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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Intimate revue.
One of the Phillip Theatre company's most successful revues, A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down even found its title becoming an Australian popular culture expression. The production comprised thirty odd sketches located in two sets: one a cold, chintz-hung London bedsit and the other a bronze-decor, low-slung, international hotel room. The first act looked at Australians abroad, while the second half examined them at home.
The skits included Reg Livermore as a juvenile pop singer and a curly-headed folknik; Kevan Johnston as an abnormally normal teenager and as secret agent James Bond; Gloria Dawn as a theatre party organiser; and Ruth Cracknell as a duffle-coated jet traveller, an English duchess, a long-suffering mum, and a star-struck housewife. The finale to the evening's entertainment was a satire on the 'Mad Scene' from Lucia di Lammermoor.
Notes
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This production marked the first time that John McKellar wrote the entire show, apart from the music for the songs. Sydney Morning Herald theatre critic Romola Costantino wrote of McKellar's role in the revue that it was 'a remarkable feat of single-handed authorship on a sustained level of wit and neat topical gagging' (20 September 1965, p.7).
Production Details
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1965: Phillip Theatre, Sydney, 18 September 1865 - 3 September 1966.
- Producer William Orr (for Phillip Productions); Design Robert Lloyd.
- Cast Gloria Dawn, John Ewart, Reginald Livermore, Ruth Cracknell, Kevan Johnston, Judith Roberts, Donald MacDonald, Barbara Wyndon.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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New Revue Opens at Phillip
1965
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 20 September 1965; (p. 7)
— Review of A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down 1965 single work musical theatre
-
New Revue Opens at Phillip
1965
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 20 September 1965; (p. 7)
— Review of A Cup of Tea, a Bex and a Good Lie Down 1965 single work musical theatre
PeriodicalNewspaper Details
This entry has been sourced from on-going historical research into Australian-written music theatre being conducted by Dr Clay Djubal.
Details have also been derived in part from Peter Pinne's 2005 article 'It Didn't Always Have to Close on Saturday Night' (Part 3).
