murraybramwell.com

November 13, 1998

Coming to Grips with Heavyweight Barker

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1998

Adelaide

Theatre

The Europeans by Howard Barker.

Director: Tim Maddock. Designed by Mary Moore. Lighting: Geoff Cobham. Sound design Jeremy Rowney. Brink Productions.

Balcony Theatre. November 10, 1998.

Murray Bramwell

In London there is an outfit called The Wrestling School which is devoted to the works of playwright Howard Barker. Brink Productions, newly commissioned in Adelaide this year, could well qualify as its southern campus. Over the past three years or so, the Brink team has grappled with such …

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November 01, 1998

Smoking Guns

Filed under: Archive,Music

1996

The Sex Pistols

with Skunk Anansie

Thebarton Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

In 1975 the Sex Pistols proved you could sell anything. Now, with their Filthy Lucre Tour they are proving that you can sell anything  twice. Never has a band been surrounded by such legend. Despite their best efforts not even Oasis can generate the tabloid loathing and fan fascination that, in their heyday, the Pistols engendered with their chaotic, apparently inept, anti-sound. They are the apotheosis of …

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Wild Thymes in Warwickshire

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

1998

The Herbal Bed
Peter Whelan
Sydney Theatre Company
Optima Playhouse, October 1998.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Very little is known about Susanna Hall, nee Shakespeare, but playwright Peter Whelan has made every skerrick count. It is verifiable that in 1607 the elder daughter of the greatest dead white male in the history of the English language married John Hall, a successful physician with a flair for herbal remedies. It is also recorded that she brought defamation charges against John …

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October 01, 1998

Crimes and Misdemeanours

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,State Theatre Company,Theatre

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
by Brad Fraser
State Theatre
Optima Playhouse

Speaking in Tongues
by Andrew Bovell
Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is now ten years since Brad Fraser’s audacious play was first performed in his hometown in Edmonton, Alberta. But time has been good to this stylishly constructed account of the young and the restless. With almost instinctive flair Fraser captures the nerve and pulse of his characters, locating them …

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Mental Notes

Filed under: Archive,Music

Mental as Anything
Flinders University Tavern

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

The Mentals have turned twenty-one and a right old pub crawl of passage it has been. From their nippy beginnings playing on top of a pool table in the Unicorn hotel in Paddington to their current chic in the art scene they have, you might say, done things their way. Even though they were part of an amazing profusion of local bands which included The Sports, Jo Jo Zep, the …

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ADELAIDE Theatre

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Theatre

1998

Making it New

Murray Bramwell reports on what’s been doing in theatre in Adelaide

It is now more than a year since the Day of the Long Knives. Well, it seemed like that when, in mid-October 1997, it was announced that the Australia Council was withdrawing triennial funding for a number of Adelaide’s long established theatre companies. Carouselle, the talented puppet group was one, Junction Theatre another, Magpie2, the newly badged youth wing of State Theatre got clipped after …

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Crimes and Misdemeanours

Filed under: Archive,Interstate,Theatre

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love
by Brad Fraser
State Theatre
Optima Playhouse

Speaking in Tongues
by Andrew Bovell
Griffin Theatre Company
Space

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is now ten years since Brad Fraser’s audacious play was first performed in his hometown in Edmonton, Alberta. But time has been good to this stylishly constructed account of the young and the restless. With almost instinctive flair Fraser captures the nerve and pulse of his characters, locating them …

Continue Reading Back to top

September 02, 1998

ADELAIDE Theatre

Filed under: Archive,State Theatre Company,Theatre

1998

Murray Bramwell

Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love by Brad Fraser. Director: Rosalba Clemente. Designer: Robert Kemp. Lighting: Geoff Cobham. Composer: Stuart Day. State Theatre South Australia, Optima Playhouse.

Moliere’s The Misanthrope adapted by Victoria Hill based on an original concept by Tim Maddock. Director and designer: Tim Maddock. Lighting: Geoff Cobham. Costume design: Gaelle Mellis. Brink Productions. Balcony Theatre.

As its meandering title suggests Brad Fraser’s hit play from 1988 is concerned with eros and …

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September 01, 1998

Positives and Negatives

Filed under: Adelaide Companies,Archive,Australian Texts,Theatre

Morde
by Paul Rees
Theatre Praxis
Lion Theatre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Sometimes an event occurs which is so extraordinary and complete in its symbolic value that it seems definitively dramatic. The story of Mordechai Vanunu must have seemed so to Adelaide based writer Paul Rees. The Israeli defence worker who photographed evidence of his country’s nuclear capability and then, while hiding out in a wayside chapel in King’s Cross in Sydney, made arrangements to expose the information in The …

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Time Lord

Filed under: Archive,Music

1998

Bob Dylan (with Patti Smith)

Entertainment Centre

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

Last time Bob Dylan visited our part of the planet he had Bonnie Raitt on the bill. Patti Smith is more of a statement. Or, at least she makes it so. In skinny jeans, a crumpled orange top and a shapeless black jacket Smith coils around the microphone stand and opens with People Have the Power– Elephants Memory-style agitprop from her Dream of Life album.

The Widow …

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