ENTERTAINMENT
FLANAGAN’S KAPUT AFTER SELL-OUT SHOWS TOURING ACROSS FOUR CONTINENTS, SELFPROCLAIMED ‘ELEGANT BUFFOON’ TOM FLANAGAN RETURNS TO THE BRUNSWICK PICTURE HOUSE WITH HIS AWARDWINNING SHOW KAPUT! Described as ‘physical comedy at its best’, Kaput! revives the art of silent movie-esque slapstick and has picked up countless awards across the world. This sweet family show has melted hearts of all ages with its glorious brand of slapstick, acrobatics and total silliness.
laugh. The day I figured out I could get paid for it was the cherry on top.
How much training do you need to do each week to keep your fitness and form as an acrobat? Far too much! As a child in the Flying Fruit Fly Circus I trained five days a week from the age of six. If you add up every hour I spent learning new skills, practising and then performing them, I think it would equal more time than I’ve spent on anything else, including eating, and I love eating. My favourite thing is to be performing every day so I don’t need to train; that is my happy place: being among the mayhem and making people happy.
Mum just hoped that one day I would stop doing double backsaults off the roof of the house. She got her wish; now I just do them off a ladder while holding a bucket of glue (maybe a spoiler from Kaput!). What advice would you have for young aspirants in the circus field? Work hard. Respect your elders. Have a healthy amount of fear. Most importantly: have fun. Why is there such camaraderie in your industry? From the outside looking in, it always looks like a big funky family.
The ‘circus industry’ is generally called the ‘circus community’ to us. For me, the thing that keeps the community so Does a time come when you think: I close is the equality; the person bangam too old for this, I might pop a hip? ing in tent poles is just as important as Ummm, every day since I was 12. the ringmaster; the amateur is just as looked after as the professional; every So what is an Elegant Buffon? What has been the most remarkable body type, every skill level. Everyone in It’s an oxymoron, like me! Come see thing about your career, do you think? the circus has their place and everyone is Kaput! and I’ll tell you all about it… withrespected. One of the coolest thing my career has out speaking. Someone once wrote this aff orded me is the opportunity to travel about me in a review and it has definitely What should we expect for your with my work. My life is never dull and I stuck. I believe it has something to do upcoming show? have made incredible friends all around with my managing to make being an idiot into a professional pursuit. Think of the world. For instance, last year I was in You know how a Pixar film can entertain the hell out of your little ones but manhow elegant the classic slapstick clowns Hong Kong performing Kaput!, learning Cantonese and eating the best hot-pot ages to make you giggle at jokes that fly such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster soup in the world one minute, and the right over your kids’ heads? That’s where Keaton were in those old silent movies. Kaput! works the best. It’s one hour of next I had to quickly grow a beard and That’s what Kaput! is reviving: the simple get to London to perform with a Quebe- silent slapstick acrobatic madness that and universally engaging humour of cois circus troupe in a show called Barbu a five-year-old, a fifteen-year-old, a fiftybuffoonery. (it’s French for beard). No matter where year-old and ninety-five-year-old will I am, if I have my circus family I feel at adore. How did you start clowning? home. Mum says I’ve been a clown since day Saturday and Sunday at The Brunsone. For me I started honing my clownWhat did your mum hope you’d do wick Picture House at 2pm. Tickets on when you finished school? ing the minute I knew I could get a brunswickpicturehouse.com.
BEATLES NIGHT THIS SATURDAY AT THE BBCC
A FABLED OBJECT
Kathryn Jones will be one of the acts performing at the Byron Bay Community Centre on Saturday night for the BEATLES night Steinway piano fundraiser.
This week The BSA Project space features A Fabled Object: a smallobject show featuring the work of Marie J Engelsvold (Denmark), Lynda Draper, Susie Duggin, Marian Hosking, Peta Kruger, Sarah Lindner, Kate Tucker and Kat Shapiro Wood. The eight participating artists were invited to make any object that could fit through the door of the BSA Project Space.
She is joined by Gyan, Phil Emmanuel, Steve Passfield, Shai Shriki, Margaret Curtis, Guy Kachel, TropRock choir, Steve Russell, Tim Gaze, Joanne Petersen and David Leser & MC George Smilovici.
One of the exhibition curators, artist Susie Duggin, explains: ‘The artists brought together for this show are all long-held heroes of mine who work in the realm of the object and play with the line between object and sculptural painting. Most work across multiple media and materials and have put together their “fabled” objects that traverse the mythical and earthly and show the importance of story to enhancing a life well lived.’ Opens Friday at 6pm and runs until 4 October at the BSA Project Space, Byron School of Art, 112 Dalley St, Mullumbimby.
LAP IT UP FUNNY BIZ AT THE BREWERY Come one come all to witness the hilarity and the chaos that is Home Crafted Comedy and the Byron Bay Brewery. Emceed by local comedy mastermind Mandy Nolan, this night gets more and more hilarious as the acts keep lining up to have their five minutes of fame at the Byron Brewery. Witness them fly or crash, sink or swim on the stage of destiny. Do they win or lose? You be the judge and enjoy a home-crafted beer while you’re entertained by the comedy stars of tomorrow or of yesterday, as the case me be. Thursday at 8pm. Free.
40 September 20, 2017 The Byron Shire Echo
Switchboard Media Group is excited to release the one-and-only world premiere date for their adventure-travel reality TV series documentary The Lap of Tasmania, narrated by award-winning Australian actor Martin Sacks. The Lap of Tasmania is a documentary, following Dustin Hollick and Rhian Slapp, two ordinary fathers with the survival skills of well-trained house pets, on a two-week journey around Tasmania with not much more than the clothes on their backs. The rules are simple: no cash, no car, no technology and just 10 personal items each. These scruffy surfers from the east coast of Australia leave home to learn the secrets of a well-balanced life and aim to get back a connection with nature that has been lost with the advent of modern convenience. The one-hour screening will take place at The Byron Theatre on Thursday at 7pm. Q&A with the cast Dustin Hollick, Rhian Slapp, and director Angie Davis, following the screening. Tickets: $23.30* (Purchase online: http://www.byroncentre.com.au/)
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo