaide Festival

Living Yesterday Tomorrow

Malcolm McLaren

Her Majesty’s

The speaker for the evening takes the stage. Strolling towards the lectern in a baggy black suit and a peach coloured open-neck shirt, shuffling papers and lugging an attache case, he looks like a dotty art theory lecturer. This is Malcolm McLaren ? The Fagin of punk, Alfred Jarry of the Kings Road, bagman for the Sex Pistols ?

With his tousled Harpo curls,  his languorous eyelids and drawling delivery …

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February 02, 1996

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996
Joan Armatrading
Festival Theatre
Adelaide

Murray Bramwell

There are few singer/songwriters as singular as Joan Armatrading. Over seventeen albums she has not only put a patent on her lilting vocal, she has consistently explored themes where most other lyricists fear to tread. While she can write perky tunes with the best of them, it is her investigations into the telltale heart which have made her an audience favourite. She writes grown-up pop: about jealousy and betrayal, about women who …

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January 01, 1996

Figuring the Landscape

Figuring the Landscape

Murray Bramwell talks with Philippe Genty and Mary Underwood about their new Australian-based production, Stowaways.

For nearly twenty years Philippe Genty has been an Australian stowaway. Ever since his first visit to the Adelaide and Perth Festivals in1978 he has lodged in the minds of a diverse Australian audience which has been both entranced and intrigued by the imaginative world of his theatre. His wacky dancing ostriches and weird little floating homunculi, his erotic puppets festooned in …

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Making Gravy

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

Paul Kelly

with Paul Brady

Governor Hindmarsh

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Paul Kelly has played here four times this year and each time he’s been full of surprises. The January gig at Heaven brought a five piece line-up plus a set from the Blackeyed Susans. Then, fresh from the Womad train, he played a full house at Festival Theatre with fabled pedal steel player and national broadcaster, Lucky Oceans. The Norwood Town Hall show featured Renee Geyer, whose fortunes …

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All the World’s a Three Day Stage

Filed under: Archive,Womadelaide

1996

Womadelaide

Murray Bramwell talks with Womadelaide organisers Rob Brookman and Thomas

Brooman about the World Music festival’s continuing success.

Adelaide’s Botanic Park is a green haven right in the centre of town. With

its majestic Moreton Bay figs and well-watered meadow, it is bounded by the

zoo on one side and the botanical gardens on the other. Not surprisingly, it

is a favourite spot for a scattered population of picnickers, joggers,

strollers, sketchers, spin bowlers and anybody else fancying …

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