Millett Gets Last Word on 'Filch'

With Perth Fringe 2003 in full swing, it is now almost a year since the debate over 'Filch' - it won a major Fringe award last year, and everyone seemed to love it. Except Naomi Millett who wrote a scathing review of it in the West. Fringe participants gleefully burned this review in a public execution at the final party last year, and thought that was the end of it.

Not so.

Last night I received my February/March edition of Dance Australia, Australia's biggest, glossiest and most widely read national dance publication, which contained the annual Critic's Choice Survey, where all dance critics from around Australia submit their comments on the best and worst in dance for the past year.

This was Naomi Millett's entry under 'Most Maddening Event':
'Filch - fringe dance by Angus Cerini: unfocused calisthenics-based, expletive-ridden dance/theatre 'experiement' aiming (but failing) to highlight the struggles of the weak and preyed upon in society.'

This in a year when overriding (and I believe far more 'maddening') dance news included Ross Stretton's sacking from the Royal Ballet, and the Australian Ballet dragging out their tired and dated production of Spartacus in their anniversary year.

Who do we congratulate? Angus for clearly having such an overwhelming affect on one reviewer, or Naomi for her unaddressed, deep seated bitterness?

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