There is a little recognised talent, known in the music industry for years, but only recently being recognised by the public, that is as crucial to the heart and soul of all music as the guitar player, the vocalist, the drummer and the song writer. That’s the talent of the careful listener, and particularly the […]
Author Archives: lisathatcher
November
18
Son’s of Sun – Sam Phillips’ story as told by Kieran Carrol, John Kennedy and Neil Gooding. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
November
18
Filth – Jon S. Baird and the joy of (finally) another successful Welsh adaptation. (Film Review)
posted by lisathatcher
“I think there’s something seriously wrong with me.” With the end of the Thatcher era the decade of the 1990’s produced films books and music that came to typify a writhing underbelly of a Britain that belied the facade the Tory’s wanted to plaster over the top of societal cracks. Thatcher wanted The Empire to […]
November
15
Apples and Pears – Sean O’Riordan and the soul of friendship. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Rhyming slang is said to have originated in the 1840’s in London’s east end, possibly as a deliberate rouse for criminals to converse without fear of detection by the law. It’s an obscuree form of communication, noun based, that has come to represent its location more than its era, and retained its value for all […]
November
15
Adoration (The Mothers or Adore) – Anne Fontaine re-imagines taboo based desire after Nabokov. (Film review)
posted by lisathatcher
Adoration opens with a pair of twelve-year-old girls teasing and chasing each other through a lush forest. They burst onto a large pristine empty beach, disrobe, and swim out to a small floating dock where they have secreted away sample bottles of spirits for their own illicit amusement. The footage immediately references the opening scene […]
November
12
505 Theatre and the launch of the 2014 season – 50.5 reasons to subscribe to 505.
posted by lisathatcher
50.5 reasons to subscribe to the 505 Theatre’s 2014 season: 1. The old 505 is the coolest theatre in town. 2. We’re Bastards – play written by Oleg Pupovac, dramatically revealed at the old 505 from Feb 5 to 23 2014. 3. #indietheatrefunk 4. Hilt – Jane Bodie’s play directed by Dominic Mercer. 5. Buzzing […]
November
11
The Maintenance Room – Gerry Greenland and the question of trust. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
“Something in us wishes to remain a child, to be unconscious or, at most, conscious only of the ego; to reject everything strange, or else subject it to our will; to do nothing, or else indulge our own craving for pleasure or power.” — Carl Jung, The Structures & Dynamics of the Psyche “I was […]
November
08
Rooted – Phil Rouse and Don’t Look Away bring Alex Buzo back. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
Rooted, Alex Buzo’s sixth play, was first produced in 1969. That means (from what I can gather) Buzo had Australians on the stage before, or at least at the same time, as David Williamson did, but somehow, unlike Williamson, Buzo got caught up in Australia’s cultural cringe and he never experienced quite the same level […]
November
08
(extra)ordinary, (un)usual – Pete Malicki and the power of one. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
The survival of theatre in the digital age is an ongoing conversation; lows pitted are against highs, optimism against pessimism and of course the eternal conversation about the dollar. Theatre is at home among other arts in its awkward swim for survival, with books, music, art and even film finding itself battling the oceans of […]
November
07
An Ordinary Person – Robert Allan and the pervasive stigma of the victim. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
“He’s not bad. He’s just an ordinary person.” In post-political correctness days, becoming a victim and being a victim are, surprisingly, at opposite ends of the pop psychological rainbow. Victimhood has a timeline that is defined (as Lacan would say) by the “big Other” – that is we don’t know how long you are allowed […]
November
04
Daisy Pulls It Off – Genesian Theatre remembers Angela Brazil. (Theatre Review)
posted by lisathatcher
It’s easy to forget, all these (feminist) years later how important to girls and to literature in general Angela Brazil was. Denise Deegan, a play write in her sixties (today) would have been conscious of the impending death of the british school girl books as a genre, and surely this influences her decision to write […]
Lisa Thatcher 