Review: Come From Away

Come From Away
multiple producers
19 July 2019 - preview performance
Comedy Theatre
comefromaway.com.au

"Come From Away" Australian cast. Photo by Jeff Busby

A musical about planes and 11 September 2001 is as unlikely as a musical about feeding animals, making sandwiches and donating toilet paper. But Come From Away is all of this and everything; it's just everything.

This Australian production is the tenth to open since its first season in 2015 at La Jolla in LA. It opened on Broadway in 2017. Director Christopher Ashley won a Tony, but Dear Evan Hanson won Best Musical

"Come from aways" are what Newfoundlanders call anyone who visits. Known locally as The Rock, Newfoundland is an island off the west coast of Canada. The small city of Gander – about 9000 people lived there in 2001 – has a large airport because it used to be a re-fuelling stop. When USA airspace was closed, for the first time ever, on 11 September 2001, 38 flights were diverted to Gander. As some locals realised, it was as much for the airport as for them being a smaller target than the large Canadian cities with their fully-equipped international airports and hotels.

There were 6579 people on the planes and they spent five days in Gander and surrounding towns.

Canadian couple Irene Sankoff and David Hein wrote the book, music and lyrics for Come From Away. They were in New York on September 11 2001. Ten years later they were in Newfoundland for commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the arrival of the "plane people" at Gander Airport. They spent a month at The Rock interviewing people and left feeling like locals.

They 16,000 collected stories and structured them through composite characters to focus on the passengers and pilot –  the amazing Beverly Bass – of an American Airlines flight and their relationships with the people of Gander. The composites take nothing away from the individual stories they are based on and it is a masterclass in creating a story line that embraces many stories.

"Come From Away" Australian cast. Photo by Jeff Busby

The stage feels like a log cabin in the woods and the opening song, "Welcome to the Rock", introduces local characters, Gander and the Newfoundland-style of Celtic-fusion music with its button accordion and fiddle. When three people turn on their radios, everyone who remembers that day in 2001 is with them and it becomes a story that reaches to all the "aways" where we come from.

The cast of 12 play multiple roles and move seamlessly from Newfoundlanders to plane people to a chorus who are moving the mis-matched chairs to become classrooms, planes and cliff-top views, and making costume changes seem instant. It's easy to forget that there are only 12 people and a band on stage as the cast make it feel like they are telling their own stories.

As Gander prepares for visitors, the people on planes can't disembark. Fear and rumours are spreading and even little bottles of booze can't take away the hell of repeat watchings of Shrek, Dr Doolittle and Titanic. Some passengers spent 28 hours in their planes, many didn't speak English, and when they were finally loaded into buses, they were driven into the dark not knowing that sandwiches and clean clothes were waiting for them.

And when they finally see those moments that were played non-stop on televisions, we we are with the plane people, too

The next five days in Gander includes stories of donated clothes, getting drunk, kissing fish, falling in love, having showers in the houses of Walmart staff, looking after pets who can't leave cargo, not sleeping, making fish and cheese, and not being able to contact family in New York.

When the plane people struggle with the inadequacy of "thank you", "You'd do the same" becomes the Gander response. The need to do SOMETHING in the face of seemingly insurmountable horror often leads to doing nothing. But the tiniest somethings add up. The people of Gander were able to help. And they did. If anyone thinks donating a roll of toilet paper is nothing, I hope you're never in a situation when you'd give up anything for a roll.

"You'd do the same" is wonderful for the "Make a Wish" kids who didn't get to Disneyland. Of course, we'd do the same. But it also addresses that people who looked like they were from the Middle East were treated with suspicion and strip searched. "You'd do the same."

There are many reasons why Come From Away audiences are often in tears.

Leaving the show on the adrenalin of a standing ovation, it's inevitable to share your story of when you accepted help or where you were on 11 September 2001. It can feel a day that marks the time when hate and fear took hold our lives and haven't let go, but we still make sandwiches for strangers.

Come From Away is positive and sentimental without being melodramatic, patriotic without being alienating, and honest without a hint of cynicism. It celebrates the people of Gander, but it opens up the opportunity to share so many of our own stories.

I'll be going again.

"Come From Away" Australian cast. Photo by Jeff Busby

*I was in Canberra working as director of an arts festival. I'd been to a production of As You Like It and when I came home I put a video on. I almost ALWAYS put the TV on, but this time I didn't. Driving to work, I noticed that the traffic was quieter than normal, but thought nothing of it. It's always quiet in the mornings and when a staff member rang to tell me she'd be late because she'd been up all night watching TV, the conversation went:
"Have you been watching Buffy all night?"
"You don't know, do you?"
 I found someone who had CNN on their computer and watched it on repeat on a tiny screen.

Review: THE CABIN!

THE CABIN!
Darebin Arts Speakeasy
5 July 2019
Northcote Town Hall
to 13 July
northcotetownhall.com.au

THE CABIN! Photo by Bryony Jackson

THE CABIN! is horror show written by kids for adults. Over 200 school-age students contributed to through workshops and residency programs in the UK and Australia. Most were children from areas that don't have easy access to arts experiences.

Their work and ideas were brought together by lead artist JOF (Joseph O'Farrell), co-devisor Emily Tomlins and director Sarah Austin. It's performed by JOF and Emily with the support of group of local students and teenage guitarist Mariela Barajas Anderson.

Jof and monsters. THE CABIN! Photo by Bryony Jackson

Since his early days in Melbourne with The Suitcase Royale – who remain one of my all-time favourite groups –, JOF has created, co-created and curated theatre and events (jofmakesart.com) that break down the artifice of theatre and find new ways to connect with audiences. He says that the question he always asks is"Who's not here?". It's not just who's not in the audience, but who's not having the experience of making the art. JOF is especially awesome at helping and letting children make art.

This work was created by children for adults; it isn't for under 10s. The script, story, designs and staging ideas all came from the children; the older people just put them together.

It begins with JOF in a purple suit as one of those ridiculous adults who think they can make theatre for kids but who just want to be a star themselves and Emily as the person in charge of the safety of the venue: two of the most-hated people in all of theatre. But one of them has a secret. And don't forget that this is a horror show.

There's a delight in being scared in a safe place; it's why we watch scary movies and go on roller coasters. THE CABIN! has all the delight while still looking at how genuine fear is so often dismissed. If a child is scared, take notice.

And, like some of the best horror, it's very funny – especially when the kids totally nail the adults.

Mariela Barajas Anderson. THE CABIN! Photo by Bryony Jackson

There's also band called Bumsnogger, some super-wanky theatre jokes – people next to me had no idea why I thought sitting in a bench and singing numbers for Frankenstein on the Beach was so hilarious –, monster heads made from cereal boxes, blood, unseen hoards of zombies, hands in the dark, and a magnificent post-apocalyptic-style finale.

More of this kind of work, please. Lots more.

THE CABIN! Photo by Bryony Jackson

Review: Wake in Fright

Wake in Fright
Malthouse Theatre
26 June 2019
Beckett Theatre
to 14 July
malthousetheatre.com.au

Zhara Newman. "Wake in Fright" Photo by Pia Johnson

My review is in Time Out. 

Review: The Temple

The Temple
Malthouse Theatre and Pan Pan
8 May 2019
Beckett Theatre
to 26 May
\malthousetheatre.com.au

The Temple. Photo by Pia Johnson

I went into The Temple knowing as little as I could about it. I left not knowing much more.

But I know a theatre reviewer having a week when they couldn't write would fit in very well on that stage.

The Malthouse co-production with Ireland's Pan Pan theatre ( Playing The Dane, 2011) was developed in rehearsals by director Gavin Quinn and the cast – Aljin Abella, Ash Flanders, Mish Grigor, Marcus McKenzie and Genevieve Giuffre. Guiffre replaced Nicola Gunn who worked on the development.

There's a line where process and on-stage look-at-me indulgence smash together and create art. The Temple does this, but it's far more successful when it fails and collapses into almost incomprehensible chaos.

The Temple is whatever it needs to be. With yellow walls, cheap chairs and a table filled with too-bright cordials to drink (designer Aedín Cosgrove), it could be a church, an addiction meeting, a reality game show or a residential therapy centre. Or whatever you want it to be.

It's every work training session I've been forced to go to, every conference, every bloody yoga retreat I chose to go to, every hope that maybe some intense time with strangers will be fun or enlightening or bearable. They're not. Strangers are the worst. Strangers who know they can be whatever and whoever they want to be without consequences are more the worst.

Each character is a version of the actor. Maybe turned up a lot. Maybe nudged down a smidge. Maybe just without their off switch. Their stories are as likely to be true as they are fiction created by someone else. Their behaviour is at best frustrating, which is often harder to deal with than when they are mean.

It's selfish behaviours without the fear of being cruel. Imagine being able to do what you want and say exactly what you think without the fear of consequence or repercussion? Maybe a reviewer doesn't fit in on that stage.

Drink The Temple Kool-Aid. Even if you don't know the reference. Even if you don't like it or have any idea what it's all about.

Review: Cloudstreet

Cloudstreet
Malthouse Theatre
11 May 2019
Merlyn Theatre
19 June
malthousetheatre.com.au

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

The 1991 novel Cloudstreet won WA writer Tim Winton his second of four Miles Franklin Awards. It's a book that's easy to find in op shops as it's studied at high school, has been a telly mini-series and is one of those books that needs to be seen in bookcases.

The 1988 Black Swan and Company B Belvoir stage adaption by Nick Enright and Justin Monjo brought a new generation to the story as it toured Australia and went to London.

Matt Lutton directs the new Malthouse production. He's from Perth and says how reading the book helped him "understand what it meant to be growing up on Perth". Now, he lives in Melbourne and this Cloudstreet is more about its far-reaching themes than a reflection on living in the most isolated capital city in the world.

In the early 1940s, circumstance, luck or God bring the Pickles and the Lamb families to share a sprawling house in suburban Perth: 1 Cloud Street. Each family have challenges, successes and tragedies – and the threat of a serial killer – over the 20 years it takes for their stories to become one. It can be seen all on one night or split into two.

The stage adaption naturally cuts and condenses the novel. The pig doesn’t make the cut, but the third person narration does and is given directly to the characters. Talking about themselves in the third person creates intimacy as the audience become confessor and are allowed to know more than we see. But Lutton's new production brings the story even further into now. The most powerful changes are the introduction of Noongar language – the house is on Noongar land – and the "Black Man" character has become a male and a female storyteller. This helps to honour the story of the women who once lived, and now haunt, the house and, supported by a racially diverse, makes the story less about the people who lived there in the mid-20th century.

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

This is supported by having a small cast playing multiple roles. The bigger picture is evident, but it doesn't help make the story clear. There are times when it's confusing as to who are Pickles, Lambs, storytellers or new characters. Even something as simple as a cast list and synopsis in the program would help.

The actors with one character are much stronger. Natasha Herbert and Bert LaBonte are Dolly and Sam Pickles. Alison Whyte and Greg Stone are Oriel and Lester Lamb. Each bring a compelling understanding of the characters and the added complexity of seeing them with an empathy that can be missed in the book. Herbert lets Dolly be loved far more than she ever allows her herself to be loved; Whyte shows how Oriel hides her broken soul; and LaBonte and Stone each find a different kind of acceptance, determination and lovability in Sam and Lester.

As the story moves into the latter years, it becomes that of Rose Pickles (Brenna Harding), Quick Lamb (Guy Simon) and ultimately Fish Lamb (Benjamin Oakes), the favourite child who nearly drowns and suffers brain damage. Harding also brings a complexity to Rose and lets her make decisions rather than face consequences; Simon captures Quicks constant guilt; and Oakes lets Fish always react with a mix of wonder and patient acceptance that one day he will go back to the water.

Cloudstreet. Malthouse. Photo by Pia Johnson

At first view, Zoe Atkison's design looks like it's embodied the themes and motifs of the story with dark waves and hints of ghosts on its three sides. The stage floor of old thick floorboards and hidden walls that slide in and out, like the lift doors on Star Trek, hint at the old house and its many rooms. But as the rooms are indistinguishable, the design doesn't capture the house as the titular character that wants the families gone as much as it wants them to stay.

While there are some mighty powerful moments with complete black outs and a flooding stage, the story often feels too literal. Its magical realism of rowing through fields, swimming through stars, and Quick Lamb glowing is told far more than is seen. This ultimately makes it feel like a family-saga-cum-soap-opera, which seems to flow against the bigger Dreaming story that’s also being told.

This Cloudstreet isn’t the same as the book, the mini-series or of the first famous production. Its version is very much one seen through a contemporary point of view. This is its strength and part of the reason it doesn’t resonate as strongly as it could. None of which should will stop Cloudstreet lovers from seeing and loving it.

And if you don’t know what the fuss is about, grab a copy from an op shop for a couple of gold coins. For what it's worth, I like the book.

Review: Matriarch

YIRRAMBOI
Matriarch
Jinda Productions
7 May 2019
The Butterfly Club
to 11 May
yirramboi.net.au

Sandy Greenwood

Sandy Greenwood wrote her honours thesis about the intergenerational trauma of the Stolen Generations. She understood it, but it didn't help her own trauma.

Greenwood tells her story in Matriarch. It's a story that is inseparable from those of her mother, grandmother (Nan) and great grandmother on her father's side (Gran).

She's a Gumbaynggirr woman from Bowraville on the mid-north-coast of NSW. It's a town that had an Aboriginal Christian mission, where Greenwood was brought up in the 1980s. It's also a town that once had a white pub and black pub, segregated its cinema, was a stop on the 1965 Freedom Ride and is remembered for the unsolved murder of two Aboriginal children in the 1990s.

But Greenwood's matriarchal story doesn't begin or end with the past and the ongoing disrespect and trauma facing the Indigenous people who live there. Her story is one of family and love. It's one of teenagers going on dates, of getting your mum and gran to help heal a bird's broken wing, of bath time for 14 children, of kids growing up and playing in the bush. It's about knowing that mums and nans are always there even if you don't know why they behave in the ways that they do. And it's one about learning that there's love and healing in clan and country even if you've got your dad's skin-colour gene.

Greenwood knew at a young age that having white skin gave her an unearned advantage. Matriarch is her story about understanding the women who created her and a way for those women to talk to us today and let their story become ours.

I've never been to Bowraville, but seeing their stories in an alternative cabaret venue in the middle of the city I live in makes it a story that belongs to everyone who sees it. It's so far from my story, but it's a story about women and family and the history of the country I was born in.

Greenwood tells her story and her mum's story and channels those of her grandmother and great mother. Stories are how we begin to understand experiences that aren't our own. Matriarch is a story about healing trauma.

Greenwood's Nan had 14 children. When her husband left her, she left the city and went back to her country where Gran (who was also a traditional midwife) helped her look after the children. They were all loved, fed, clothed and went to school. They were all taken away.

Review & photos: Whale

Whale
Speakeasy
2 May 2019
Northcote Town Hall
to 11 May
darebinarts.com.au

Sonya Suares. Photo by Theresa Harrison

With two works opening within a week of each other in two of Melbourne's significant independent theatre venues, playwright Fleur Kilpatrick might be a bit overwhelmed. Hopefully in a good way. A remount of her remarkable adaption of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (which she also directed) has just finished at Theatre Works in St Kilda, and Whale – which won the 2018 Max Afford Playwright's Award and was supported by crowd funding – is part of Darebin's Speakeasy program at Northcote.

Whale is participatory theatre.

That's all that a lot of people need to know as they book tickets without a moment's hesitation; the rest are shuddering and deciding to watch TV instead.

But there's no need for fear. Really.

Ok, there's a real need for fear as this work is about climate change, but not about the participatory nature of this night.

Whale is as much about theatre as it is theatre. In Kilpatrick's theatre stories, the audience are, to different degrees, characters and participants as much as observers. Theatre isn't just what happens on the stage, it's how we feel watching it, it's what we talk about afterwards, it's whether we go home and forget it or are still thinking about it days and weeks later. It's what we do.

Whale is all about what we do.

It opens with host Sonya Suares, in a Ted-Talk-suitable vest and matching pants, welcoming everyone as if we know the purpose of our meeting. Meanwhile Sarah Walker takes photos so that this important event is documented. It doesn't take long before we know we've gathered to make a group decision that will end climate change. Pretty good, huh? But there are consequences, and when there's choice, there's disagreement.

But none of this matters if participatory independent theatre saves our world, right? May as well give it a go, because anger and despair aren't working. And we've given up on politics.

Theatre is not a void. And even when knowing  Suares, Walker and Chanella Macri are performing,  the audience are fully engaged and committed to the result.

Director Katrina Cornwell and the design team (composer and sound: Raya Slavin, set and costume: Emily Collett, lighting: Lisa Mibus, AV: Sarah Walker) create a world that is far more than the one envisioned in Kilpatrick's writing. Whale is written to allow other creatives to make a work that belongs to everyone. In the same way that the audiences are trusted to be so vital to the result that everyone puts on their party hats without hesitation.

There are party hats. And chips and drinks. And penguins, projections, rocks, bad congratulations certificates, flooding and a discussion about if a play called "Whale" has to include a whale. It's unexpected theatre that's easy to get lost in and be a part of. And it might even make you do something new when you leave.

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Photo by Theresa Harrison

Review: Cosi

Cosi
Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company 
4 May 2019
Southbank Theatre, The Sumner
to 8 June
mtc.com.au

Cosi. Photo by Jeff Busby

My review is in Time Out.

Review: Hotel de Haven

Hotel De Haven
RAG Theatre
5 April 2019
101 Engagement Hub, St Kilda Drop in
to 6 April
Facebook page

 Photo by Nicolette Forte

Photo by Nicolette Forte

I just found an awesome pair of retro white cat-eye sunnies in my bag. It took me a minute to remember why I have them.

Sometime in the middle of the comedy festival, I traded a balloon flower for them at an op shop at RAG Theatre's Hotel De Haven.

RAG Theatre are supported by the City of Port Phillip. The ensemble is formed by people who experience barriers to participating in the arts, including people who live with mental illness. They create original work based on their diverse experiences.

The result is authentic storytelling from the hearts of its makers, and theatre experiences that welcome all audiences. Hotel De Haven is their new work presented at the 101 Engagement Hub in St Kilda, a place where everyone is treated with kindness and respect. Maybe some of our professional theatre companies could learn a thing or two from RAG about respecting and welcoming all voices.

Arriving at the "hotel", guests are quickly tested and let into the communal space. There are no chairs, but there is a gorilla with a clip board and a sherif on a hobby horse welcoming everyone. This is an interactive immersive experience. In an imagined near-future, nature has had enough and is taking over. There's no electricity and, with no banks, money is useless. Trade and bartering is the only way to get stuff and the only new things have to be made by hand.

Hotel De Haven is also a place where the community can safely meet and share their knowledge. As new comers, we learn the history of how survivors only have what they could fit in a suitcase. And as we meet, listen and trade our way around the hotel's many spaces, we learn how their skills and experience are more useful than their saved stuff.

With director Scott Gooding and artistic associate Trudy Radburn, the performance was created in workshops. As well as writing the overall story together, each performer (Carla Mitterlehner, David Carlisle, Rhonda Purczeld, Di Pattison, Sarah Berry, David Baker, Raphael Kaleb, Vicki Coates, Zufa Nezirovic and support artists Marjetka McMahon-Krizanic and Nicolette Forte) developed a character and an experience for a small group or one-on-one encounter. These include an op shop, survival classes, meditation advice, story telling and a knitting circle.

RAG make theatre where we have conversations with performers and get to know the rest of the audience. It's a place where the theatre rituals are about breaking down barriers and all shows are created knowing that everyone has a story to tell.

 Photo by David De Roach

 Photo by Nicolette Forte

 Photo by David De Roach

 Photo by David De Roach

 Photo by David De Roach

MICF: Keep – Daniel Kitson

MICF
Keep
Daniel Kitson
21 April 2019
Coopers Malthouse – Merlyn
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Daniel Kitson

I was always going to finish MICF with Daniel Kitson. It was tempting to go earlier, but it's hard to follow Kitson.

He doesn't do media or have a media night any more, even if some review him anyway. Instead he does lots of shows in a good-sized theatre and sells tickets at an accessible price. I don't think there were many spare seats for the entire season, and everyone I spoke to who saw it said that I had to see it and that they weren't going to say any thing about it. And that's without him giving out #KeepTheSecrets badges.

As a media, it's sad to not create a wordgasm about him and see a quoted row of stars that I assigned.

As a media, it's a fucking relief to not even have to try to summarise the complexity of the structure and interweaving themes and the goddam joy of spending over two hours with a middle-aged man who has listed every thing he owns and typed them up on cards in an old library card catalogue.

I haven't written much about Kitson, but I always see his work and his work inspires me when I want to walk away and never write again.

And I need something to link to when I list it as a favourite at the end of the year.

MICF: Rock Out With Your Bok Out – Lauren Bok

MICF
Rock Out With Your Bok Out
Lauren Bok
Crowded
21 April 2019
Crowded in the Vaults
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Lauren Bok

On Sunday night, when performers and audiences are counting down the minutes until they can sleep, I took my own advice and saw #OneMoreShow. One more Gibbo-award-nominated  #kickarsefeminist show where the audience were singing along to Queen before the show even started: Rock Out With Your Bok Out.

Melbourne comedian and performer Lauren Bok's thought her new show would be tits and puns, but you need a bit more to get one of those award nominations. So she put a Led Zepplin t-shirt over her creation-myth-inspired sequin pasties and added some rock-star stories, her personal learning curve of the mastery of the rules and lingo of polyamory, and her nephew's potty training.

The connection between some of her stories doesn't always add to her bigger story, but who cares when there's mime to make a narrative connection. It's not good mime, but it's wonderfully hilarious and I'll be back next time if only just for the mime

MICF: Vanity Fair Enough – Margot Tanjutco

MICF
Vanity Fair Enough
Margot Tanjutco 
20 April 2019
Malthouse – Mini Merlyn
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Margot Tanjutco

Another night at MICF, another kick-arse feminist musical comedy show by another kick-arse middle class anarchist feminist.

When Margot Tanjutco (from Romeo is not the only fruit) discovered that fashion can be far more than something to attract people, she found a new home on Instagram. And she's winning Instagram (@margotxmargot) in a way that might get me away from the middle-aged-journalist haven of Twitter.

So to prepare for Vanity Fair Enough, she shopped. The transparent green plastic bum bag (I can't call it a fanny pack) was totally worth it just to hold her sunnies. She'd ordered the pants she wears within a minute of seeing them on Instagram. She also knows her shopping and regular re-branding is assisted by her still living in her childhood bedroom in a two-income household where neither are hers.

Identity and how we express it. The conflicting pressures and assumptions never go away.

Margot quickly found out that being queer woman of colour meant she wasn't going to be allowed to simply tap dance and sing roles written for young skinny white women pining for handsome men. When Margot studied musical theatre, there was all this pressure on her to think as well.

And write.

When the canon doesn't acknowledge you, you create work for your voice and experiences.

Margot embraces and rejects and questions and loves all her contradictions. You can want to end the use of all plastic packaging and get over excited at a package arriving and wrapped in more plastic than all the single-use bags you haven't used at the supermarket this year. It's possible to have an identity that isn't what the world expects you to be.

MICF: Either Side of Everything – Wil Greenway

MICF
Either Side of Everything
Wil Greenway
Crowded
20 April 2019
Crowded in the Vaults
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Wil Greenway

Describing a story can never do it justice. Like describing the taste of a ripe warm fig picked from a tree or a cheese sandwich made with homemade bread and butter, words can only hint at the experience.

Wil Greenaway tells a story, or four stories, in Either Side of Everything. There are figs and cheese sandwiches. And two friends in a car on a road trip, an old woman with spiky white hair and "fuck the police" tattooed on her ankle, and a bug called Brian. And it floats and leaps through time and makes you know the entree you want for your last meal. (Vegetarian Su Roll from Ying Chow in Adelaide or vegetable tempura from anywhere in Japan.)

The story is sad and still makes you wonder why you don't feel that happy all the time, even if you're wiping away a tear. It's just a silly story, but it's a story we are told. I will read a story to any child that wants to hear a story because it's one of the most lovely things to do. Greenaway lets us feel like a child curled in a lap of someone who loves them and being told their favourite story.

Sorry, that's taking the metaphor too far. This isn't like that; it's a story for adults and it's damn funny. But it is really lovely to be told a story.

While not comparable, Either Side of Everything reminded me of the story telling by Daniel Kitson and Gavin Osborn. (I'm seeing Kitson tomorrow, so have no idea what his show is about this year.), Kitson himself is a fan Greenway. As now I am, too.

He's in a small room by the river where 30 people would be a crowd. The only fair way to end his run tomorrow is to overcrowd the room.

Fit another show in. You won't regret it.

And, you can sit here before or after and have a beer with a toastie or a cheese platter.

View from Pilgrim bar. Phone snap by A-M Peard