888 and out... or "It’s about time I updated my blogger profile!"
Numbers? Hell. (Or, if I may quote the opening line of Apocalypse Now: "Saigon... Shiiiit.") 11/1/11. The review of Not Quite Out of the Woods in today’s Herald Sun (not on-line so far, so I’ll include it below) [update: it’s now on-line, here.] is the 888th piece I’ve written for HWT. (Yeah, yeah. Trust me to keep count.) It’s also my last for them. For the time being at least.
I managed to get to 6-6-7 for The Big Issue before I, er, walked the plank... a fountain pen instead of a cutlass in the small of my back. (Aptly, a Nick Cave CD was neighbour of The Beast.)
And I cracked the 700s with The Financial Review, no magic number there. That’s another relationship that has to be severed in my move to The Australian -- unless you’re Peter Craven you can’t review for both national dailies -- though ‘severed’ seems an odd word to use... I’m pretty sure the relationship is dead, but I’ve been waiting a year for the corpse to wash ashore. In my 20th year with the Fin, the work simply stopped. Without so much as a "so long."
Wish I could find something a bit more profound to quote than "and out again, upon the unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea" -- wish I were quoting Matthew Arnold instead of John Fowles too... but you get that. After the jump, the Wharf Revue reviewed...
Like a Chris Rock performance, you can almost carbon date Not Quite Out of the Woods by what’s not included. When a couple of blond boys walk on, hand in hand, everyone’s geared up for the inevitable Julian Assange gag... which never comes. They’re Hansel and Hansel and wanting to talk about Penny Wong and gay marriage. Assange doesn’t rate a single mention. Apparently the show was more or less locked down around the time of the election. (It premiered in Newcastle on September 9, last year.) Obviously the three little piggie indies, for example, are a relatively late addition.
Here’s the (short but sweet) Herald Sun review:
The Wharf Revue: Not Quite Out Of The Woods written and created by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott. (Jonathan Biggins director, Phil Scott music director.) At the MTC Theatre, Sumner, until January 29, 2011.
This is shock and awe comedy. It’s a well-drilled and completely overwhelming blitzkrieg of satire and smut, of rhyme and reason, of current affairs and fairy tales. In ninety minutes, there’s hardly time to draw breath between thigh-slapping guffaws and gasps of disbelief.
So much is packed into this one show, you quite literally won’t have time to be bored or disappointed by any single gag or routine. Even if you don’t get a reference, or don’t watch the TV show being sent up, you can still be sucked in by the scintillating rhyming couplets, the physical and vocal impersonations and the cleverness of the writing.
The annual STC Wharf Revue rarely crosses state lines. This is an above-average example. Indeed, it’s as good as we’ve seen from Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott as a creative team.
They’re joined, here, by Amanda Bishop whose impressions of Julia Gillard are terrifyingly good. She’s got the flat tones and wooden gestures down pat. (Bishop is a damn fine singer and dancer too.)
Other highlights are Tony Abbott in Abbotar (to the strains of Judas’s song from Jesus Christ Superstar) and a routine about Japanese whaling to a medley from The Mikado. But there’s something to offend everyone. Seriously.
I managed to get to 6-6-7 for The Big Issue before I, er, walked the plank... a fountain pen instead of a cutlass in the small of my back. (Aptly, a Nick Cave CD was neighbour of The Beast.)
And I cracked the 700s with The Financial Review, no magic number there. That’s another relationship that has to be severed in my move to The Australian -- unless you’re Peter Craven you can’t review for both national dailies -- though ‘severed’ seems an odd word to use... I’m pretty sure the relationship is dead, but I’ve been waiting a year for the corpse to wash ashore. In my 20th year with the Fin, the work simply stopped. Without so much as a "so long."
Wish I could find something a bit more profound to quote than "and out again, upon the unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea" -- wish I were quoting Matthew Arnold instead of John Fowles too... but you get that. After the jump, the Wharf Revue reviewed...
Like a Chris Rock performance, you can almost carbon date Not Quite Out of the Woods by what’s not included. When a couple of blond boys walk on, hand in hand, everyone’s geared up for the inevitable Julian Assange gag... which never comes. They’re Hansel and Hansel and wanting to talk about Penny Wong and gay marriage. Assange doesn’t rate a single mention. Apparently the show was more or less locked down around the time of the election. (It premiered in Newcastle on September 9, last year.) Obviously the three little piggie indies, for example, are a relatively late addition.
Here’s the (short but sweet) Herald Sun review:
The Wharf Revue: Not Quite Out Of The Woods written and created by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott. (Jonathan Biggins director, Phil Scott music director.) At the MTC Theatre, Sumner, until January 29, 2011.
This is shock and awe comedy. It’s a well-drilled and completely overwhelming blitzkrieg of satire and smut, of rhyme and reason, of current affairs and fairy tales. In ninety minutes, there’s hardly time to draw breath between thigh-slapping guffaws and gasps of disbelief.
So much is packed into this one show, you quite literally won’t have time to be bored or disappointed by any single gag or routine. Even if you don’t get a reference, or don’t watch the TV show being sent up, you can still be sucked in by the scintillating rhyming couplets, the physical and vocal impersonations and the cleverness of the writing.
The annual STC Wharf Revue rarely crosses state lines. This is an above-average example. Indeed, it’s as good as we’ve seen from Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott as a creative team.
They’re joined, here, by Amanda Bishop whose impressions of Julia Gillard are terrifyingly good. She’s got the flat tones and wooden gestures down pat. (Bishop is a damn fine singer and dancer too.)
Other highlights are Tony Abbott in Abbotar (to the strains of Judas’s song from Jesus Christ Superstar) and a routine about Japanese whaling to a medley from The Mikado. But there’s something to offend everyone. Seriously.
Labels: Amanda Bishop, Drew Forsythe, Jonathan Biggins, Phillip Scott, Wharf Revue
posted by Chris Boyd at 1:11 AM
2 Comments:
You can review for The Age and The Oz at the same time without being Peter Craven. I've done it for 17 years with books. It's one of the few benefits of freelancing. Glad you've got the Oz gig. When's your review of Tis Pity going to appear on the blog?
Thanks Cameron. Was fascinating to see your, my and Alison's bylines in the one weekend magazine, I must say!
Jason Romney lost his theatre reviewing gig at the Herald Sun cos he started writing about computers for the Green Guide!
Still gestating on 'Tis pity. I didn't want to post my Australian review without expanding on it.
And, hey, welcome to Bizarro world... whould have thought: me defending a Malthouse production (!) on TN (!!) :D
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