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December 06
Edition

Pages in PDF

Regular
Features

› The Fat Lady
  Sings
  with JoAnn Pacholli

› In Tents Thawt
  with Mick Pacholli

› Sid's Comments
  with Sidney
  Somerville-Smith

› The Lie Detector
  with Mitchell
   Faircloth

› Fab's Ravings

› Technology
  with Chris Jacobs

› Your Views

› The Artful Stock Picker
  with
  Peter Hegarty

› Marketing Advice
  with Andrew Hickinbotham

› Fashion
  with Jeanette Cleary

› Family Issues
  with
  Marilyn Brideson

› Gallery Gazing

› Planet Clare

› Lovatts
  Crossword

› Social Scene
  with Ken James

› Live Theatre
  with Blair Edgar

› Movie Scene
  with
  Marcus Sinclair

› Entertainment
  with Gary Turner

› Grazing in the
  Suburbs
  with Mick Pacholli

› Fab's Travel

› Talking Manure
  with Mick Pacholli

› Furry Friends
  with
  Dr Graeme Smith

› Racing
  with Ted Ryan

› Rant & Rave
  with
  Paddles Hackett

› Bowls
  with Mick Pacholli

› Motoring
  with Garry Fabian

› Competitions

Live Theatre

[by Blair Edgar]

OAM is a former Opera Director & Founding & Life Member of the Green Room

Aria Winner of Quality

When Kristy Swift won this year’s Herald Sun Aria, people mentioned an indefinable quality. But it’s not “indefinable” it is easily definable, and it is called Star Quality. Kristy is an exceptional performer and could very, very easily become a “people’s star.”

With her talents, her capacity for hard work, her effervescent soubrette quality, her practical approach to theatre and her ability to entertain, Kristy is reminiscent of June Bronhill. She can play the lady or the larrikin, she is an Eliza Doolittle, before and after encountering a mentor.

Within a few hours of Kristy’s Aria win, German agents pounced on her and were on the phone wanting her to audition for coming seasons in Germany. There was no one from Australia, which is absolutely typical!

As you read this, Kristy will be in Vienna auditioning. She reached the finals of a major operatic competition in this city earlier this year, and made a big impression.
As someone who believes utterly in all aspects of the theatre, Kristy sees all types of music theatre as prospective areas of employment.

Kristy has let it be known that she would very much like to play Christine in the coming production of Phantom Of The Opera. And that makes a lot of sense to me. 

Entrepreneurs wishing to discover and promote a “people’s star” need not look any further, she is on their doorstep. She just might turn out to be the Makybe Diva of the music theatre.

That McIntosh Man 

Several years ago now, Cameron McIntosh let it be known that “the era of the big musicals is OVER!”  Too expensive, too difficult, corporate production values- all that stuff. In fact, a situation that he and Andrew Lloyd Webber created.

And his last major venture in the creative field would be to bring Mary Poppins to the musical stage, and he did that. 

But instead of McIntosh retiring to his Scottish castle and reclining on his bulging money bags, he has slicked up some of his past successes. Miss Saigon is headed into Her Majesty’s. He is also reviving a reworked Les Miserables and his production of My Fair Lady.

Apparently unable to come out from behind his producer’s desk, nor to exchange his entrepreneurial bonnet for a fishing hat, the McIntosh army is on the march again!

Student Theatre

They are the hope of the future. I have been having a look at some of the talents being processed through the various “arts training” sausage factories.

 To be fair there are some good youngsters about, and one or two in the overall mass, and in some cases morass, who could have careers and do very good things. 

Like young race horses, you have to struggle to get a bridle on them and teach them to run in a straight line rather than exploding all over the place. 

The training trick is to get it all under control but not lose the fire that makes them want to vault into a role. Also, they have to be given the experience of working their point into an audience’s psyche. But they must carry the fire of life in their performing. 

Governments are building more performance spaces.  I’m not too sure why. Perhaps they should subsidise tickets sold? A bonus for each ticket the youngsters sell. 

I love talent, and the only talent I ever had was recognising it. There is some talent out there. But what is going to happen to it? If artists were sportspeople they would be nursed and nurtured, they would have everything done for them, and every breath would be reported.

But when was the last time the news reported a dancer being injured? The last time reporters sat by an artist’s bedside awaiting their “recovery”? In fact, artists are made outcasts and condemned for not having “proper” jobs. They are thrown a scrap and told they have to survive.

Artists are, as Shakespeare said, “the Chroniclers of the time - and you were better to have their good report while you are alive than their bad report after you are dead.” They write, comment on, reflect, confront, and assemble the cultural history of a people.

It is through our arts and artists that we will be assessed and judged, not through the gladiators who are demigods of the mob. Yet Australia doesn’t care and our artists leave, do well, come home, are ignored or bullied by the half- baked mediocre talents that have a stranglehold here, and leave again.

The Federal Government wanted a survey of why talent of all kinds leaves this country. The answer is simple: no one cares about it staying here. And no one is prepared to unselfishly work for the artists.

 The money consumed by the bureaucratic fat cats could give young performers a life and, most importantly, credibility within the community.

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