Film/TV/Theatre

Last Saturday I took Dave to see Top Gear Live at the Acer Arena. Interesting concept - try and replicate a Top Gear episode live in a stadium. I have to say it was probably fantastic for the average 12 year old in the audience but to be honest I found it a bit boring. Clarkson and May were as amusing as ever (the Hamster wasn't there) but there's only so much you can do in a giant shed. At least I think it was Clarkson and May - our so called 'platinum' tickets afforded us a view of two blokes mucking about 800 metres away - they could have been anybody I suppose. I enjoy watching Top Gear for the way the car sequences are beautifully filmed. Also it's refreshing to see a bunch of middle aged men making fools of themselves - there should be more of that. Strip that away and you've basically just left with a bunch of hideously expensive cars that I'll never be able to afford. Maybe it's a lack of imagination or just realism but drooling over hyper expensive cars just doesn't interest me - hence probably why I didn't really enjoy the show that much. Would have to put it into the seriously uncool section of the 'cool wall'. Good way for them to make even more money though - so top marks for getting some out of me. Best bit? The Reliant Robin racing (see photo).

Last night we saw 'Pig Iron People' at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. It's the debut play for John Doyle (aka Rampaging Roy Slaven - who I last saw live doing a performance of 'This Sporting Life' with HG Nelson at the Canberra Theatre around 1992!). The play is well worth catching if you can.

It's set in 1996 - as John Howard takes over from Paul Keating. As an aside we saw John Howard (and Jeanette) going down the escalator in the first class Qantas lounge at Sydney when we were going to France in September. They were going down, we were going up. I was psyched up ready to argue with the Qantas staff about not allowing our small (and noisy) children into the lounge so I didn't even notice them. Caroline did and told little Johnny that she hoped he wasn't on our aeroplane. The reference being to our noisy children - but perhaps he took it as a political statement! I'm just gutted I didn't get the chance to shout out 'I voted for you John... Rudd has only been in for 6 months and already he's buggered up the world's economy'... oh well, another missed opportunity.

Back to the play... Me circa 1996 could easily empathise with the play's younger characters (well, maybe) - young, skint, with the Howard government offering nothing but cuts. That was true for Canberra - the Liberals coming to power spelt the end of my Canberra days - we were being outsourced so I left for Sydney. 12 years on I don't empathise anywhere near as much - now I just see the younger characters as a bunch of whingeing labor voters! Times change.
The older characters were fantastic - Jack/John Howard (Danny Adcock) , Janette Howard (Judi Farr), Claude (Bruce Venables) and his wife, Rosie (Jacki Weaver) were all highly amusing. In places the play was a bit predictable, but on the whole we really enjoyed it.

Last night we saw Bill Bailey at the State Theatre in Sydney. The combination of the bearded maniac's surreal ramblings coupled with his musical prowess made for a very entertaining evening. There were lots of highlights (most of which I've now forgotten only 24 hours later). I particularly liked his critique of Australian TV News theme tunes. Of course he did that before with his BBC theme tune skit but I enjoyed the localised version. To finish he sang his 'love song' - there aren't many songs where you hear the line "The duck lays shredded in a pancake, soaking in the hoisin of your lies".
The only disappointment - he didn't do 'Das Hokey Kokey'