Talk to The Hand a Success

    At a small theatre, near the train station at Coniston, there was theatrical magic. It was Short and Sweet Illawarra Week 2. It ran from Thursday 2nd to Saturday the 4th of December. All these plays were expected to be shown earlier in the year but, thanks to the pandemic, that was not possible.

    Talk to The Hand was among the plays and, thanks to director Gabriela Gonzales and actors Matt Bonnici and Michelle Phillips, it got a lot of laughs. As a writer, I couldn't have asked for a better crew to bring my vision of hands that do talk to life. 

     One of the other plays that was staged I took a liking to was Clean Swap, a comedy about a street robbery that goes wrong. In it both Molly Turton and Johnny Chamberlain give great performances. 

      Another was Press Pray, about a woman seeking guidance in a church and encountering a call centre that drives her crazy. It stared Jasmin Shojai as the distressed woman and Toryn Biester as the prayer centre voice.  

     Socialite Networking I didn't take to Thursday night, but thought it ran really well on the Saturday. Set in the 1930s, it is about the rich and the want to be famous. It is a selfish world in which only fame matters. It starred Georgina Reed, Isabella Franklin and Tom Hadley.

      My sister, who saw Thursday night's performances with me, concluded that Spell it Out, starring Sally Evans, Ihaka Jones, Barbara Weir and Gabriela Gonzalez, was definitely worth a mention. The build up was slow but once it got going it was indeed great. It was about a woman who has the compulsion to spell everything out, a strange psychiatrist, a friendly nut job and a waitress  unhappy with her work.

       My only regret with the staging of Talk to The Hand is that it only ran for three nights. It would have been wonderful if it had gone on for two weeks. Even so, with three nights of very few empty seats, and an audience finding humour in Talk to The Hand, I did alright.

 TALK TO THE HAND and Other delights!

   After much wondering if my play, in Short and Sweet, will ever be seen this year, it is now officially to be shown in early December at the Phoenix Theatre in Coniston, not far from Coniston train station. This is a fun play where hands do most of the talking.

      Friend Lyn McConchie, who has over thirty books under her belt, now has a new one  out through publisher Barbara Custer. Lyn is accomplished in many fields. Her farm and her understanding of animals, including horses and humans, does feature in much of her work including her Sherlock Holmes books. She has a vast understanding of weaponry and of how they are used. How does a society end and how to rebuild? Good questions asked by Lyn and answered. 

     Dragon Queen making headway. A few more reviews would come in handy. It is science fiction in which the dragons are human mutations with scale and tails. There is the quest for a better life. 

     Apparently people like the cover of Second-Hand Creeps and the artist responsible has received an award. Sales for this anthology have been particularly good in Canada. I have a short story in here I am quite proud of. 

   Here is an anthology Lyn McConchie talked me into contributing to some years ago. I have a number of stories within but Lyn remains the supreme cat lover. 

     Here we have unusual street art atop one of the towers of the old coke works at Corrimal. The coke works is being considered for redevelopment. This will mean lots of new homes and the possibility of traffic jams of a morning and of an afternoon along Railway Street, Corrimal, NSW, Australia. A second road to take the strain off of Railway Street in the future has been proposed. Will this be enough? Only time will tell. 

     Here we have two Galahs photographed in Corrimal. And so birding continues.

 

30th of May 2021

TALK TO THE HAND

Talk to the hand will be part of 

Short and Sweet Illawarra in July 

Second-Hand Creeps is out.

My faithful editor, Kiki!