Like the arts needs more negativity...

Look, I really, really wanted to like it. Truly. It's a huge undertaking with a massive amount of risk involved and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. I'm sure the acts are all top of their field, the music - avant garde, the dancing - modern yet with a nod to history (done by way of contact improvisation no doubt) and the overall theme incredibly provocotive and cutting edge.

It's just that I don't want to see one bloody bit of it.

I look around at the companies performing here and overseas and wonder how a festival AD and her board could get it so wrong? (and get away with it)

The trouble is, of course, it'll rake in a huge amount of dollars from deluded Melburnians who are racking up their culture karma points in one fell swoop (leaving the rest of the year bare - and the local productions struggling). I bet if you asked them what they thought of the festival they'd wave their hands in the air and say it was "simply wunnerful darling" like some nightmarish Jeannie Little (a tautology?)

Gross generalisations and character assassinations aside - I personally found the 2007 program well meaning but acts (new and recycled) empty and trite.

...and perhaps it's biggest crime - it's completely devoid of humour.

While Goering may have said "When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver." I think Groucho Marx said it best "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."

A self indulgent moment passing...

It's been a crazy couple of weeks - I've played a middle range crook, a car dealer and a Red Cross worker, a Dutch lover, a terminator from the future, a host, a drunken homosexual theatre luvvy, a beat poet, a sports coach, a piece of broccoli, an illustrator, a friend, a bad dad, a smoker, a late night phone sex caller and a pathetic ex husband.

Oh, I've been to the Blue Diamond and the aisle of Safeway while I've sipped vodka on the spot
I've moved like Marlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I've got
I've been undressed by the costume dept and I've seen some things that a man ain't supposed to see

I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

It's a Mad Pad...man

Ok, so I got meself some new digs, dig?

Let me take you on a tour:


The studio/den/bat-pole - handy for my latest exercise regime. Also notice the largest slab of tasty cheese in the world (ebay really is amazing)



The West wing of the new loungeroom - with it's spectacular views of Ivanhoe and all the surrounding suburbs. Also note the 'state of the art' stereo system - "doof doof" never sounded so good.

The East wing: simple elegant and full of the homely touches that screams out "Single man with Two Kids" Note: not sure where the staircase leads to... it needs a rail or I'll have to get some rope and a bunch of crampons...

The Kitchen - an enamel wonder - the green ooze outside my window is worrying though...

More shots can be found here.

So in honour of my swinging new bachelor pad I thought I'd splash out and purchase some natty new ties for when friends come to call or... if I want to impress a certain lady.... Look out! Grrrrr.

Latest job

From the Herald Sun

Filming kicks off on gangland feud

Fiona Byrne

July 01, 2007 12:00am

FILMING starts tomorrow on a big-budget TV drama about Melbourne's murky underworld war.

Underbelly, a 13-part series being made by Channel 9, will detail the events of the long-running and bloody gangland stoush.

Filming is expected to take place at locations around the city where the real-life events occurred.

A powerful cast has been assembled to bring the deadly story to the screen.

Simon Westaway, whose credits include Janus, Wildside and Through My Eyes, plays underworld figure Mick Gatto.

Mr Gatto and Westaway met at a Carlton restaurant during the week to to discuss the Underbelly project.

"As an actor, it was a pleasure to meet Mr Gatto and will certainly help my portrayal of him throughout the series," Westaway said.

Mr Gatto was cleared of murder after shooting hitman Andrew "Benji" Veniamin in a Carlton restaurant in March, 2004.

A jury accepted that he acted in self-defence.

Several Underbelly cast members gathered at St Kilda restaurant Circa on Wednesday evening for drinks after a read-through of the script.

The series will be aired next year.

Lantana and Chopper star Vince Colosimo will portray murdered standover man Alphonse Gangitano.

Robert Mammone will play accused murderer Tony Mokbel and Gyton Grantley will portray confessed baby-faced killer Carl Williams.

Former Blue Heelers star Martin Sacks plays murdered underworld figure Mario Condello.

Caroline Gillmer will portray gangland matriarch Judy Moran and Kevin Harrington her murdered husband Lewis Moran.

Kat Stewart will play Roberta Williams, estranged wife of killer Carl, with former Neighbours star Madeleine West portraying Mokbel's partner Danielle McGuire.

Last Man Standing star Rodger Corser and Caroline Craig (Blue Heelers) will play detectives who head the investigation.

Brisbane Improvisation Festival

In two hours time I will be winging my way to the moderately warmer climes of Brisvegas to participate in the first love in that will be the Brisbane Impro Festival. Along with members of The Crew from Melbourne there will be groups from Sydney, Brisbane, Wellington and straggly members from around the world. On Sat, Rob Lloyd (The Crew, Hound of the Baskervilles) and myself will be holding a (five hour) workshop entitled "How Physical Improv Can Make You Sexy (or Stop Walking Through My Closed Doors)" - oh yes it's all true folks...

The whole thing is a great idea and will be a wonderful chance to see performers from all over this wide brown land strut their stuff, speaking the international language of lurve -improvisation. Hats off to the organisers Merrilee, Wade, Jenny, Alex and everyone else for getting it together.

See you up there.

Interview in the Age

The lovely (comedy juggenaut) Fiona Scott Norman did an interview with me last week about all things improvised and here's the results (published in Friday's EG lift out). Thanks again Fiona.

Thank God they're back in the black

June 15, 2007

Live improvisation has ditched its daggy image, writes Fiona Scott-Norman.

THERE are lots of ways to spend winter. Dressed in team colours, existentialism and dim hopes at a St Kilda game, kvetching about the electricity bill, or doorknocking your local neighbourhood to remind young people to enrol to vote before they're disenfranchised by cynical government legislation. Or you can liven things up with the potent combination of warmth and terror - i.e. an open fire and live improvisation - at the fifth season of Impro Melbourne's The Impro Cave.

Impro is, to most people, a spectator sport up there with bull-fighting and Paris Hilton baiting. Fascinating, gory and you're pleased that it's not you in the ring/prison/sex video. According to Lliam Amor, performing live impro tends to inspire strong emotions.

"Most people find it really terrifying to step on stage with no script, others find it really exhilarating. I say I'm not going to do it for a while but then I always come back. Like any good drug you can't let it go; with impro the first hit's free and then you pay for it. And, of course, there's the craving for audience approval."

Amor (who you'd recognise as the taxi driving dad in the ever-running AAMI ad), has been improvising for 15 years and is one of the passionate core members of Impro Melbourne the group which presents Celebrity Theatresports, Smells Like A Song, Theatresports, Late Nite Impro during the Comedy Festival, Unforseen Stories, and impro classes.

After a few years in the doldrums, improv is on the up and up again. Shows such as Thank God You're Here, Jim Henson's Puppets Uncensored and Who's Line Is It Anyway?, and local groups such as Spontaneous Broadway and Impro Sundae, have re-piqued the interest of audiences who evaporated after the glory years of the '80s, when Theatresports was celebrity studded, on TV, and selling out Hamer Hall. Amor says that that sort of cycle is inevitable.

"I think it reached its natural peak and that wasn't sustainable. The company went bankrupt. But a small band of rebels kept the dream alive and we started again. It's pretty exciting now."

For Impro Melbourne, born from the ashes of Flying Pig, starting again meant some serious retooling and moving on from just playing Theatresports. The company went back to study with Keith Johnstone, the man who is to improv what Einstein was to weapons of mass destruction, and began experimenting with a mass of other formats. A lot of these will be on show at The Impro Cave, which opens on Sunday.

"We trial and remount stuff we've created ourselves, we rotate the cast, and we do a different format every week. In the first week we're doing The Hell Show, which is a format from LA where all the players are in hell, and trying to win their way out to purgatory by pleasing Satan, who's hosting the show."

Other formats include Guerilla Theatre, Harold, Couples, Uber Improv, which celebrates all things German from bratwurst to lederhosen, and H'bout This, where a player has to pitch an idea, which can lead to all kinds of outcomes.

"One night someone pitched, 'Instead of seeing a bat, Batman looked out of a window and saw . . .' and someone in the audience called out 'seagull', so the scene was about Seagull-Man."

Amor says that the quality of contemporary impro is high, not least due to ditching the competitive element.

"It took a while for us to realise that being competitive made for bad impro. Players were undercutting each other and sabotaging because they were trying to win. The whole idea underpinning Impro Melbourne is making your partner look good. It sounds glib but if you're on stage and you're trying to make the other person look good, and vice versa, you become a very generous performer."

The Impro Cave at Don't Tell Tom Bar & Cafe, 420 Sydney Road, Brunswick. Sundays from June 17 at 7.30pm. Phone 0431 685 248.

Learn To Dance

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God I love cheese.