Slingsby's The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy
You may want to think twice before taking your children to see "The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy": This exquisitely performed piece is so enchanting, they may never be content with your simple bedtime stories again.
Over 50 breathtaking minutes, it details the adventures of a young boy who goes on an intergalactic journey to find his parents after his world -- made entirely of cheese -- catches on fire and becomes fondue.
The proceedings are narrated by a Victorian-era-style figure, Slingsby (Stephen Sheehan), aided by burly, silent assistant, Humph (Samuel McMahon). A third performer mans a projector that provides the visuals for the presentation, which apes the Magic Lantern shows of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Relating the tale in deliciously plummy tones, the handlebar-mustached Slingsby wanders throughout his "humble playing area" while vividly describing such episodes as Cheeseboy's encounter with a group of traveling gypsies. In a clever touch, their miniature caravan is revealed within a large trunk.
The seats of the Duke on 42nd Street Theater have been removed, replaced by a large white circus tent. Kids plop down on the floor near the front, while the grown-ups sit on benches behind them.
With its imaginative use of tiny models, shadow effects, music, puppetry and projections, the show is visually and aurally transfixing. Best of all, it doesn't talk down to its young audience, which watched the proceedings, rapt throughout.
Frank Scheck, NEW YORK POST of New York City, NY, USA
Sophie Walsh-Harrington has achieved the impossible and made Celine Dion a ballsy vamp in The Damsel in Shining Armour.
Celine Dion songs are re-imagined as the shining armour of a melodrama queen with delusions of love grandeur in this hysterical flight of fancy, a one-woman show written and performed by the force of nature that is Walsh-Harrington.
Damsel in Shining Armour is one of the many small gems that Nexus Gallery has hosted throughout Adelaide Fringe. But Miss Sophie would not be satisfied with anything less than me saying that she is the jewel in the crown!
Sophie isn’t your typical fairytale damsel. Cartoon birds don’t fly around her head magically twisting her hair into braids like Cinderella. A Prince Charming doesn’t awaken her from a deep sleep with a gentle kiss.
Instead, she has a cheap fan that acts as a stand-by wind machine for her hair when she is getting her grrl on. And she is having far too much promiscuous fun with men, real and imaginary, to go to sleep in the first place.
Bouncing around with the energy I can only muster up after six shots of caffeine, our fair damsel rushes from one situation to the next, worried that if she has a chance to catch her breath, she’ll discover that her life has become her greatest fear: ordinary.
Her repeated catchcry: “One must create melodrama in one’s life.”
And with the panache of a tigress wrestling a mountain ox, she tries to strangle each little bit of reality she can out of her life, with Celine Dion songs as her soundtrack.
She becomes infatuated with taken men, gay men, indifferent men and even a mugger, turning deal breakers for most women into spun gold.
One would-be suitor tells her that the brand new polka dot dress she is wearing especially for her date makes her look like she should be collecting dog s**t.
Her response? “I like a man who notices things.”
Or her reasoning behind why the man who tried to steal her purse never called her back?
“Well, he works crazy hours, mugging and s**t.”
It’s too bad that she looks at her musical accompanist, Matthew Carey, with a disdainful eye when she considers him for a fleeting moment as a potential suitor. I really think these crazy kids could have had something.
Sophie is kind of like Tinkerbell: she needs attention to live!
The audience were happy to oblige her, clapping, hooting, hollering and making the occasional animal noise at her saucier gestures.
At one point, when reality threatens to creep in after one romantic fantasy too many has been thwarted, Sophie goes on what I can only describe as a lover bender: she describes increasingly fantastical and hilarious scenarios of different men finding ways to woo her.
It’s moments like this where the cracks in her melodrama show. Sophie might hit the high notes of Celine with comic flair, but there are also touches of vulnerability and poignancy when she sings, hinting that her melodrama isn’t really escapism so much as a veneer to convince others that she is living a life less ordinary.
When Sophie returns home to the UK after meandering to faraway places like Paris and Summer Bay on her quest for storybook love, I found myself rooting for her to keep trying to defy the laws of reality.
What’s so wrong about having your head in the clouds, anyway? That’s the best place to be, really, if you, like Sophie, are searching for what the French call “une coup de foudre”; the lightning strike of meeting your soul mate.
One thing to remember. We’re all stars. But Sophie is the brightest of them all.
Cherie Barnett of ShoGo
A picture tells a thousand words, but what about the stories that surround a photo?
Of the subject, the photographer, the land it was taken in?
At the start of Brink Productions' Skip Miller's Hit Songs, we are shown faces of strangers.
Images of African people are projected onto a blank wall, small and slightly out of focus, and then gradually growing larger and sharpening into high relief. Actors capture these images on white cards and bring these photos forward from the wall.
Each photo represents a different story to be told. Just like it would be impossible to learn the story of every person living in Africa, many of these people remain a mystery.
But through Sean Riley’s beautiful script some of these strangers become familiar to us; people who we could easily befriend, or see some of ourselves in, or in the very least come into sharper focus.
Riley threads together a multi-character narrative of people suspended emotionally between the two worlds of Australia and Africa, and the ripple effect this has on those closest to them.
Skip Miller (Chris Pitman) is a photojournalist and music lover who has been hardened by harrowing times spent working in African war zones. Physically, he has returned to his home town of Adelaide, but he has left his heart and soul behind in Africa, leaving a shell of a man his partner Alison Caldicott (Lizzy Falkland) finds it difficult to connect to. During a particularly powerful scene, physical blocking has Skip and Alison shouting at each other from opposite sides of the stage, representing the continent that stands between them.
Skip’s sense of dislocation is mirrored in the experiences of African refugees in Adelaide. The newly arrived Patience Lugor (Assina Ntawimenya), whose quiet strength covers a painful past, develops a sweet relationship with Skip’s brother, who is needy but means well. The quiet destruction of their relationship from haunting memories and lessons not learned is in its own way as powerful as the fiery blows that Skip and Alison come to.
The production of Skip Miller is evocative and filled with many striking images that stay with you long after the show has finished. Director Chris Drummon and Designer Wendy Todd have used a light, but precise, hand to bring the play to life.
In one scene, shadows of nomadic souls conjure the feeling of hundreds of an entire African community fleeing a horrible fate. In another, the reflection of a pool on the main wall of the theatre makes you feel like you are soaking your feet in the water along with the actors.
The bare stage is covered with vibrant earth, a few crates, and one chair. As Brink did with Harbinger, where stage hands wandered out from the wings to dispense theatre magic, artifice is completely removed. Actors are out in the open as they wait for their next cue to appear on stage. Three musicians (Quentin Grant, Jerome Lyons and Lamine Nanky) are on stage throughout the show, integrating layers of both African and Western music into the narrative. Some of the music was so joyous you felt like dancing on the sandy stage with the actors.
This is theatre with genuine heart. It shows our deep human desire for closeness in our relationships, but how emotional, more so than physical, distance can drive a wedge between us and loved ones. It reminds us of the universal values that people from otherwise disparate cultures can share.
I left wanting to know the stories of the people in the photo collage at the start who remained anonymous to the audience.
Cherie Barnett of ShoGo
Red shoes represent glamour, desire and danger, so it's no surprise that they are a popular trope in stories with fantastical elements.
Most famously, we have Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz.
And then there are The Red Shoes at the centre of Hans Christian Anderson's dark fairytale of the same name, adapted for stage by acclaimed UK company Kneehigh Theatre.
The difference in the journey between Dorothy and Karen, the anti-heroine of Anderson's tale?
"Dorothy is looking for home, Our Girl is looking for herself," says Emma Rice, Kneehigh's director.
Karen, like a lot of folktale heroines, is an everywoman. She starts the story at the point where her mother has just died, and is all alone with the exception of the presence of her strict grandmother in her life.
Despite this early tragedy, at this point Rice says "She [Karen] knows who she is and is at peace."
The story charts her journey as this peace is disrupted and her life careers out of control and towards self-destruct.
The trigger for this is the girl's half-crazed obsession with a pair of shiny red clogs. She makes the blasphemous mistake of wearing the shoes to church rather than sensible black shoes, and her swift punishment is having the shoes be permanently stuck to her feet and being forced to dance until she dies. Given this choice, the girl eventually begs a butcher to cut off her feet.
Clearly, this fairytale is not for the faint-hearted.
Yet these red shoes tapped away with much black humour. The premise was dark, but I was laughing constantly at the vaudevillian clowning of the colourful characters who visit Our Girl on her journey - the glamourous transvestite, who narrates the piece with lyrical poetry, the sexy soldier, the kindly butcher, the strict old lady, and especially the angry vicar had me in stitches. Comic interludes broke up the storyline to give the audience a chance to catch their breath.
Although these distinctive characters bring the story to life, we start off with the ensemble of actors with a death-camp aesthetic, sporting buzzcuts and white y-fronts and wifebeaters, and stripped of any elements of individuality.
But over the course of the show the actors clothed themselves to assume different roles, gender-bending included.
Rice said that we shouldn't think about red shoes as a symbol of vanity.
"They are about so much more than that. They are about desire, obsession and addiction; for pleaure, for meaning, for belonging. Think drugs, sex, food, or religion."
So, when the vicar put on his holy robe, he was putting on his own red shoes, or those baser feelings and convictions that set us apart from others. Karen wasn't the only character wearing red shoes.
The production shows just how powerful fairytales are when translated to stage, because they rely so much on imagination. I actually flinched during the feet-chopping scene, which wasn't bloody like the gratuitous violence you might see on TV or in the movies, but felt much more visceral because I was given room to develop the image in my mind.
It was interesting that this show wasn't just about desire, but the pursuit of freedom and individuality - and the terrible cost this quest can have. It is a tough choice to swim (or dance) against the tide, and there is a definite tension in life between what one is expected to do, and what one truly wants to do.
You could argue that Karen was heroic as much as she was a tragic victim. Was her pursuit of red shoes really all that bad, or the reaction to her obsession a damning indictment on a puritanical society?
Final word should go the the big fight scene at the end between Karen and the angel. Wagner, smoke, flying shoes - it was glorious and dramatic stuff! The music throughout the show was mostly instrumental, with two musicians and cast members playing everything from guitars and harps to a banjo and piano accordion. So the few segments of pre-recorded opera had real impact, and the Wagner in this scene felt incredibly earned.
Cherie Barnett of ShoGoWhen Ruby Bruise was born, she developed at 10,000 times the normal rate, and this production, devised by director Daisy Brown. Finnegan Kruckemeyer invites us in on the journey of Ruby’s growing old.The constructed set in the Waterside Workers Hall of billowing sheets, designed by Amy Milhinch and Wendy Todd, is reminiscent of your childhood cubby house: literally in the cubby of stolen sheets behind the lounge or under the porch chairs, and figuratively in the comfort, home, and wonder it brings. And along with that is the childlike wonder that Ruby Bruise pulls us into. and playwright.
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Jane Howard of Australian Stage OnlineShakespeare’s popular romantic comedy of disguise and mistaken identity is getting another airing, this time in the hands of a young cast under the direction of Glenn Hayden. There was masses of enthusiasm, energy and youthful exuberance from the cast and this helped to make up for some of the shortcomings, like poor diction and mispronounced words.
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Barry Lenny of Glam AdelaideThe revival season of Brink's When The Rain Stops Falling allows those who missed it in 2008 at last to understand what all the fuss was about.
This beautifully-written Andrew Bovell play speaks to the heart of Anglo Australian heritage at the same time as it opens the sore that we call family. It depicts the geographic fragmentation of family and the inherent dysfunctionality of family. And it sings out loud a cultural lamentation for stiff upper lips and things forever left unsaid.
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Samela Harris of AdelaideNowThere was no better way to relieve the tensions of getting to an inner city show at the end of the working week than with the sublime Caliente guitar trio at the Nexus centre last Friday. There were no dissonant notes or aggravating beats to distract one being taken away immediately by their virtuosity as Mike Bevan, Al Valodze and Dylan Woolcock embarked on their journey of world guitar music (and occasional mandolin) for us, a journey far greater than the billed Brazilian and Spanish pieces. From Turkey to Africa and including many of their own works Caliente delighted.
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Kryztoff of OnlineStudio Flamenco’s production, Arte y Compás (artistry and rhythm) is something like a multitude of tapas, and on opening night, each course is as sumptuous as the last and leaves the appreciative audience salivating for more.
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Stephen Davenport of Australian Stage OnlineWhen the Rain Stops Falling is a distinctive, portentous and mesmeric piece of theatre. Terrific entertainment from first to last, it’s an unlikely meditative and gut-wrenching tragedy, that crosses continents as it reveals the love, betrayal and abandonment within a family over four generations.
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Stephen Davenport of Australian Stage OnlineThe Tutti Choir are well known for their uplifting concerts, but this one was something else again, as they gave the first half of the concert themselves and then handed over the stage for the second half of the concert to the Choir of Hope and Inspiration, formerly known as the Choir of Hard Knocks. The combined choirs then closed the concert with two rousing numbers. (more)
Barry Lenny of Glam Adelaide of Glam AdelaideConfusing missteps in marketing aside, Harbinger was a reaching night at the theatre: the sort of theatre which reaches out from the stage, and plays with it’s fingertips up and down your arms, so at fist you want to laugh: it’s a tickle, a delight, a comforting feeling from someone you love. But then, it gets a little creepy. (more)
Jane Howard of No Plain Jane blogCongratulations to all Tuttians involved in last nights performance, it was fantastic.
We were surrounded by people toe tapping, swaying etc, a real buzz in the air.
We also had friends attend for the first time and they told me at half time they had
sat there with a lump in their throats from start to finish, agog at the quality of what
they were listening to.
You should all be very proud of yourselves and I hope you all enjoy a well earned break.
Cheers
Denise
Congratulations again on a top performance.
Denise
When close mate Jim dies after drug and alcohol abuse, his mates, Liz (Sarah Hone) and Lou (Andrew Pantelis) attempt to make sense of it and their lives in front of the slumped friend (Kurt Murray).
Originally performed to critical acclaim for the 2009 Fringe, Dead Jim has been revived with a few modifications with many of the original ensemble still in place. It remains very powerful theatre, exploring the nature of drug addiction, alcoholism, recovery and relapse and the extraordinarily self centred world of the players involved – Lou’s searching of Jim’s body in the most impersonal ways for yet more drugs late in the piece is most unsettling. (more)
Blogger Peter from Kryztoff Raw of Adelaide
If you're looking for the funniest, silliest, most enjoyable night of musical theatre in years, Spamalot literally is the Holy Grail. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, that is, the 1975 movie from which this show is "lovingly ripped off".
Northern Light, under the Pythonesque direction of Michael Pole, delivers a show so full of colour, movement and laughs that it actually tops the original, big-budget Melbourne version. It's Spam-tastic! (more)
Patrick McDonald of Adelaide NowWhat can I say? Performed perfectly in true Monty Python style! King Arthur’s quest to first find his knights of the round table, then to find the Holy Grail, takes the audience on a fun-filled journey past French guards with ridiculous accents and through a ‘Very Expensive Forest’ where they meet many strange and wonderful people, and a frog... The blur of colourful costumes, impressive sets and hilarious ‘special’ effects creates a night to remember. The surprising skill of all the leads was a treat and I was particularly taken by The Lady Of The Lake (played by Megan Humphries), whose vocal range was unbelievable. One for the whole family! Can’t wait to see what the Northern Light Theatre Company puts on next.
Final Word: Outrageous!
Bridie Toomer of Rip It UpBased loosely on the film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Eric Idle’s Tony award winning Broadway and West End musical makes its South Australian debut with enough stupidity to make Python fans proud.
Director Michael Pole has excelled himself with a Knight of comedy that is only matched by Peter Johns stellar musical direction and his sixteen piece band.
The unreserved cast let fly with show-stopping numbers, high pitched voices, and more energy than galloping coconuts, all topped of with Sue Pole’s wonderfully wacky choreography. (more)
Rod Lewis of Glam Adelaide‘Lovingly ripped off’ from the well-known film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, “Spamalot” could just be a dream come true for fans of both Monty Python and musicals – and may also convert some who are neither. With a script and score like this, containing catchy numbers with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and recreating many renowned scenes from the film, it is difficult to go very wrong with this musical. But Northern’s recreation is certainly a success, easily entertaining the opening night audience (complete with some obvious Monty Python fanatics present). (more)
Nikki Gaertner of Adelaide Theatre GuideFour wriggly boys settle quickly on the grass, stretching themselves out on a picnic rug. Nearby, a flock of squawking teenage girls plonk themselves in front of a rotunda, giggling and talking too loudly, looking around to see who’s looking back.
Less youthful audience members make a beeline for the deckchairs as grey-coated “workers” stroll about, distributing a range of strange objects for peeping into or listening to. Those who didn’t take the lolly offered on entry are tempted by a plate of toothpicked hors d’oeuvres.
It’s a sensory warm-up for Man Covets Bird, a charming production which skillfully integrates live music, voice, physical theatre and projected animation to create a miniature world within the Space Theatre.
Slingsby, Adelaide’s internationally recognised, award-winning theatre company creates works which “acknowledge the pain that is often a feature of human experience”.
Man Covets Bird is Slingsby’s third production (following The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy and Wolf) from the creative team of artistic director Andy Packer, writer Finegan Kruckemeyer, composer Quentin Grant and designer Geoff Cobham. They’ve got the formula just right, with elegant, humorous writing enhanced by set design and direction that immerses the audience in the action from the beginning to the final scene.
In addition to featuring in the 2010 Adelaide Festival, Man Covets Bird is also a part of the Adelaide Festival Centre's inSPACE Program.
A “nearly-man” (the immensely talented Nathan O’Keefe) grows up overnight and wakes to discover everything has changed. As he attempts to make a new life in a relentless, impersonal city, he finds security and companionship with a young bird. The relationship frees them both, and helps others to find connection within their previously indifferent society.
Birdsong lifts this soaring tale of yearning, courage and the importance of finding one’s own place amid the crowd. Cleverly constructed and absolutely delightful.
Jo Vabolis of The Independent Weekly, AdelaideA young man finds a small bird which he befriends; together they move to the city where they discover - while working in a factory - they can change lives.
From the moment you enter the Space theatre you are immersed; you'll be offered a box with a miniature projector inside to view, or a cone which produces birdsong to put to you ear, or an ice-cube or a lolly to suck upon. As you sit down on the blankets or the folding chairs or the benches you'll realise that what is beneath your feet (or seat) is not artificial lawn but actual turf, living grass cut and laid on the theatre floor. And that is only the beginning of a truly magical experience.
The story (Original Concept/Director, Andy Packer; writer Finegan Kruckemeyer) seems so simple a concept – but it is transcendent in its realisation. In the single speaking role – one that would seem trite in the hands of a lesser performer – Nathan O'Keefe is spellbinding; his combination of charm and energy and sheer sense of wonder is both contagious and captivating.
Quincy Grant (who also composed the music), Steve Lennox and Gareth Chin are a trio of wandering multi-instrumentalist minstrels whose non-stop playing - either as background music or whole songs between scenes – add an extra dimension to the production.
The set - by Geoff Cobham and Wendy Todd, with lighting by Dave Green - is simply stunning. As well as the aforementioned turf, there is a huge rotunda upon which much of the action takes place and includes moveable compartments to create the backdrop for the factory scenes; the entire east wall of the theatre becomes a screen upon which breathtaking projected animation appears.
It is an amazing, evocative, magical theatrical experience. This reviewer’s only complaint is that the shortness of the season; perhaps if we ask them nicely – and put out some birdseed – they’ll fly back...
Jamie Wright of Adelaide Theatre GuideIn its short life, Slingsby has quickly become accustomed to success. The company’s first work, The Tragical Life of Cheeseboy, was a winner with audiences and critics alike, right from the start, and has since travelled around the world, to continuing rave reviews. Their second production, Wolf, has toured regional towns in South Australia. This latest work looks set to have a similarly rosy future ahead of it.
From Andy Packer’s original concept Finegan Kruckemeyer wrote the script and then it was passed back to Packer to direct the work. Quentin Grant was enlisted to compose the music and he, with Steve Lennox and Gareth Chin provide live accompaniment as Nathan O’Keefe tells the story. Geoff Cobham came up with the original design concept, with Wendy Todd doing the detailed design and Dave Green realising the lighting design. The People’s Republic of Animation created the visual images that are projected onto a large screen at the rear of the stage.
All that, however, gives no indication of what a beautifully uplifting and thoroughly engaging production this is. The floor of The Space has been covered in real turf, with a rotunda prominently at centre stage and chairs and benches placed around, as though set up ready for a brass band concert in the park. Younger audience members happily sat on the grass near the front, close to the action. The musicians played throughout the performance, sometimes from the stage but occasionally strolling around the grassed area. They provided background music as well as illuminating the story with songs.
Nathan O’Keefe then weaved a delightful tale of a boy who wakes up one day to find that he is older, a ‘nearly-man’, and a stranger to his parents. He finds a small bird that cannot fly and befriends it, putting into the inside pocket of his jacket, where it is warm and safe. Together they travel to the city to find a new life. He finds himself in a soul destroying, repetitive job in a factory where many people work on one huge machine, each responding to their own signal by taking the same action, over and over. He attempts to communicate with those near him, but is ignored and rejected. He constructs a way of listening to the song of his bird when he is at work. Eventually he shares that song with others, irrevocably changing their dreary lives forever. Finally, he can return home and the bird, having grown, can fly free.
The first thing that strikes the audience is the total immersion one feels in this performance because of the physical collocation within the man’s world, created through the extremely clever and evocative set design, to which the lighting and animations add a great deal. The music suits the production impeccably, enhancing the atmosphere of this gentle and moving narrative. Then there is Nathan O’Keefe in what must be his finest performance so far. He completely captivates the audience, the younger member hanging on his every word, enthralled by his impeccable sense of timing and immense skills as a storyteller.
This is a production of which all concerned can be justifiably proud. This is definitely one to take the entire family to see.
Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Glam Adelaide Arts Editor.
Rating: 5.0/5 Rating: +5 (from 5 votes)
Barry Lenny of GlamAdelaideFINEGAN Kruckemeyer's poetic script for Man Covets Bird is like a beautiful children's book, a treasured bedtime story with illustrations which come to life before our eyes. Adelaide's Slingsby Theatre Company has created another truly magical, moving, all-encompassing world which is a mysterious as its title and enchants young and old alike.
As they enter, audience members are invited to peer inside a small wooden box, where scenery appears to roll past the window of miniature railway carriage, before taking a seat on or around one of the picnic blankets on the grass floor.
Delivering what is essentially an hour-long soliloquy, actor Nathan O'Keefe is a one-man dynamo, dressing himself on stage as he grows up before our eyes, from a newborn babe-in-arms to a gentle boy, an "unsensible" teenager and, before we know it, a man.
His movements are as poetic, fluid, funny and occasionally absurd as Kruckemeyer's story, a true tour-de-force.
Patrick McDonald of The Advertiser, AdelaideAs soon as you step into the Space Theatre for Man Covets Bird, you are transported into another world, much the same as the theatre has done itself. Gone are the chairs and rows you would expect from a theatre, instead, the ground is covered in real grass, and the audience is invited to take their shoes off and take a seat on the picnic blankets or in the 1950s lawn chairs behind. As soon as they step in to the theatre the audience is invited to look into a shoe-box theatre to see the train to catch to the show, lollies are handed out, and actor Nathan O’Keefe walks around talking to the audience and instigating competitions as to who can make a block of ice melt the fastest (for the record: I was beaten by a very talented young ice-melter at the picnic blanket next to me).
With the original concept by director Andy Packer, Finegan Kruckemeyer has penned a beautiful and poetic script; the journey of one person from nearly-a-man to a man, and what his life brings as he moves to the city, with only his bird for a friend. While the world and the city the man lives in can be sad and lonely, he still manages to find joy, and he discovers how to spread that joy to the sad and lonely people in the city. Narrated and acted by O’Keefe, the story is also interlaced with songs composed by Quincy Grant and performed live by a three-piece band - Grant, Steve Lennox and Gareth Chin. The interplay between the dialogue and the songs is beautiful, each working to support one another and lift the production to high heights.
It is a delight to watch O’Keefe going from narration to acting the roles of the different characters the man meets in his life; characters which become so clearly etched it is as if they were truly in the theatre. The imagination in the play is incredible: the main focus of the set (designed by Wendy Todd after initial concept by Geoff Cobham) is a simple and visually stunning rotunda, with park benches and flowers expanding the garden of the stage, and yet with the descriptions of Kruckemeyer, lighting of David Green and large-scale animations from the People’s Republic of Animation, the city and the people which populate it come to life.
The magic which is Man Covets Bird cannot possibly be described in writing. It is a show that truly needs to be seen by everyone. Leaving the theatre, I was privy to a child telling her mother, “When I catch the train home, I’m going to talk to everyone on it.” It is theatre like the work Slingsby produces which makes us all imagine a better and happier world. If more theatre were like this, the world would be a magical place indeed.
Jane Howard of Australian Stage OnlineThis is brilliant feelgood family theatre with a depth that speaks to any generation. Finegan Kruckemeyer continues his exciting development as a writer with this illuminating look at the coming-of-age story of a young man finding his way in the world.
Director Andy Packer has created a heart-warming piece of theatre that excites the soul and the imagination on a superb set from Wendy Todd.
Nathan O'Keefe carries off this delightful character of The Man who finds a friend of a feather to flock together, with a terrific performance guaranteed to put a smile on your dial. This show should be an international hit if given the opportunity.
Matt Byrne of The Sunday Mail, Adelaide
"There is much to love about Avenue Q. The cast are fantastic, the puppets they control are smart-mouthed but charming, the pace is cracking, the lyrics funny, the set is cleverly designed and looks great, and the air is thick with undiluted fun.
Avenue Q is like an amalgamation of Sesame Street and South Park that is set in a grimy part of New York. While it is famous for being rude and crude, it is also delightfully sweet."
To read the entire review by Alex Lalak, featured in the Daily Telegraph on 18 August 2009 click here
Alex Lalak of The Daily Telegraph, SydneyThe third and final night of Gorge '09 gave us Nicki Bloom’s Footsoldiers presented by Real Time Collaborators and Stone/Castro. Bloom’s script was, I felt, the strongest of the three nights...This year was my first experiencing Gorge, and I hope I get to experience it again soon. (More)
Jane Howard of No Plain JaneI found this season of Gorge as interesting as the previous five as I have been a Gorge groupie since the original Theatre Guild season in 1997. I do hope to see another incarnation very soon. (More)
Myk Mykyta of Radio Adelaide
Part of the excitement from a concept such as Gorge is that you don’t quite know what to expect, you might be thrown outside your comfort zone, and the companies take risks. (More)
Jane Howard of No Plain JaneAuthors have no contact with the performers and only see how their works have been interpreted on the night. Brink Productions has dressed up the concept with comical cabaret by Libby O'Donovan and Matthew Carey, interviews with the writer/performers, and a straight reading of the script. (More)
Patrick McDonald of The AdvertiserI had no idea what to expect from Gorge ’09. I walked in with a relatively open mind to watch the controversial Conflict under an Australian Quilt and left dreaming of the possibilities of what theatre could become. (More)
Chloe Truehl of AFC’s Green RoomThis is experimental theatre that challenges and excites, a credit to the foresight and insight of Brink Productions and everybody else involved in making this happen. (More)
Barry Lenny of GLAM AdelaideBarry Lenny of Glam Adelaide:
"This is a highly original production and Emma Beech completely immerses herself in her character in a brilliant and captivating performance, beautifully directed with a light, but definite touch by Sarah John."
Read the full review for Saakia Falls and reviews of other local theatre at www.glamadelaide.com
Barry Lenny of GLAM Adelaide Arts Reviews"Congratulations must go to director Sarah John and her entire production team for presenting something to us that is genuinely refreshing and surprising. This close to the performer you can’t help but experience her character as an intimate version of reality. With the audience’s proximity to the actor and the delivery of such a naturalistic performance, it does make you ask where theatre begins and reality ends – there’s no first, second or third wall here, never mind fourth – you are in Saskia’s world, and it’s not a bad place to be."
To read the full review, visit www.theatreguide.com.au
Maggie Wood of Adelaide Theatre GuideHave you seen a show? Write a review. We'll publish it shortly providing its not offensive.