Theatre: Robots Vs. Art

By Travis Cotton

Directed by Phil Moilin

Performed by Damon Lockwood, Sean Walsh, Renee Newman Storen and Ben Mortley

The Blue Room

Until June 1

The pivot of Travis Cotton’s futurist fable of a world run by robots comes when Giles (Damon Lockwood), a former playwright and director now a slave worker in the conqueror’s zinc mines, has to decide whether to stage a play for his psychopathic overlord Master Bot (Sean Walsh) or be chain-whipped to death. Chances are, given his hideous lifestyle and complete absence of hope, he’d choose the latter, but for one complication: he’s the last living human.

Giles ultimately has a victory of sorts, but it’s a pyrrhic one. Mankind has forfeited its rights and betrayed its stewardship of the Earth, and the robots have no interest in being like him.

Robots will never rule the world, but the message of Cotton’s provocative play is that things very like them have tried, and will try again, to do so. 

Link here to the complete version of this review in The West Australian       

Theatre: The Mousetrap

By Agatha Christie

Directed by Gary Young

Set design by Linda Bewick

With Robert Alexander, Travis Cotton, Linda Cropper, Nicholas Hope, Jacinta John, Gus Murray, Justin Smith and Christy Sullivan

His Majesty’s Theatre

Until August 26, 2012

Christy Sullivan, Justin Smith and Nicholas Hope

For most people of my vintage, and many bottled in much more recent years, Agatha Christie’s wonderful, devious books and their innumerable spin-offs in films and television are part of our psyche. In my case, they run even deeper, having written (along with my friend Dave Warner) and staged a series of murder weekends that unashamedly paid homage to her immortal whodunits.

The Mousetrap is the one pillar of the Temple of Agatha I’d yet to wrap my arms around; this mighty edifice has now ticked over sixty years continuously on the West End, the only play ever to become a permanent tourist attraction.

So I went to review the show feeling like an iceberg waiting for The Titanic to show up. The good news is that the great ship sailed past me unscathed, even if it didn’t melt me much in its passage.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian