Tina Arena: Unchained
We could all learn a lot from Tina Arena. Her perspectives are so profound that...
Lorrae Desmond Loves You
Lorrae Desmond loves the gays.
“I think a gay man has a lot more going for him than your ordinary bloke. They are a lot more understanding and appreciate of many of the things I love, like music and theatre.”
Speaking with the amazingly talented performer who we all remember as A Country Practice’s, Shirley Gilroy, would probably best be conducted over several cocktails. Lets face it, with a career that spans over fifty years, the lady has some fabulous yarns to tell.
These days, Desmond has come full circle. With a career that started in cabaret in over forty years ago, she is a performer who has never really left the live stage. Even during her nine year run on Aussie television, Desmond would perform nightly with her one woman show in Parramatta after a long day’s shoot.
Desmond’s career started with her U.K variety show Swing Along With Lorrae which catapaulted her onto English television. After an incredibly successful run of two prime time television show there, Desmond returned to Australia to star in The Lorrae Desmond Show.
Over the next 25 years Desmond would perform in both television and on the stages of the world.
“My most comfortable place ever was cabaret, it’s a place I most understand,” she says.
Her current play Honey is adapted from Bryce Courtenay’s Smokey Joe’s Café, a book with which Desmond has a remarkably strong connection.
“When I read the book six years ago, I realised I had met almost every character in there,” she says.
The book and play’s main characters are all Vietnam veterans, many of whom Desmond entertained during her six trips to Vietnam during the war.
Honey, as Lorrae describes it, is a play with music. When Thommo returns from Vietnam, nothing is quite the same. Like so many of his mates, he can’t seem to settle back into civilian life. His fairy-tale marriage to Wendy is turning grim and his little girl needs a bone-marrow transplant. Only some unconventional intervention from his mates and an ex-Viet Cong with ‘special skills’ can turn things round. Passionate men, hell-bent on justice, this bunch of larrikins work an intricate – if not entirely legal – scheme to raise money to help out.
Set against the factual background of 1970s political unrest, Honey is an intoxicating mix of mateship, humour and original music.
After writing the play a few years ago, Desmond had originally put together a cast of sixteen, which she fine-tuned to the current cast of ten. Having Bryce Courtenay’s blessing on the adaptation of his work was incredibly valuable to Desmond. “Bryce has been an amazing support, the man is divine… and not a bad catch either,” she jokes.
All About
Your Thoughts
Hey there, you need to be logged in to get involved with SameSame, click here to login if you're already a member, or here if you need to become a new member.
alikat
said ages ago