AustLit

'Ageing, racism, sexual diversity, inclusion, acceptance - all wrapped up in peoples' secrets...

'Five senior Aussie men, four of them mates since war service, meet one morning each week in a gymnasium...they exercise together, chew the fat together about their families, laugh, tease and sing. They solve the problems of the world, agreeing to disagree. But some surprising and disturbing elements enter to test and challenge their comfortable relationships to one another and to the world around them. Secrets, differences and loss of trust threaten to destroy the long-established friendships.

'JIMMY, the jokester, worries about having something to leave his grand-daughter, and the real estate deal that LES sets up to help grow JIMMY's nest egg starts to look shonky in the face of LES's increasing forgetfulness - while old LES has to cope with losing his marbles. Conservative PATRICK suspects his mate of an affair and his confidence in the rightness of his own moral view is deeply shaken by Sar-major KEITH's revelations about the nature of his masculinity. Good-natured ribbing about old political sores becomes tense when newcomer STANLEY CHANG's enthusiasm to join the group ruffles everyone's feathers and exposes long-held prejudices. ROD, the youngest of the troupe, struggles to manage the discord:

'They begin to see that the vulnerability of one is the vulnerability of all - and commonality begins to re-assert itself. Seeing each other and themselves in a different light: they learn that 'difference' is more a matter of point of view; that you 'wouldn't be dead for quids'; and, no matter what - that you gotta laugh!'

Source: Codgers website, http://www.codgers.com.au/home.php
Sighted: 05/08/2008