Magpie Theatre Company’s production of David Holman’s new play The Small Poppies has opened at Theatre 62 in Adelaide.

Directed by Geoffrey Rush with music composed by Moya Henderson and recorded for performance by the Australian String Quartet, The Small Poppies is about three little tackers on their first day at school.

Typically of David Holman’s work -and this is his 70th play – The Small Poppies makes its intentions very clear. It is for five-year-olds and all who want …

Too Young for Ghosts, by Janis Balodis, is being performed by Adelaide’s Stage Company in the Festival Centre Space.

This play uses displacement both as theme and technique. It describes seven Latvian emigres following their arrival in Australia in 1945 and interweaves the narrative with a speculative account of Ludwig Leichhardt’s ill-fated expedition from the Gulf of Carpenteria southwest to Perth in 1847.

The play is audacious and assured in its use of flashback and narrative shifts which, though complex, …

The Weekenders, by Ray Harding is the Adelaide Stage Company’s latest production in The Space.
Harding has had TV successes including the recent tele-movie, I Can‘t Get Started. Unfortunately he writes less effectively for the more precise requirements of the stage.

The play concerns three couples each of whom believes they have the exclusive use of a shack on the river for the weekend. Complications arise when it transpires that a divorced couple and their new lovers, …

The Harlequin Shuffle, a new play by Tony Strachan, is the latest Stage Company production in the Space Theatre in Adelaide. This two-hander is an affectionate study of the passing tradition of the family circus in Australia.

Larry Tandy is the last of the family in Tandy’s Circus, a down-at-heel tent show touring country towns. A former high-wire clown, he has fallen from grace to flagons of hock and a hoopla stall.

Steve, a young street-theatre performer and aspiring …

This year’s Come Out Festival in Adelaide has devoted special attention to visual arts and literature. Under the umbrella Dreams of Youth – Apocalypse or Utopia, 60 young artists interpret their world. They range from Rhianon Vernon-Roberts’ Arms Talk, which portrays the lack of communication between East and West to Andrew Dearman’s message-free wire sculpture Boy On A Swing.

The writing section is opened up for scrutiny in Allwrite, a celebration of young people as writers and readers.

Music and …