Gawd Help Us

Their night of nights

The Helpmann Awards (Australia’s answer to the ‘Tony’) are named for choreographer, dancer, theatre director and ham-actor (think 55 Days at Peking (1963), and Patrick (1978)) Sir Robert Helpmann.

Awards are a concept well past the use-by date, now rapidly putrefying.  Even so, it is stunning how they can go so wrong.

We suppose that the readiness is all…

Recently, 4 Helpmanns went to that giant piece of dreck, Hamlet – The Opera.  The Varnished Culture is on record about this faux-est of all faux operas, so we’ll just list the winners, without much further comment:

• Best male performer in an opera – Allan Clayton (seriously?);
• Best female supporting performer in an opera – Lorina Gore (Her mad scene should have garnered a gong for comedy);
• Best direction of an opera – Neil Armfield (We guess he did what he could);
• Best Opera – Hamlet (Oh, come on!).