AustLit
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Intimate review.
In a Sydney Morning Herald review theatre critic L. B. writes:
'Bats? The five performers certainly were. They variously pretended to be Metro-Goldwyn's lion, the sphinx, a cuckoo cucking more than it cooed, an eaves-dropping palm from the pot plant in the foyer, ballerinas from 'Swan Bog', an elephant with a lost memory, and Noel Coward [played by Ronald Frazer] summing up La Peruse with rhymes like 'lubra' and 'Maroubra' to keep him in character'.
Other sketches included an expose on social climbing, a slapstick tooth-drilling scene and a brawl with a one-armed bandit (Lyle O'Hara), Jill Perryman as both a honky tonk siren and a sophisticate singing the praises of igloo-life in Alaska, and Alton Harvey as both a paranoiac lout from the Deep South and a frightfully pukka Governor Phillips at Sydney Cove in 1788 (2 October 1958, p.7).
Notes
-
As with most of the Phillip Street revues, Bats was a collaborative effort. The Sydney Morning Herald indicates that 'seven of the [company's] usual scribes wrote the lyrics', while the music was written by Dot Mendoza, with additional music by two others (2 October 1958, p.7).
Production Details
-
1958: Phillip Street Theatre, Sydney, 1 October 1958 - 2 May 1959.
- Producer/Director William Orr.
- Cast Lyle O'Hara, Jill Perryman, Alton Harvey, John Bluthal, Ronald Frazer.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
'Bats!' Opens at Phillip Street
1958
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2 October 1958; (p. 7)
— Review of Bats 1958 single work musical theatre
-
'Bats!' Opens at Phillip Street
1958
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 2 October 1958; (p. 7)
— Review of Bats 1958 single work musical theatre
