Down on the farm

I have work to do; honest work that people will give me EFT coins in exchange for my skills – but I’m not doing it because I'm having trouble fitting a carousel into my circus area.

I used to be paid to do such tasks. I’ve planned the position of carnival rides, tents and food stalls; written their contracts; assessed their risk management plans; and worn unattractive ‘staff’ t-shirts as I watched people enjoy themselves.

So why was I excited that I scored a free merry-go-round on Farmville today? (Thanks Jane for the mystery egg.)

Yes, I’m one of those despised Facebook friends who clog up feed with news that they’ve picked a perfect bunch of morning glory or found a stray pink cow that needs adopting. I am a King of Compost and I don’t care that Farmville doesn’t recognise its female or queen players.

Oh, I resisted at first. I scoffed when I saw intelligent friends wasting their precious time on a lame game. Then a sad looking cow tweaked my need to feed stray animals. I adopted her (thanks Shan) and I’m terrified to calculate how many hours I’ve spent on the farm since.

Oh, I justify it. When I made a Halloween display, I was just warming up my right brain for some creative work and proceeded to make fictional characters discuss their Farmville antics (it will be the last paragraph I cut).

I’ve learnt what sugarcane is meant to look like, that rice takes 12 hours to grow and that eggs sometimes hatch garden gnomes and fun fair rides. This must be good stuff to know that will expand my mind and help me in the future?

Damn it, Farmville is pure addiction and if you’re already there, I’ll be your neighbour and gift you an elephant topiary; if you’re not – run. Run as fast as you can away from the farm. Block it (right click on the FB feed and say be gone false farm), go to your FB settings and ban Farmville, Fishville, Café World, Yoville, Petville and any other villes that offer their gorgeous animated selves to you.

If your children or friends are deciding between taking up smoking or playing Farmville...smoking may be easier to give up and at least they will leave the computer and walk to the shops to buy cancer sticks instead of buying CGI fruit and veg. But if they were fake farmers, perhaps they would be inspired by their bounteous fake produce and want to buy patty pan squash or artichokes...

I’ll be their neighbour.

BTW, my carousel is well placed, but I do have some concerns about its proximity to the tree line, the available public exit in case of fire and that the rabbits running around it may chew on the power cords.

What's on in the next weeks? Jan and Feb 2010

I'm giving shows in January (and a bit of February) a miss as I'll be taking Kim Wilde's advice, singing showtunes in the streets of Saigon and pretending I'm Catherine Deneuve as I tour Indochine. But here's some great stuff that should be seen.



The Last Tuesday Society will be celebrating that public holiday that isn't officially called Invasion Day on 26 Jan. Keep an eye on their website for details.


High-pant-wearing superstar Mikelangelo is crooning about the city with Saint Claire and/or his Tin Star posse.

The Mysteries of Love
Mikelangelo and Saint Claire
The Butterfly Club
Thursday 14 to Saturday 16 January

Mikelangelo and the Tin Star
The Edinburgh Castle
'Little Day Out'
26 January 5-7pm

The Old Bar
30 January 9pm



The divine Daniel Kitson is at the Arts Centre with 66A Church St


The fabulous Midsumma festival runs from 17 Jan to 7 Feb. Shows that have been recommended to me include:

The Pyramid
Produced by Three to a Room, who brought us Air Balloon Across Antarctica and the return season of  I Love You Bro

Writing Angus

Searching For David

The Judy Journals

Cath Jamison is always great. Her show is I Know What You're Thinking

A Narrow Time for Angels premiered at the Storeroom in July (review). Its second outing is a different company and it's now a musical - which may be what it was meant to be.

Dispatch
Barking Spider Visual Theatre
fortyfivedownstairs
3-7 February
Penelope Bartlau's puppetry and story telling is always exquisite.

Terrific writing tips # 3: Doctor Who

Doctor Who: The End of Time

It's a slow theatre month (and we all need some time away from analysing the meta significance of everything on a stage), we're getting bored of watching Seinfeld reruns on Go! and the leftovers are running out, so, according to Facebook updates over the last day, most theatre nerds have turned to the interweb to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special: Doctor Who: The End of Time. Aside from the fact that the My Friends:Theatre Nerd: Dr Who Fan  ratio is about 10:9:8, the passion about this episode is as oozy and complex as an Ood's face.

I've formed alliances with strangers and scoffed at friends because they didn't blub as the hot doctor said his last farwells and turned into a school boy (whom I just want to make a sandwich for and send off to a G rated movie).

This special episode is also the farewell to writer Russell T Davies and, to my joy, much FB comment has been about the writing of RTD (or Saint RTD, as I like to call him).  More than one person said that they didn't like the writing, but still cried at the end. You keep watching and end up in tears - I know many writers who would be very happy with that result.

Us who loved Queer as Folk, Bob and Rose (which may be my favourite telly series) and The Second Coming knew that Russell could tell a very fine story, but his recreation of the Doctor has reset the bar for Sci-Fi story telling for the telly.

I try and watch his shows to understand the craft and always end up being so engrossed with the story and the characters that I forget to take notes. But hopefully this book will help me out a bit as RTD writes about his writing of Doctor Who. The hardback version is favoured by many a geek, but this new paperback edition takes us through to the end. I'm sure I'll be quoting it in furture reviews - and reviewing the book itself (my copy is in the post).

Please read what Justin Hamilton (who penned and performed my fav comedy show of 09) thought about The End of Time and RTD. May I say 'ditto' and it's also kind of nice to know that we would have been reaching for the tissues at the same time as we witnessed the deaths of Henry Blake, ThirtySomething Gary, and everyone in Six Feet Under.

Tis the season to watch the telly

Tis the season to watch the telly, drink coloured drinks and eat all the sugar you daintily refuse throughout the year.

DVDs are brilliant for watching a whole season of Buffy in one sitting or weeping at the bliss of anything made by HBO, but it's not the same as turning on that box and finding something you love or hate and not being able to escape its clutches, as you scoff the box of Favourites you got for work Kris Kringle (with a K in case the religious meaning of our overeating festival offends) and thinking that perhaps you do a need space-wasting machine to get rid of your love handles, but luckily the phone is out of reach of the couch.

Even if telly is only the second most common source of on-our-own pleasure, when we watch broadcast programs, we are somehow connected with all the other people doing the same. Who hasn't watched an episode of their favourite program, complete with ads, even though the DVD of the series is right next to the TV. There's something about knowing that hundreds or thousands or millions (if you're watching Masterchef) of other people are sitting in their living room, wearing their underwear and eating straight out of the microwave dish, just like you.

But I don't want to do it anymore, cos telly has become so blah.

I kept watching so that I could  read the gorgeous and addictive commentry of Catherine Deveny (on Saturday) and Marieke Hardy (on Thursday) in The Age. Marieke made me proud to love Matt Preston, Catherine convinced me that Nigella's food porn is worth a watch and, I think, one of them made me watch an episode of Wife Swap.

But in one damned week, they both said goodbye.

Marieke's last Green Guide musings.
Catherine's last A2 hoorah that summed up what I was feeling far too well.

Ok, it's the wonderfully written abuse that I will miss. Who could forget Ms Hardy's "If I had to choose between sitting through another episode and having a threeway with the Two Ronnies I'd be stripping off and telling the world it was goodnight from me before sauntering back to the boudoir. And yes, I'm fully aware one of them is dead."

I'm going to miss you both.

Review: Godzone

Godzone
Melbourne Theatre Company
10 December 2009
Sumner Theatre

I’d hand out how to vote cards for Max Gilles if he ran for any public office, especially now that he and writer Guy Rundle might be looking for new jobs because Godzone is a bit of an unexpected snooze.

Admittedly, with the federal Liberals putting on a farce that has made their supporters cringe and left the rest of us laughing as hard as we would at a Max Gilles show, this new show had a tough comedic act to follow this week.

Gilles have been satirising our pollies since Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. The Gilles Report on the ABC was my teenage source of political information and his latex-assisted satire has continued to be biting and accurate. Following Don Watson and Patrick Cook, Guy Rundle joined Gilles as writer in the year that Little Johnny got to sit at the head of the grown ups table.

Conservative pollies with severe short-man complex are a gift to pinko, pesto-eating comedians and their followers, who sponsor poor kiddies from the not-so-lucky countries and welcome anyone as their neighbour (except Liberal voters, of course). It’s hard for the left to lampoon and verbally sodomise their own.

Gilles’s Kevin07 has his jingo Aussieisms, his marketing speak and his Mandarin, but he’s not as ripe for the picking as Labor leaders like Bob or Paul. Face it, Krudd can be a bit dull and even if he doesn’t live up to all his promises, he was the one who finally let us say ‘Sorry’. Gilles’ Mad Monk Abbot can call him the Milky Bar Kid, but it’s about as painful as being lashed with a silk ribbon. There was room for some comments on being Sri Lankan and cruising the Indonesian seas and I don’t remember hearing the acronym ETS.

As Kev and Tony openly admit that their Christian faith and beliefs influence their political and personal decisions, Godzone brings the big guy into the picture in a Kevin-style think tank where even token conservative Andrew Bolt can have a say.

I expected Bolt-through-the-brain to be the character to bring back the gut-aching laughs. He could have made fun of us – the people in the audience dying to laugh. Telling us we like goats cheese and John Safran is like reminding us that we like theatre and a glass of fizz. It’s not satire. If we can’t tear new-ones for our pollies because we don’t despise them as much as we used to, perhaps it’s time to turn the spotlight on our selves – and Bolt-from-any-sense is a perfect character to do so.

Godzone is running through the over-eating season until mid-January, so I reckon it’s going to change. Rundle and Gilles are too good to let flat material stay and director Aiden Fennessy knows how to bring laughs to a stage. I wouldn’t rush for tickets just now; wait and see what the punters are saying after the day of exchanging crappy presents.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Anonymous comments

Sometimes Melbourne welcomes all opinions, but does not publish anonymous comments (and has removed any that snuck though).

We all know that a two-cheek air kiss and a "Luv your work, darling" doesn't mean that the kisser loves your work. If you sneak up behind them at the after party, you might just hear them bitching about how crap you are as they drink the cheap wine you bought from Dan's with your own money.

Like telling your lover that they look fat or they can't cook or their oral sex technique leaves you cold, we don't always tell people the absolute and honest truth because we love them, we respect them or we don't want to send them to therapy.

And sometimes the opinions we share with our close and trusted friends are slightly different from those we say to the world.

Anonymous comments are usually things you won't say to someone's face.

It's like shoplifting a Sharpie from Officeworks and scribbling abuse on the toilet door of your favourite pub in the hope that it gets seen when the object of your opinion has had a few beers and needs to wee.

If you have an opinion, put your name to it. You might even change some other people's opinions.

What I Loved: 2009

What I loved in 2009

Reviewers: you either love us a little bit too much or we’re ignorant, bitchy wannabes who wouldn’t know art if it bit us on the bum and left a nice pattern. (Which may be true.)

This year I’ve been told I’m too nice, I’m too nasty, I write too much and I don’t write enough. So a perfect review is not too much, not too little, not too sweet and not too bitter? Sounds kind of bland, Goldilocks.

Opinion is merely that, an opinion. I don’t know anyone who writes about theatre who doesn’t love it to their very core and I’ve yet to meet anyone who has the exact same taste as me.

So, please don't trust what mere reviewers or bloggers say – get out there and make up your own mind. Just keep seeing live art. See the stuff you’ve read about, the stuff you’ve never heard about, the shows people rave about and the ones they hate. You’re not going to like it all, and you’ll disagree with what other people think, but every once in a while you’ll be left breathless or in tears or laugh so much it hurts as you’ll wonder how these glorious artists knew exactly how you felt and put it on a stage.

These are some of the wonderful and totally awesome artists who blew me away this year.

Outstanding Artists 2009

WRITER
Jackie Smith for The Flood
and
Lally Katz for The Apocalypse Bear Trilogy
and
Sarah Collins and Justin Kennedy for Donna and Damo

PERORMANCE
Shirley Cattunar, Caroline Lee and Maude Davey in The Flood
and
Ash Flanders in I Love You Bro

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS
Finucane & Smith for The Flood, Salon de Dance, The Feast Of Argentina Gina Catalina, and Burlesque Hour Legends.

Outstanding Productions 2009

CABARET
Dead Men Tell a Thousand Tales – Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen
and
The Last Tuesday Society – Richard Higgins, Bron Battern and everyone else

MUSICAL
Avenue Q

COMMERCIAL SHOW
When the Rain Stops Falling – MTC and Brink Productions

DANCE
The Oracle - Malthouse Theatre and the Sydney Opera House

COMEDY
Goodbye Ruby Tuesday – Justin Hamilton and Hannah Norris

The Best of the Best

The Boy with Tape on his Face –  Sam Wills
and
Exit –  Ghostboy with Golden Virtues
and
Le Salon – Peeping Tom

My favourite of 2009

Floating - Hugh Hughs

The 2008 winners.

This also appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

What's on this week? 11 December

What's on this week? 11 December

Finucane & Smith's The Flood is at La Mama.

Book, because word around town is that it's rather brilliant - and trust the word around town!

The Flood
to 20 December
La Mama
review

On Ego
to 19 December
Red Stitch
review

1989
to 12 December
St Martins
Terrrifc cast. review

One Is Warm In Winter, The Other Has A Better View
to 13 December
fortyfivedownstairs
review


Charles Dickens Performs A Christmas Carol
to 16 December
various
review

Review: 1989

1989
St Martins
9 December 2009
Irene Mitchell Studio, St Martins Theatre Complex

In 1989, I used a hair dryer diffuser, a handful of mousse and a huge bow to do my hair; I wore stirrup pants everywhere and spent a lot of money on my first portable compact disc system. Some of The St Martin’s Performer’s Ensemble hadn’t been born yet and are now part of the generation who think that ra-ra skirts need to come back, but have used this far gone year to inspire their showcase performance.

St Martin’s Performer’s Ensemble is an audition-based program for 18 to 25 year olds, who spend an intense year collaborating and developing. For 1989 they worked closely with The Emerging Writers’ Studio, which gives four writers the chance to create a new work under the guidance of a professional dramaturge (Melanie Beddie).

Michelle Lee and Dan Giovannoni (who both stood out at the 2008 Short and Sweet festival) Samantha Hill, Christopher Summers (writer of theatargh blog) may not have captured the essence of 1989 (or needed to), but they showed us the originality of their voices. All need to trust that less can be more and to dig deep and trust that their personal stories will be the ones that audiences will love, but they shared a specific and at times revealing view of being 20-something today.

And they all wrote specifically and beautifully for the actors. Their scripts allowed each member of the ensemble to really show us what they are made of and why we will be seeing much more or Danielle Asciak , Danny Ball, Darcy Hegz , Juliet Hindmarsh , Melissa Kahraman, Douglas Lyons, Ruby Mathers ,Angelique Murray and Xavier O'Shannessy in the very near future.

The review appeared on AussieTheatre.com

PETER HOUGHTON ON REVIEWS

 The grouse writer and actor Peter Houghton wrote this about reviews for The Age.

SOMETIMES CANBERRA

Many independent artists who now call Melbourne home are from our capital.

Yes Canberra is indeed a strange place - but small, strange cities have an intensity and a freedom that can create amzing art.

I spent three cold winters there at a time when arts support and funding was diminishing, but I could see what a thriving and original arts scene had existed in the 1990s.

Musician ,writer and arts worker Gavin Findlay still lives in Canberra and has written this terrific piece for Real Time about arts in the town of bureaucrats. Part one.  Part two.

He also wrote this review about the 2001 Festival of Contemporary Arts (FoCA5 program)

FoCA5 staff

Review: Tim Minchin: Ready For This

Ready For This:Tim Minchin
Paul Mcintyre Entertainment
4 December 2009
The Palais

If you don’t already have a crush on Tim Minchin, what’s wrong with you?

As nearly 3000 people screamed their love for Tim at The Palais on Friday night, it was hard to believe that is wasn’t that long ago that I heard about this guy who plays the piano and checked out his comedy festival show – and fell a little bit in love.

Tim may be from Perth, but he started doing gigs in Melbourne, so we claim him as ours. Today he tweeted ‘I heart the fuck out of this place’ -  and we heart the fuck out of you Tim.

Some discovered him early at the Butterfly Club, but the rest of us found this barefoot, affable, kind of nerdy, kind of genius at the Hi Fi Bar and, as he won some Green Room Awards, we looked forward to intimate shows every year where we would buy his CDs and despair over our cheap merlots why only us super-intelligent, arty, lefty theatre goers can see how great he is.

Then he went to the UK and they refused to let him go. He sold out The Forum last comedy festival, but came home again to play The Palais. His name was up there in plastic letters right next to Glen Campbell’s! The only difference was that Tim’s also had a red SOLD OUT sign.

Our Tim sold out the The Palais! He sold out the huge and wonderful deco palace of faded elegance filled with the memories of sweating international rock stars. (The Palais is where you go when you’re too big for the Prince and not yet miming with a fake circus at a sports stadium.) Our Tim is an international star!

Nearly 3000 people came in from the suburbs or dared to venture from the north side of the river to see our Tim, have cake in Acland Street, remember throwing up on the Luna Park roller coaster, and swear when they get a parking ticket because they really do have inspectors checking until midnight in St Kilda.

The noise of those nearly 3000 fans screaming from stalls, lounge and balcony is something that Tim deserves.

He hasn’t changed. His shows are tighter and he’s much more comfortable in a big space, but he still makes a huge room feel intimate, makes his most rehearsed moments feel fresh and still sings, beats and chats about the things he cares about. When work comes from passion and heart, it doesn’t matter if anyone disagrees. Of the sold out Palais crowd, I’m sure that a few folk wanted to share their faith with him or read his palm and calm him down with some Reiki – but differences of opinion mean nothing when we all want to drink white wine in the sun with Tim and his family.

I’ve been humming ‘Canvas Bags’ every time I go to a supermarket for over three years now and my heart still goes out to Guardian reviewer Phil Daoust every time I hear Tim’s ditty to the journ-a-loust who must have been having a really shitty day and just didn’t get our Tim (but, as my surname rhymes with weird, I’m glad that the definitive anti-reviewer song has already been penned.)

If you saw Ready for This earlier in the year, this return show is extended and more cohesive (and the bit about his daughter and the pennies has gone – it was inspired, but I can see that it’s not a joke for everyone). Tim’s off to Adelaide, Auckland and Perth in the next week and there are more shows in February for Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle and Sydney. All his venues have red plastic SOLD OUT signs, so you’re going to have to book – and get tickets for everyone you know.



Photo by Dan Dion

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

STAGE LEFT ARCHIVE

The best source of Melbourne theatre reviews from 1998 to 2004 was Stage Left.

There are about 800 reviews on their archived site, which you can find here.

It's a brilliant record of what Melbournites saw way back at the turn of the century. A time when dial up internet was all the rage, and a time when I was working in Canberra, reading Stage Left and thinking how wonderful it must be to live in Melbourne and write about theatre.

Editor Tim Richards still reviews for The Age, when his travel journalism isn't taking him somewhere in the world.

Stage Left writer Narrelle Harris hasn't stopped writing. (I highly recommend her wonderful vampire novel The Opposite of Life.)

And you can hear writer John Richards on Joy 94.9s The Outland Institute and the Boxcutters TV podcast.