Mister Brisbane: Dancing with Sid Vicious
This week: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | When is dinner time? | St Pat's Day | Princess reborn? | More steak sangers | Coronavirus-conditional what's on guide
This entire edition comes with a caveat. Any event mentioned herein is subject to change due to the Covid-19 coronavirus. We’ve already seen the cancellation of big events overseas, including the South By Southwest music-industry gathering and a Google product launch, so unless things change very much for the better, we’re going to have to expect them here. If that all sounds a bit depressing, there’s also the story about me and Sid.
PROPER CHARLIE
After two Hollywood films, we’re about to see Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a stage musical. The Brisbane season runs from March 18 to April 19. The interesting thing, to me at least, is that it seems the show itself is being billed as the star, rather than whoever it is playing Willy Wonka. Gene Wilder was a hard act to follow, and some people certainly thought Johnny Depp was a wonky Willy. As far as I can tell from a deep dive online, Paul Slade Smith will be playing the eccentric chocolate-factory owner in Brisbane, and, as is always the case with child actors, the role of Charlie will be shared between a few local actors.
DINNER TIME
A food and travel journalist friend of mine recently referred to a dinner beginning “disturbingly early” at 6.30pm. I noted that my father always had his “tea” (as the evening meal was always called) before the 6 o’clock television news. It seems to me that, especially for families and other early-to-bed-early-to-risers, 6.30pm is a perfectly sensible time to eat. Any thoughts?
AMAZING FEET
In the tradition of Tap Dogs and Hot Shoe Shuffle, the dance-comedy show Tap Pack will be playing 16 venues across Queensland in June and July. They dance and they joked around to music ranging from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr tunes to more contemporary numbers made famous by Ed Sheeran, Michael Bublé and Beyonce. The tour culminates in a five-night engagement at the Cremorne Theatre, QPAC from June 30-July 4. Details are here.
WHAT I DID
In my InQueensland column last week, I wrote about the upcoming sale of the Princess Theatre in the Gabba. Since then, one group, Queensland Musical Theatre, has confirmed that it has made a bid, and I’ve heard that another may be in the works. What I didn’t mention was what happened one memorable time I went to the Princess when it was a working theatre, run by the now-defunct TN! Company. In early 1991, when I was the arts editor of Brisbane’s The Sun newspaper, I attended a production of Vicious, David Brown’s play about the tragic love story between The Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The play was presented in a downstairs space below the main auditorium and Brown starred alongside Bernadette Pryde and Tony Maw. Afterwards, I joined the cast and some of the other audience members for drinks at a city pub and, foolishly as it turned out, got up to dance. I somehow slipped on an ice cube (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) and smashed my ankle. The Vicious folk were very nice to me. An ambulance was summonsed, I was taken to the Royal Brisbane Hospital, had surgery the next day, and spent a week in hospital.
WHAT YOU SAID
Last week’s item about the perfect steak sandwich received a fair bit of love on social media, where I asked about essential ingredients for said sanger.
From Sue: “Steak.”
From Michelle: “Beetroot is mandatory on a steak sandwich!”
From Daniel: “In this order, top to bottom: Bread (not toast), mayo, lettuce, tomato, onion (cooked if possible), gherkin, beetroot, bbq sauce, cheese, steak, butter, bread.”
From Pete: “A nice slice of tender steak .. not too thick ... cooked onions ... which have been marinated in steak sauce ... grated carrot ... grated strong and bitey cheese ... iceberg lettuce ... tomato ... fried egg ... beetroot ... bun/toast ... buttered with mayo or sweet mustard pickles … complimented by several beers.”
The picture is my attempt to make a basic steak sandwich with available ingredients – the previous night’s leftover meat and an almost-stale bun – at home. It tasted OK, but I don’t see it gracing any professional menus soon.
There was also some enthusiasm for the old VW Kombi I snapped in a shopping centre car park. Sundo noted: “Bit of TLC and that’s north of $60,000. Looking for a weekend project?”
IRISH? AYE!
As the photo demonstrates, I have a soft spot for St Patrick’s Day. The O’Debritz family line goes back to County Sligo in the 19th Century. (Actually, my paternal grandmother was a McKeever from County Sligo. They went to live in England, and she ended up in Australia after meeting and marrying my grandfather.) At the time of writing, the official Brisbane Irish Festival parade will be on Saturday, March 14. Meanwhile, the Story Bridge Hotel is giving it a red-hot go with celebrations from Friday, March 13 to the day itself, Tuesday, March 17. Other pubs will be participating in the craic too. My advice: avoid the green lager and stick to the Guinness.
PUPPY LOVE
I’ve spent a few years in Asia, so I’m familiar with cat cafés. But I was surprised to learn, via the television news, that Brisbane has a puppy café. Collies and Co, at Samford has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately, and it has a Facebook page here. It sounds like a great place to visit if you like dogs but can’t keep one yourself. I’m interested to know whether they just have puppies, rather than older dogs, and if so, what happens to the pups when they grow up? (They find new homes, I hope and expect.)
THINGS TO DO
+ See pianist Alex Raineri and scholar Dr Peter Bassett present “a compelling program exploring the life and times of Richard Wagner” on March 13 and 14 at the Opera Queensland Studio. On March 15, the Conservatorium Theatre will be the venue for a concert tribute to the late James Christiansen.
+ See The 39 Steps. This fast-paced comedy based on an old Hitchcock spy thriller is returning to the Brisbane Arts Theatre by popular demand. It plays until March 27.
+ Congratulate the winners of the first 2020 metropolitan radio ratings survey. The numbers should be here and here on the morning of Tuesday, March 10.
+ Remember to take appropriate precautions for Covid-19 coronavirus. Wash your hands for 20 second with soap and water, use sanitiser at other times, and keep away from others if you have any cold- or flu-like symptoms.