Mister Brisbane: Gong show | Play time | Super speaker | Don't panic! | Surf and turf | Doing Didi
In your inbox on Tuesday morning, to ease you into the difficult part of the week ahead
Theatre is very much on my mind as I write this. First up, congratulations to the winners of the Matilda Awards announced on Monday night at the Brisbane Powerhouse. What a great networking opportunity the industry’s night of nights is, and how wonderful it was for me to reconnect with so many people. The results are (or soon will be) here.
WILLIAMSON’S HALF TON
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a Queensland Theatre opening night at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, but I’m happy to report that not a lot has changed. In fact, people nodded at me as if I’d been in that very foyer just a few weeks ago. Rather than years. The occasion was the first night of David Williamson’s Emerald City. The late-1980s comedy still manages to strike a few satirical blows and deliver some big laughs, although it remains a creature of its time – and, given that its starting point is Sydney-Melbourne rivalry, it plays differently in Brisbane than it might down south. I enjoyed all the performances, but I especially liked Rhys Muldoon (pictured, above, with Jason Klarwein and Nadine Garner) as Mike, a soapie writer with big dreams and dubious tactics. I also enjoyed new QT artistic director Lee Lewis’s tribute to Williamson during the curtain call. As she said, every theatre writer in Australia owes a debt of gratitude to Williamson because he proved, and continues to prove, that it is possible to make a living as a playwright in this country. It was fitting start to QT’s 50th anniversary season and suitable recognition of Williamson’s half-century in the biz. Emerald City runs at the Playhouse until February 29
P.S. I noted some online commentary about the programs for QT productions, with one theatregoer asking why they didn’t contain pictures of the cast in costume. The answer, as I expected, was that this wasn’t possible due to the early deadline for the glossy program and the fact that full dress rehearsals don’t happen until very late in the creative process. The discrepancy is especially noticeable on the cover of the Emerald City program (above), because Klarwein has a beard (which he doesn’t in the play) and Garner’s hair is longer.
P.P.S. As far as I could tell, the opening-night party was a much more reserved affair than the one for another Williamson play in the early 1990s. Back then, a media person got into an animated conversation with the playwright that ended with her hitting him with her program. For quite some time afterwards, all journalists were banned from after-show functions.
SPOTLIGHT ON A YOUNG STAR
I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing actor/ playwright Merlynn Tong speak at the Glugs of Gosh lunch at the Paddington Tavern last week. The Glugs are a group of performing-arts enthusiasts and practitioners who meet monthly to mingle and listen to a talk by a current theatre luminary. They also award an annual prize (last year it went to the marvellous Naomi Price) and make generous donations to the Actors’ and Entertainers’ Benevolent Fund. Over three decades, the Glugs have enjoyed the company of many national and international stars, and they have heard hundreds of stories from behind the scenes at theatre and musical productions. Few of the speakers I’ve heard – and I was organising the lunches as “Mayor of Gosh” for many years – have been as engaging as Singapore-born Tong. She was honest and entertaining, often very funny, as she spoke, with several diversions, about her childhood trauma and eventual self-discovery through theatre. Congratulations to current Mayor Eric Scott, who received an OAM in the Australia Day honours, for bringing these events together.
Footnote: The Paddo is one of those great, enduring Brisbane venues. It’s a popular watering hole that does food and functions, and is also home the Sit Down Comedy Club. Here (above) is the steak and prawns I had for lunch. It may not win an award for plating up – and I certainly won’t win one for photography – but it was very tasty.
BREAKFAST RADIO BREAKFAST
In a busy week, I also dropped in for breakfast with the Hit105 brekkie team of Matt Acton, Abby Coleman (above) and Stav Davidson. Hit and sister station Triple M have very modern new studios at the Barracks complex on Petrie Terrace. Hit content director Jack Ball hinted at big things to come, including an event involving rapper-movie star Will Smith. Oh, and do you remember that stunt last year when Stav (that’s him, below, with some bloke) jumped out of a plane and dropped $10,000 in $5 notes? Apparently $6,000 of it still hasn’t been found. So there’s your weekend sorted.
Disclosure: Apart from a coffee, and a pastry that I didn’t have because I was (quite rudely) busy fulfilling a writing commitment, they gave me a goodie bag. While not quite on par with the US$2225,000 number given to Oscar nominees, it was pretty cool. It contained a Hit-branded writing pad, which is always handy in my business, plus a workout towel and water bottle. Does anybody need a workout towel and water bottle?
OLD TIME ROCK ’N’ ROLL
What a line-up: Brian Cadd, Deborah Conway, Joe Camilleri, John Paul Young, Kate Ceberano, Leo Sayer, Vika & Linda Bull and Wendy Matthews. That’s the APIA Good Times Tour 2020 that stops off at QPAC’s Concert Hall on June 18. If this gets your vital fluids flowing – and despite the fact that the sponsor specialises in insurance for pensioners, you don’t have to be “a certain age” for that to be the case – I suggest you book early. This will be one for (all) the ages.
DIDI? INDEED I DID
This is not a paid plug, I just have to say that I’ve been impressed with the service offered by ride-share company Didi over the past few months. I don’t have a car, so I use trains and taxis to get around. I’m told that the divers get paid better by Didi than they do from other ride-share services, but I am prepared to be corrected on that. What I do know is that Didi has proved reliable and has cut the price of my ride home from the city almost in half. Also, on a recent wet day, I discovered I could easily get a Didi car when the taxi company’s phone just rang and rang and rang. I took this pic (below) while I was waiting for a recent ride. Can you guess where I was?
NO REASON FOR FEAR
It saddens me to read that some Brisbaneites are avoiding Chinese people and other Asians, and their businesses, simply because the current coronavirus, COVID-19, happened to emerge in Wuhan. I’m all for sensible precautions, but not for overreaction fuelled by ignorance and racism. As I write, the chances of dying from this virus in Brisbane, or anywhere in Australia, is close to zero. If you want to worry about something, look at the stats about likely causes of death. At the moment, I’m more worried about an encounter with a caterpillar than exposure to COVID-19. Please don’t treat people badly; don’t avoid them; support them when they need it.
I also like cruising and I feel for those people who’ve been in lock-down on the Diamond Princess. I had norovirus during a cruise and spent 24 hours in quarantine in an inside cabin; I can’t even image what weeks of it would feel like. But this is an unusual circumstance that is nobody’s fault, and it won’t put me off going on cruises again.
THINGS TO DO
+ Buy tickets to Lorelei, Opera Queensland’s first production for 2020, which will run at QPAC from March 21 to April 4. As the trailer shows, OQ has a diverse season this year, with something for the purists and the newbies, and those in between.
+ Have a laugh at the Brisbane Comedy Festival and the Sit Down Comedy Fringe, both starting on Friday, February 21. More about that next week.
+ Leave your comments! You should now be able to do that on the website, as well as on the Mister Brisbane Facebook group, which has extra content.