The Grenade

‘The Grenade’ is a hilarious dark comedy by Tony McNamara. It finished its run at the Playhouse Theatre in Melbourne on Saturday the 15^th May.

       When business advisor, Busby McTavish (Garry McDonald) returns home one evening to his palatial dwelling, he finds in the centre of the sitting room floor a grenade – luckily, the pin is still in situ. Who could possibly wish to kill him? Well according to his business associate Whitman (Mitchell Butel) almost everyone!

       Busby questions his second wife, author Sally (Belinda Bromilow) and his whiz kid daughter Lola (Eloise Mignon) but they cannot shed any light on the grenade’s appearance.

       Despite being 16, Lola has never been kissed and so to add to Busby’s troubles, she sets out to explore sex, and who better than with another class genius, the weird Wheat (Gig Clarke).

      Sally has writer’s block and so enlists the help of young, handsome, Randy Savage (Jolyon James) writer of erotic novels and soldier of the universe. Busby is now totally distraught. When their 6 months old baby starts speaking Esperanto, what is happening to his household?

       Could it be that Busby’s first wife Kerry (Genevieve Picot) harbours a grudge?

Normally I wouldn’t review a show that has closed, but there were several points that are worth a mention. I saw the second last show of the run, a matinee, both of which are often the poorest shows. This performance, however, was filled with vitality. Everyone was tuned in and giving their very best. Director Peter Evans has built on a hilarious script and produced a fast moving side-cracking play. Will it come to Perth? Perhaps when the new theatre opens, as the technical demands of the set are beyond those presently available in Perth.

WAAPA’s ex-Head of Design (Richard Roberts) has designed the most amazing combination of sets. He has seven rooms / areas arranged in a circle, with the revolving stage taking us to each room in turn.  Richard won a Green Room award for one of his sets about 10 years ago, who knows will he do it again this year? He certainly deserves to.

Then there is WAAPA’s Gig Clarke, wonderful as the expressionless Wheat, the kind of peculiar boy every girl’s parent dreads. Another two WAAPA talents were Jolyon James who was uproarious as the smooth lecherous writer, along with Belinda Bromilow as the loving loyal wife. Belinda co-ran a theatrical training course in WA for teenage hopefuls.

We often hear the cry in WA of ‘why do we let East Coasters pinch our theatrical parts?’ be assured we have plenty of WA scene-stealers over there too.

A star-studded, riotous production.