www.theatreguide.com.au Supporting live theatre in Adelaide PO Box 10278 [email protected] ADELAIDE BC SA 5000 ABN : 93 297 960 525 THE AUNTY JACK SHOW AND TELL Big Laugh Comedy Festival and Platypus Productions Nevada Corp Festival Theatre Review by Simon Slade It is easy to forget just how good "The Aunty Jack Show" was. Highlights occasionally shown on TV do not really do justice to the quality of the writing and are not able to put the show in its historical context. For many, the only thing they will know about the show is that there was a bloke in a dress - and in 2006 that is fairly unremarkable. Original creators Grahame Bond and Rory O'Donoghue have used a narrative style to make this an intimate show and tell, with some material performed live and some projected onto a screen. They take to the stage as themselves, providing an introduction for the five people in the audience who admitted that they had never seen an episode of "The Aunty Jack Show" and the two hundred who admitted that they could not remember anything about the show because they were too stoned when they watched it in the seventies. They take us through the genesis of their partnership and how it led to "The Aunty Jack Show." They also talk about some of their other work, particularly as jingle writers, and it clearly came as a revelation to many in the audience that these were the men responsible for the tunes we all associate with David Jones, Kimbies nappies, and others. They do this all so humbly, that they manage to mention that they wrote the music for the film "Fatty Finn" without mentioning that they got an AFI award for it! In reminding us that the people involved with the TV show included Peter Weir, Sandra MacGregor, Garry McDonald, and John Derum, they provide insight into the history of Australian entertainment. The first character McDonald developed for the show was Wollongong’s inept reporter Norman Gunston! This has been a mammoth undertaking - the master tapes of the original series were long since lost or recorded over and it looked as though the dream to use original tapes in the show could not be realised. But at last they were found around Australia on film and videotape, and the clips that are shown represent some great moments in Australian comedy. Costumes, too, have been painstakingly re-created from originals located in museums. Thankfully, the talents of Bond and O'Donoghue ensure that this is very much more than just a re- hashing of the TV show. .