Urinetown

As flagged yesterday, we headed off yesterday evening to a performance of the musical Urinetown, which is having a 2-week season here in Armidale.


The performance was held in the plush theatre owned by Armidale's answer to Eton College, The Armidale School. This is a top-flight GPS (Anglican) boarding-school with fabulous facilities, and they must have blinked hard when they discovered they were throwing open their doors to a musical revolving around class struggle over the use of a toilet block. I suggest you Google Urinetown to bone up on the plot.


Surprisingly, the performance compared very well with the cast of the Broadway musical we saw just two years ago in New York, despite the fact that the entire cast, orchestra, and stage crew were amateurs - indeed everyday colleagues or contacts ... like one of my doctors who conducted the orchestra. The vocals were generally very good; the sets and lighting spectacular - great use of colour; the performance fast-paced; the choreography high class. Perhaps those involved should trade in their day-time jobs and ship their production to Sydney ... or Broadway?

So, it was yet annother compelling performance directed by George Torbay ... and I wonder what comes in the second half of this year. The last one, my readers may recall, was Titanic!

I attach a few rather grainy photos which I had to take without flash in a semi-dark auditorium.

AS