Magical Geographies.

There is a similarity there is between a public consultation and a kindergarten play-group. So I reflected recently, while attending the Inner West Precinct Transport and Parking Plan "Have Your Say!" consultation. Stick-on postits, texta pens of various colours, and the little sticky stars and dots scattered over the tables for us to get busy with.

The grim reality is that traffic and parking questions are lose - lose, rather than win-lose situations .  And so we are encouraged to slap our  postits over a magical geography of wishful thinking, while the actuality of a 19th century street layout, and a Government-installed council determined to re-create a 19th century amenity, are politely ignored.  A street without parking, or curbs, or footpaths - this is the magical lane-way to a new urbanism, whose houses where possible are faced away into plasmic wide-screened interiors. Community becomes a matter of branding for pop-up dual-income workers, dreaming only of escape, and amenity  an uncertain expectation of future capital gain.

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2015

REVIEW: The 53^rd Parliament.

Location: corner North Terrace and King William street

FREE, limited seats.

Only occassional surprises are on offer from this years show, which is perhaps inevitable given a format which has over the centuries become a venerable institution. Two teams of stand-up comics battle it out with improvized scripts – a tag team Punch and Judy.

Playing an understated Punch this year, Jay Weatherill fails to ignite much zing from a similarly laid-back Judy in Steven Marshall.

“The Speaker” Michael Atkinson has some success interjecting new material – the rebuking of one cast member for not genuflecting at her entrance onstage being my favorite. But these are few and far between. Naming another cast member for blasphemy – a reference perhaps to the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre – seemed gratuitous.

I suspect the show could be sharpened up with a little more focus from the “The Treasurer” – Tom Koutsantonis, and the “Lord High Executioner” played by John Rau. Given the suspension of belief on the part of the yesterdays audience, who was named and thrown out onto the pavement by The Speaker, these two key players need to cut back on the private jokes amongst themselves if attendances are to improve.