The Canberra Playhouse Nov 29.
Someone had said they were in fine fettle. Wandered along to
the Playhouse to check up on their Near Death Experience. Sure, Tim Ferguson’s in a wheelchair
and Richard Fidler’s off working for what’s left of the ABC and Paul
Livingston’s Flacco is replacing him and Paul McDermott is rejoicing in finally
being the tallest member of the Doug Anthony All Stars but that’s age and the
wheel of time, Of which we were reminded by the odd film clip of the DAAS in
much younger days.
The place was pretty well packed with the no-longer-kids of
the 80s and the stalls were lit up because there was filming going on. At one
stage someone shouted out the name of Café Boom Boom, the theatre café in
Narrabundah that used to host the Dougs back in the 1980s but Paul suppressed
them swiftly.
The mysterious Flacco introduced the show in what felt like near
silence, (although he actually said quite a lot) arranging and rearranging his
feet and his direction to the audience. Hysterical how funny something like
this, involving precision timing, can be.
Then sardonic Paul came in and then Tim, away with the
pixies as ever and even more so now, and the mixture was as comfortingly
shocking as we expected. Paul bullied Tim, Tim smiled vaguely, Flacco looked on
superciliously and they all made music and mayhem like a pack of fallen angels.
Melancholy, but they were always melancholy.
Near death? Never.
Alanna Maclean
