MICF: Robot Song

MICF for kids
Robot Song
Theatre Works and Arena Theatre
2 April 2019
Theatre Works
to 13 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Robot Song

Robot Song is all kinds of wonderful and then some. It finishes on Saturday.

Juniper's 11 and doesn't like going to school. She'd rather be at home with her parents or her best friend, who's a skip bin who makes toys and more friends out of rubbish. Juniper (Ashlea Pyke) also likes singing (Nate Gilkes wrote the music) and, with the help of her mum (Jo Abbott) and especially her dad (Phil McInnes), she wants to tell the story about why she stopped going to school and how a robot helped her to see her world differently.

Juniper knows she a bit different from her classmates. She doesn't like this, but she's ok with it because she has an art teacher who knows how creative Juniper is and she has a family who love and understand her. Although it's not discussed in her play, Juniper's story was inspired by the director/writer/designer Joylon James's son, who has autism.

One day Juniper's class give her a letter saying that they don't want her at their school. They call her a robot and the letter is so horrible that, even as an adult, it's hard to accept it as children not understanding the effect of their words.

Juniper can't dismiss it either and refuses to go back to school. Until a robot from a 1980s video she watched with her dad appears in her back yard.

As Juniper is played by an adult, we are always seeing the story from an adult point of view where her trauma is understood and her unconditional love and safety is assured. This allows children to be engrossed in her story, feel her pain and still feel safe.

Robot Song is far more than an insight into to being a child on the autism spectrum. It's a story about  empathy, understanding and creativity and how difference is a way to connect far more than a reason to reject.

Review: Shane Warne, the Musical

Shane Warne, the Musical
Arts Centre Melbourne, Adelaide Cabaret Festival
20 June 2013
Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 21 June
artscentremelbourne.com.au

Oh Eddie Perfect! You gorgeous, sexy, magnificent beast. You're as hot as King Kong and if you had a fraction of the resources that developed the magnificent monkey, Shane Warne The Musical could tour Australia for ever – or until Warnie does something else that begged for a new song.

The original 2008 version of Shane Warne the Musical (review) made me kind of love our Shane. He's our ultimate anti-hero who finally realises that acting like a dick leaves you looking like a dick.

The concert version has cut some of the old to make room for the introduction of Liz Hurley – I remember when the tweets started and I didn't believe that Liz Hurley would ever date Warnie – and the new stuff's as great as the old.

The new concert version (only seen at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and here in Melbourne for two nights) clearly lacks the spectacle of full staging, but continues to prove that this show isn't dependent on anything but its music and writing.

It's hilarious and smart and so full of heart and sass that the only disappointment is its two-night run.

I haven't followed cricket since Kim Hughes was captain, but I know what Warnie gets up to. He's a brilliant choice for a musical hero, and Eddie Perfect wrote (and stars in) a show that celebrates the spin bowler who changed cricket, without denying that he's been a bit of a douche along the way; all the while laughing and totally loving everything about the public and media's obsession with his celebrity.

And having what may be the most gorgeous mass of talent ever is just a bonus. There's Perfect, Shane Jacobson (Kenny), Verity Hunt-Ballard (Mary Poppins), Christie Whelan Browne (A Funny Thing happened...), Rohan Nicol, Mike McLeish (Keating), Jolyon James (Moonshadow), Amy Lehpamer (Margaret Fulton), Andy Conaghan and Lisa McCune (easier to list what she hasn't been in). Throw in tight direction from Simon Phillips and music direction from Iain Grandage (whose conducting leads the enthusiasm and joy) and it's hard to get a better night in a concert hall.

As the last week has been filled with ridiculous fighting over the value of King Kong, Shane Warne, the Musical is an apt reminder that there are you-bloody-beauty musicals made in Australia about Australians and Australia (Keating, Margaret Fulton) that don't need squillions to be created.

And let's not forget the absolute gorgeousness of Flowerchildren by Melbourne's Magnormos that finishes on Sunday! (I don't understand how everyone who sees this show falls in utter love with it, but it's not getting the sold out signs that it so deserves.)

But tonight's all about Warnie. If you missed it in 2008, you have to see it to get what the raves were about, and if you loved it then, you'll love it again.

I'd love to see this show out of expensive velvet concert halls and into town halls and local theatres all over the country. It's an awesome work for us theatre snobs, but it reaches way beyond us. This is a show that blokes come to and get up during the show to get another beer. It happened in 2008 and happened in Hamer Hall last night. Dudes got up during the show and came back with beers to watch their Warnie. I scowled at their lack of theatre etiquette, but I fucking love the intent. Yep, this is a show that can be watched while drinking beer and I now wish that I'd asked them to get me one.

Photos by Meredith O'Shea