‘Armistice Day’ poignantly written by Noel O’Neill and powerfully directed by Valerie Dragojevic.

The scene is a down-market pub around 1950, with a bar and hardwood chairs and tables.

     The barman, Blackie (Rex Gray) announces ‘time’, but the two ex-servicemen have no thoughts of going home. They are waiting for their friend Davey (Phil Barnett), after all this is their annual get together to reminisce on their war years.

     As he sinks another whisky, Mick (David Partridge) recalls having his toes blown off, but for poor young, trembling Tommo (Travis McCurry) things are much worse, he has still not overcome his shellshock. When Davey arrives, with fury in his eyes, the conversation turns to an event that happened in the last few days of the war.

     Can their comradery be strong enough to get them through their psychological problems?

For those old enough to remember returning servicemen – from any war – we know their silence, the secrecy as to what actually happened, their character changes and often the inability to see the lighter side of life; Noel has once again hit the nail on the head, he has written a super script, with a huge depth to the four, perfectly conceived characters. Director Valerie has taken the cast, given them courage and guidance to enact the tremendous emotion and tension demanded. The performances were all outstanding, but a special mention must be given of Travis and Phil’s depiction of the suffering vets. A stunning play.

‘The Tip of the Spear’ is richly written monologue from the pen of James Forte. It is based on an actual army Glider Regiment’s mission in June 1944. It has been described as the most daring and clever piece of flying in the whole of World War ll as carried out by Staff-Sergeant Jim Wallwork, who died only a couple of years ago, aged 93.

The star of the play, Ray Egan, directs himself.

The scene is a local bar, just after a Veterans’ parade.

     An ex-army serviceman in a smart suit, proudly wearing his red service beret, and with a beer in hand, takes a seat at a pub table. With a wistful look on his face, he starts to relate the amazing story of his night mission to destroy Pegasus Bridge.

Ray is an extraordinary actor. Famous for his madcap ‘Dinner for One’; he now turns on the pathos, as with tears in his eyes, he recalled the ghastly happenings of that astonishing night. A magical performance.

‘Dolls from the Sky’ is a cleverly structured play, written from the heart by local playwright, Yvette Wall. It is then brought to life by director Mary Wolfla.

It is Australia in 1948; the scene is a comfortable sittingroom, with a three piece suite and coffee tables.

     Anna (Natalie Aung Than) is a widowed Polish emigrant, who has been the housekeeper – ‘and nothing more’ – for an ex-soldier, Tom Johnson (Andrew Watson), who each night, is still reliving his war memories.

     To help her mental state, Anna has asked the local priest if she can help clean the church each week. Snobbish, Miss Betty Brown (Kerry Goode) a ghastly bigot, is in charge of the roster and is sent around, with her assistant Margaret (Yvette Wall) to talk to Anna. Prudish Miss Brown detests this foreigner being on Australian soil; but Margaret, also a war widow, seems to have formed a bond with Anna.

     Will the friendship take an unexpected turn?

Yvette has written a deeply moving script. A tale that starts with the rich characters making the audience laugh and yet cringe at the same time. Award winning Kerry played an extremist, the type that were still commonly around even a few years ago. Then the mood changed to tragic drama, with this dynamic cast firing perfectly on all cylinders.

Magnificent performances that made you gasp at the tension within the house, and what a broken heart can do to a person. Luckily, we still had a few tissues left from the first play.

Often with short play productions, there is one good play with the other one or two sadly there to give a local author a chance to try out their first – sometimes, very average – play. On this occasion we had three, truly outstanding pieces of writing, cleverly directed and presented by three hugely talented casts. Not a weak link to be seen.

The middle play, is at the Old Mill for two nights only, before it moves over to the other side of the suburbs, Marloo on Greenmount Hill, where it will play for a couple of nights there.

You do not have many opportunities to see these plays, but cancel everything else to see them. An amazing night of theatre.

The original play has one male cast member and one female; this version has nine, but makes the play the best adaptation that I have seen. This nightmarish tale uses minimal set and maximum open space; however, real people have this time replaced the normal pseudo shapes and symbolic techniques representing the narrated imageries.

This ARENAarts 90-minute gothic, psychodrama has humour and suspense. It has been fraught with illness, double booking, but the troupe has battled on to give a wonderful production. It can be seen at The Latvian Centre (LC Theatre), 60 Cleaver Terrace, Belmont (plenty of free parking) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8.00 pm with performances until 18^th April.

Please note, NO performance on Easter Sunday or Monday.

The scene is contemporary, being based in and around a flat in Flaming Tree Grove, a down-market housing area. The sitting room on a 60 cms dais at the rear of the stage, and contains a coat stand, a standard lamp and a single comfortable armchair (design Louise Collins. Simon James). In front of the platform is a small white picket fence, suggesting the possible homely, secure atmosphere within; whilst at the rear, their sitting room wall is a stunning mural (Tim Prosser – carried onto the excellent poster by Aiden Carroll) filled with colour and confusion, a hint at the occupants’ minds.

At each side of the stage are more, smaller and lower podia, representing the flats and homes of the Moon family’s weird neighbours. The cast sat in their homes awaiting their turn. A child mannequin stands centre stage, wearing a red polka dot dress (a dress of full moons). Some great props from Linda Redman.

     A little girl (Angelina Aung Than) in a red polka dot dress stands on the stage apron and tells the audience that she is Ruby Moon, and the tale they are about to hear is like a fairytale (indeed heavily based on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’).

       The paranoid Sylvie Moon (Natalie Aung Than) is sitting at home and as usual, is filled with grief and tension. Many months ago, her young daughter had left their home to visit her Grandma, but had never reached her destination, a dilemma Sylvie has still not even started to come to terms with. When her distraught, but stable husband, Ray (Justin Crossley) staggers home clutching a broken umbrella, she is far too trapped in her never-ending cycle of grief, to even consider giving him a welcoming kiss. Neither of them can move on with their lives.

      For the thousandth time they decide to go over the facts. Someone in their street MUST have seen Ruby and so, frustrated by lack of police progress, they visit each eccentric neighbour in turn. The elderly Christian, Miss Doily (Giordarna Rigoli – most convincing as an old woman) and her beloved parrot, were first on the list. She hinted that beautiful Ruby might not have been as righteous as the parents think. Then came Sid Craven (Eamonn Skov – a complex character, perfectly portrayed) a tragic, lonely magician – but could he be a paedophile in clown’s clothing?

      Across the street lived Veronica Vale (Emily Theseira – tremendously tantalising) a sexy strumpet who was watched undressing each evening by her neighbour, an injured soldier, Sonny Jim (Luke Eastman – great chip on shoulder aggro). Near the end of Flaming Tree Grove cul-de-sac was their strange baby-sitter, Dawn (Claire Mosel – creepy) a troubled girl who related more worrying tales about Ruby. Almost as soon as Sylvie entered the home of scientist, Carl Ogle (Don Callison – powerful) she knew her troubles were coming to an end.

 The moody, dim lighting designed by Simon James, the realistic, delicate sound effects, recorded by Tim Prosser and operated by Joshua Harris, were subtle and most realistic giving true depth to the whole production.

I have not quite connected with previous versions of this superbly written, complex look at the private minds of grieving parents. However here, director Louise Collins assisted by Bradley Camm, has selected two, most convincing main actors who, by having given fantastic clarity to the parents’ minds and their schizophrenic mood swings, have really conquered the depth and complexity of this story. At times the audience may have been sitting confused as to what was going on, wondering will it ever make sense? However, in the end, everyone will have left ‘satisfied’ with a clear conclusion.

A very difficult play to stage but carried out by a tremendously strong team, acting in perfect harmony. Each player knew his or her character perfectly and truly brought the play to life.

An excellent piece of theatre, try to catch one of the last couple of nights.

This 130-minute, light-hearted comedy can be seen at the Garrick Theatre, 16 Meadow Street, Guildford each Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at 8.00 pm until Saturday 18^th December.

The action of the play takes place in 1948. It is set in the sitting room of a medical researcher’s home. The room has pale turquoise walls with an expensive, white, winged armchair and matching settee. The rear wall is a balcony overlooking the river and city.

The set was beautifully designed (Rodney Palmer and Lynda Stubbs), solidly built, and tastefully dressed, but unfortunately the ‘phone mouth piece had dropped out, and so the users spoke into space.

Even the massive cockroach that crawled the full height of the wall before taking off, liked the set. The actors never flickered – true courage.

       The maid, Betty (Belinda Djurdjevic) tidies up, whilst the smartly dressed, intelligent lady of the house, Clare Martin (Mary Murphy) is chatting to her best friend Isobel. The slightly neurotic and bossy, Isobel (Tayla Howard) is telling of her engagement to Nigel (Brendan Ellis), a scruffy self-employed artist.

      Clare explains how her husband, well-respected doctor, Sir Paul (Rhett Clarke) has returned home from a Cornish fishing trip with a disabled patient whom he wishes to have live in their house, rather than at the local hospital.

      The beautiful, longhaired patient, Miranda Trewella (Natalie Aung Than) it seems, is paralysed from the waist downwards, and so butler / chauffeur Charles (Rodney Palmer) has the task of carrying her into the house. Miranda flutters her eyelashes – that are longer than the finest Highland cow – as she flirts with all of the men. Jealous, Clare asks that Miranda be taken to her room, where she can be cared for by Nurse Carey (Christine Ellis), who is waiting, never suspecting for a second, the VERY strange events that will happen next.

The costumes (Lorna Mackie, Lynda Stubbs) were most stylish, perfect for the era and in Miranda’s case, superbly constructed. I heard Miranda’s statistics are 34-22-$34 a kilo.

The lighting on the city scene backdrop was a little poor, but with such a shallow stage, it is very difficult not to get the window frame shadows on the backcloth. However, the lighting effects for the storm were very good (Clayton Reichert) and the small amount of thunder good, but could have been further supplemented. Joshua Davies operated both the sound and lights skilfully.

The direction, by Rodney Palmer assisted by Lynda Stubbs, went very well, with the strong cast grasping their characters superbly. Natalie, Belinda, and Mary performed particularly well. Christine seemed to feel at home with the comedy genre, raising a few laughs.

The humour is subtle, but with some very dry lines. Plenty of chuckles throughout. A most pleasant night out. Recommended.