Reviews

Like many in the arts, I don’t care for sport and I live in the city. So I wasn’t expecting to connect with a show about an AFL final in a small town. Yet there I was on opening night, enthralled by the energetic, entertaining and electrifying story of the ‘Pintoon Parrots’ and their struggle to attain grand final glory. At first, the story appears lighthearted, but like all country towns, you just have to scratch the surface to find the tragedy bubbling beneath.

On their 10th anniversary, the Chooky Dancers from NE Arnhem Land, now renamed Djuki Mala, are back after a run of national and overseas touring. They started off with that infectiously funny spoof of Zorba, created apparently as a sincere indigenous thank you to a Greek woman up in their country of Elcho Island – it then went viral to millions on YouTube.  

This production of Greenwicks is the second incarnation of a script written by James Marzec and John McPherson, first performed at the University of Western Australia in 2009. Filled with vibrant music, this is a show that is a lot of fun.

Set in a supermarket, the plot is a little unlikely, some jokes remain a little too “student humour” and others don’t quite land, but overall this is funny, the characters are very nicely created and the songs are outstanding.

A superb cast and a director with an assured and inspired sense of imagery and style lift this rather smarty-pants play into something that delights and entertains.  The moors of the title – described frequently in the text as ‘bleak’, ‘windswept’ and ‘boring’, but also a stimulus to wild imaginations – are Brontë territory.  (Few clichés are left unturned – or over-turned.)  But don’t expect Charlotte, Emily or Anne to appear, or any of their literary creations.  It is, however, a play that