Reviews

QPAC’s annual Out of the Box festival for kids eight years and younger kicked off yesterday with a strikingly imaginative and effective adaptation of Ethel C. Pedley’s beloved children’s classic Dot and the Kangaroo. Written in 1899, the tale of a young girl Dot who gets lost in the bush and is befriended by a kangaroo has enchanted generations of children for ages.

There’s much to enjoy in Lewis’s new play, developed with the help of Red Stitch’s INK…a worthy in house programme for writers which is in jeopardy after Arts Funding cuts. It’s part Outback Chekhov/part Home and Away in red Dirt, but, despite being an entertaining 90 minutes, the text itself needs a solid dose of subtext and less exposition, more depth and less width, more character and less plot. It simultaneously feels too long, and yet doesn’t allow enough breathing space for us to take in the machinations between characters.

I thought my glasses had misted, but then I realised: in an attempt to recreate an authentic London atmosphere not just the stage but the entire auditorium was filled with fog. This device sets the tone for REP’s Witness for the Prosecution, a respectful recreation of the play as Christie envisioned with emphasis on commentary on the social prejudices of the time, but not without a wry nod to the more ridiculous elements.

When choosing The Vicar of Dibley for stage, directors are under pressure to recreate exactly the recognisable TV characters, stories and jokes. Hobart Director Ingrid Ganley, for John X and Graeme Paine, had a good cast who gave us what we expected to see from the oft-repeated TV program.

Di Richards, a well-known singer with enormous stage presence, filled the role of Geraldine admirably, although a little breathily. Despite his natural pleasantness, Paul Levett (David Horton) competently brought off the acerbic nastiness of the TV David.