Australia: The Show

Company: HotHouse Theatre
Venue: Glen Street Theatre, Belrose, Sydney
Dates: To 4 September 2010
Then: Laycock Street Theatre, Gosford: 7 - 9 September 2010

It’s been a long time since high school history for me, but a little refresher couldn’t hurt, or could it? Kirk Page, Anthony Standish, James Wardlaw and director Jon Halpin bring to the Glen Street Theatre stage, Australia: The Show. With the use of an imaginary transporting device known to anyone who ever took high school Drama as a ‘space jump’, audiences will be forced to sit through a dizzying array of slapstick, semi-comical scenes that try to take us back in time to answer the question ‘what does it mean to be Australian?’

Writers Aidan Fennessy, Jean-Marc Russ, Jon Halpin and Hayden Spencer present to audiences a play-within-a-play that is at times quite hilarious, but for the most part is reminiscent of a high school performance.

Lesley Barrymore Lockett (Wardlow) is a Pommy coordinator of a very prestigious acting programme and Owen Blunt (Standish) is his Aussie student. In order to encourage interested parties (i.e. the audience) to join the programme they decide to showcase what they have managed to accomplish in class, taking the audience through significant historical milestones such as the discoveries by Captain James Cook aboard The Endeavour, the adventurous expedition of Burke and Will’s and the notorious Immigration Test. Along with Kirk Page acting as their trusty stage-hand, the semi-comical routine that they employ loses momentum as the characters pretend to forget their lines and re-order the scenes. The plays climactic finale arrives an hour early due to Blunt’s pretend organisational skills or lack there of, making the plays ending uneventful and disappointing with the omission of the impending answer audiences waited 2 + hours to find out.

Choosing to explore Australian themes through the use of a play-within-a-play does however have its perks, one being that they could pretty much do whatever they want.

This style of performance is not entirely new to the Glen Street Theatre stage as some might remember a successful run of The Messiah back in 2007 also by Russ and Spencer. This performance used the same combination of verbal and visual slapstick as Australia: The Show which can have a positive and negative effect on the performance. This arrangement choice gives Standish and Wardlow room to make as much noise and as many mistakes as possible with audience members thinking that it is part of the script. Forgetting one’s lines, spontaneously yelling out ‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!’ and appearing on stage with your pants down on all fours can only be categorised as Australian. These attributes were touched on but should have dominated a performance with the name Australia: The Show. The characters’ concentration seemed to be more focused on making a mockery of them rather than creating a uniquely Australian themed performance as the shows title falsely suggests.

James Wardlow as Lesley Barrymore Lockett performs well as a snooty, Pommy teacher trying to energise the audience as much as is humanly possible. Audience members couldn’t help but laugh at his attempt to ride a horse through the use of mime. His strict, irritable façade that constantly reared its ugly head was however repetitive and unimaginative.

Anthony Standish does a good job as a typical class clown in this performance. There is no doubt that he is adept at creating diverse comical characters, adding some much needed amusement to this performance. His interpretation of a White Cockatoo was thoroughly authentic and entertaining.

Kirk Page’s character of the stage-hand was rather confusing. At first his constant appearance on stage was distracting; sitting house right with a table, lap-top and swivel chair begged the question ‘what is he doing there?’ However, as the performance made headway Page successfully added comical jabs and remarks, eventually promoting to an enjoyable extra.

All in all Australia: The Show is seen as an admirable effort. It has a few decent laughs, memorable token Aussie moments but is a night out better suited for the teens.

Haylie Pretorius