Tag Archive: Stage Shows
The Dark Master
Oz Asia Festival Space Theatre, Adelaide, October 29, 2019 (Director: Kuro Tanino) Japanese rural inns are a mainstay of horror films and video games. The Dark Master merges these genres when a hapless young backpacker (Koichiro FO Pereira) is bizarrely inveigled into running a once popular bistro in an undefined area of Japan (possibly Osaka). The former proprietor (Susumu Ogata), who may or may not have operated the inn for the last 30 or 35 years, disappears upstairs and issues instruction to his apprentice, via earpiece. The young traveller, who has never so much as boiled an egg, learns quickly…
Continue Reading →Gold Dust Woman : The Biography of Stevie Nicks
(by Stephen Davis) That “The” in the title is pretty rich. This is not a definitive biography of Stevie Nicks. This is a pedestrian grab for cash. Davis didn’t interview Nicks – he’s taken his material from published interviews, the music, quotes, interviews with friends and colleagues. He may have spoken to Nicks when working with Mick Fleetwood on the latter’s 1990 memoirs, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac (which Davis says was “an international best seller (and the foundation text for almost every book written since about this band).” Gold Dust Woman isn’t a bad book, it’s just that…
Continue Reading →Hannah Gadsby
Hannah in 'The NGV Story' (ABC) considers the work of Mueck
(Adelaide Fringe Festival, Garden of Unearthly delights, 28 February 2016) It’s the Fringe and you gotta go to something, unless you’re saving those pennies for the stock car race Adelaide puts on to insinuate that it hosts great races and makes great cars (implications no longer true, if they ever were). The Varnished Culture naturally plumped for Hannah, art historian and well known actress and comic. She tends to steer clear of gynie jokes and deploy real wit, a rather radical departure. She is also excellent in a sweet ABC show, Please Like Me. We lined up (with our pre-paid tickets)…
Continue Reading →An Evening with Oprah
Oprah (photo by Alan Light)
Oprah Winfrey, Adelaide Entertainment Centre, 4 December 2015 (reviewed by Lynette Pugh) Advertised as ‘An Evening with Oprah’, there should have been no doubt that it would be all about Oprah, but in anticipating the evening I kept thinking ‘Oh God’ I hope she tones the narcissism down for the Australian setting – or she will face walk outs and tut tuts from the Adelaide crowd. I need not have worried! She had the delivery down pat, with the balance of celebrity, egoism and humble authenticity, exactly right. I was totally engaged for the whole 2 hours, with her story…
Continue Reading →What Stevie Wore in Adelaide
"Oh, I'm getting older too" (Photo courtesy of Flickr)
Dear Annabels, our beloved Stevie Nicks stomps a bit now and she really shouldn’t turn side-on to the audience but she is pretty as and still rocks it just fabulously. At Fleetwood Mac’s October 2015 concert, I was close enough to see up Stevie’s two (not one or three) nostrils and so I took careful note of what the lady wore. I don’t think I need to say that it was (almost) all black, but Stevie wore:- A skirt of (perhaps) microfiber, layered and good for lifting out at the sides A fitted long-sleeved velvet vest with points at the…
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