Reviewed by Dave Smith
July 2013
The Tea Tree Players do a lot of things well. Developing young performers is certainly one of them. Furthermore, they retain them, often for many years. Consequently their youth and junior groups have a pleasing balance of experience. That was obvious in their production of 2061 A Space Idiocy, a comic, far-fetched space musical, co-directed by Penny and Michaela Phillips.
The cast generally handled the puns and corny sight gags with ease even when the audience didn’t quite get them. Other jokes were dead obvious, such as the ‘Show some guts’ line, and drew both laughs and good-humoured groans.
There were several impressive performances. The cleaning ladies, Ethel and Hazel, played by Zach Taylor and Rhiannon Shapcott set the mood with life and humour. Ethan Dight was solid as the Captain, as was Lachlan Blackwell as Spook. Kelly Campbell looked and sounded the part as Princess Barbie, while Joshua Brownlie as SPC, Jeremy Smith as IXL and Coby Hefford as Homebrand were lively and funny.
Caleb Bond stood out as the irritating Spotsworth. His voice, nervous energy and mannerisms were reminiscent of Frank Spencer and he had a similar effect on the audience. His was a very capable and confident performance.
The choruses worked well, especially the Silver Androids who were well rehearsed. The recorded music was well balanced with the voices which, refreshingly enough, did not need amplification for either individual or ensemble singing.
In all, the Tea Tree Players did well with this breezy musical comedy.
