Reviews

What is it about some politicians that lends them so deliciously to satire?  Is it merely the high visibility of their individual quirks?  Is it their unshakeable certainties or invulnerable egos?  Is it the space their public personas fill in the political arena?

However their troubles arise, you can be sure that The Wharf Revue will seize the opportunity to capitalise on them.

Damage is a unique film in many ways. It is filmed in Adelaide with a pair of novice-actors – one the director’s own mother, the other an Iraqi asylum seeker.

It is entirely self-funded, was written in one night, and stars the director/writer Madeline Blackwell’s own mother (Imelda Bourke) who was 87 when the filming began.

It also stars Ali Al Jenabi, an actual Iraqi asylum seeker who had a hand in making the dialogue more believable.

Two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, share a stage, reading their correspondence spanning the ups and downs of the mostly remote relationship they’ve shared over nearly half a century. A. R. Gurney’s play, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, doesn’t necessarily require the actors to learn their lines, so nightly or weekly cast turnarounds, mix’n’match seasons and limited engagement celebrity pairings have been common.

Clue was inspired by the board game from my childhood, Cluedo, and I have vague memories of being utterly confused and bewildered by the endless possibilities of who did what, where and how.

Friday night’s opening of Clue at Theatre on Chester created an atmosphere of nostalgia, no doubt not simply for me alone, as we were welcomed to the home of Mr. Boddy by his officious, immaculately presented butler, Wadsworth, played by Clive Hobson with oodles of formality and drole humour.