Miracle Man

‘Miracle Man’ is a fascinating and hilarious act devised by Melbourne based Nicola Gunn and Pier Carthew.  Nicola Gunn, who last year presented one of the Blue Room’s biggest successes ‘Hello, my name is …’ also won a Best Solo Award at the Edinburgh Festival. Pier has over the years been in such heavy performances as ‘City Homicide’, ‘Bikie Wars’, Shakespeare and ’Waiting for Godot’ but now he is proving himself in the ‘madness’ category with this one-man show.

The Blue Room Theatre Summer Nights and the award-winning company Sans Hotel present this unique and surreal satire. These 60-minutes of levity can be experienced at The Blue Room Theatre Studio, Perth Cultural Centre, 53 James Street, Northbridge each night at 7.30 until Saturday 16^th February.

The dimly lit stage is empty except for a chair and a table. A couple of crock-pots bubble away.

       Born into a family of flower power hippies, Derek was brought up by his parents to admire the works and worship Indian guru, a mystic and lover of the arts, Sri Sathya Sai Baba - a reincarnation of Sai Baba of Shirdi, a guru who claimed to be God's avatar (a saint and miracle worker).

      Onto the stage walked a tall, thin bashful man dressed in a T-shirt and shorts. He has the luminous glow and smile of a born again Christian; however, Derek is a follower of Sai Baba. With an almost childlike enthusiasm, Derek shares the intriguing collection of treasures that he gathered on a recent trip to India to meet Sai Baba.

     Derek tells us how he turned from the love of Goldie Hawn to admire his guru.

     We learn of the unique way that Derek was offered to travel to India. Then the many interesting people that he met on the way, including the selection of crooks and conmen, through to his roommate, the Aryan German, Ulrich.

     Some of the audience may be shocked when gullible Derek describes his experience that sadly is now commonplace with some religious leaders.

As a postscript, when Sai Baba died in 2011, on cricketer Tendulkar’s birthday, the sportsman cancelled his game. Sai Baba in his lifetime built hospitals that looked like the Taj Mahal, sports grounds, sanitation works and universities and yet still he left a staggering $8 million.  In his ‘palace’ was found a massive amount of cash, 500 pairs of shoes and hundreds of cans of hairspray for his afro hairdo.

Director Nicola Gunn has guided Pier perfectly through this massive one-man marathon. This is the solo act that I have enjoyed most in this year’s Fringe. As his story unfolds, the audience sat in silence eagerly awaiting the next well-observed insight into Indian life. Pier’s accent and mannerisms were amazing. The presentation was accompanied by a collection of photos and videos that produced several laugh aloud moments. There was even a fun song to send us home.

Another packed house. Congratulations to Pier and Nicola for giving us such an enjoyable and very different performance.