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Henry takes to bein’ a Cockney “HALPERN & Johnson”? It sounds like the name of a British comedy duo. And, in fact, the origins of this play by former London hairdresser Lionel Goldstein are not all that far from stand-up, as I find when I talk to actor Henry Szeps. Szeps is a household name in Australia because of his role as the oily dentist brother to Garry McDonald in the long-running ABC TV series “Mother and Son”, later captured in his one-man travelling show “I’m Not a Dentist.” Now he’s back on stage with his old sparring partner, “Gaz”, in a role he played two-and-a-half years ago at the Ensemble, but which has taken until now to get up for touring. It tickles him that he gets to play the part of the Cockney Jewish widower Halpern, played by Laurence Olivier in 1982 with Jackie Gleason as the (Catholic) London toff that Garry McDonald now plays. “It’s a fabulous story and very lifelike.”
Choirs raise their voices
By arts editor Helen Musa Briefly, Szeps plays a man who is surprised to find he is not the only mourner at his wife Florence’s grave. Szeps plainly loves Goldstein’s dialogue, but says it was hard enough to learn in the first place and all the more irritating to have to learn it again. “It’s such an unusual play where people don’t always finish their lines… the actors and directors have to do a lot of hard work to find out which part of the play it actually comes from, it’s breathtaking,” he says. “The situation is that this elegant toff with a bunch of flowers comes and wants to put the flowers on the grave of my wife. I tell him to move on but he says: ‘I do know your wife’.” The two end up having a picnic.
Henry Szeps, left, and Garry McDonald… together again. Szeps says that the level of misunderstanding in the play is “quite Shakespearean”, but more he will not reveal. “Buy a ticket!” Szeps advises. Szeps has played on stage with McDonald once before, briefly, in the Mamet play “Glengarry Glen Ross”, coincidentally during the week in 2002 that Ruth Cracknell
(the mother in “Mother and Son”) died. Weird, he says. “Our relationship is not as two brothers, but I feel a similarity… I see the men vying for mum’s attention, in this case that of my dead wife Flo.” “Halpern & Johnson”, The Playhouse, August 3-7, bookings to 6275 2700.
By Shereen Charles THE Australian National Eisteddfod does more than just bring choirs from all over Australia together in competition, said director Dianne Anderson. It also empowers the young and rising talents with self-confidence, she said. The annual Australian National Eisteddfod choirs division will light up the stage at Llewellyn Hall on August 13 and 14. “Primary school students get a thrill entering the competition. A lot of the time, students may not be good at sports, or academics, while in school, so they don’t have self-confidence,” she told “CityNews”. “But, when they take part in the Eisteddfod, to be able to perform, it gives them a new-found confidence.” To date, the competition has 23 choirs including choirs from all over Canberra and interstate such as Canberra Girls Grammar School, Sunbury Divas from Victoria, The Canberra Chordsmen, and Radford College. Anne Williams returns this year with Dr Debra Shearer-Diriéas to adjudicate. The primary school sections will be held on Friday, August 13 from 9.30am, while the championship sections for participants 12 years and under and 19 years and under will start at 6pm. On the Saturday, the competition will feature championship sections for the open choirs. “Each year, we get so many different choirs coming to join the competition. I hope that we will be able to hold the competition over more than two days in the future,” she said. “My aim for the Eisteddfod is to make it the best choral in Australia.” The Australian National Eisteddfod, Llewellyn Hall, August 13-14, tickets at the door.
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