Theatre: Uncle Jack

By Ross Lonnie
Directed by Soseh Yekanians
Performed by Quintin George and Ben Hall
The Blue Room Theatre
Until May 10

Coming soon after the powerful, theatrically innovative The Long Way Home, Ross Lonnie’s Uncle Jack (directed by Soseh Yekanians at the Blue Room) continues the heightened interest in soldiers, and soldiering, we can expect through WWI centenary observances over the next five years.
Lonnie’s work is much more traditional, but contemplates the same brutal equation: If men are changed by war – and how could they not be – then how can we expect them to return unchanged, as if nothing had happened?

Theatre: The Pillowman

by Martin McDonagh
Endless Theatre Company
Directed by Rebecca Virginia Williams
Performed by Jordan Gallagher, Kiefer Moriarty-Short, Bryn Coldrick and Garreth Bradshaw
State Theatre Centre Rehearsal Room until Feb 22

The Pillowman, tweaked slightly, could pop up as a telemovie on the ABC or Showtime.
It’s got obsessed detectives, a perhaps-not-so-innocent suspect with freak-out brother, bad behaviour in the interview room, that sort of thing. Think those grey-and-white Scandinavian crime stories; think The Fall or Top of the Lake.
But that’s not what makes the play, which cut a swathe trough the London and New York theatre awards a decade go, sing. Its writer, Martin McDonagh, has a trick or two up his sleeve, and the result, while enjoyably unpleasant, is more Grimm than merely grim.

Hail, Hail Rock and Roll

It was 60 years ago today,
Bill Haley taught the band to play,
It's been going in and out of style,
But it's guaranteed to raise a smile...

(Curiously, April 11, 1954, the day before Mr Haley and his sidekicks changed the world forever, has been determined to be the most boring day in the 20th century link here. Even more co-incidentally, the day before that, April 10, 1954, has a great deal of significance, especially for your humble correspondent...)