FREDA DU FAUR CA 1895. GEORGE MANNERING PHOTOGRAPH CANTERBURY MUSEUM

One of the best pieces of theatre i’ve seen was in Natimuk Frinj back in November 2015.

I was in town working with Sam Downing and Leonie Van Eyk on the B.A.R.E. Body Appliance Revival Experience, and my friend Tim Ratcliffe was playing in “The Freda Experience“. His play was getting all the buzz around the festival, everyone was talking about it, and one morning at 7am i found out exactly why that was.

When we arrived, we were sorted into groups and given our climbing equipment for the day. We were now in the early 1900’s being trained to undertake a basic climb, clipping ourselves into a chain of climbers. Freda herself came in the room to have a discussion with the trainer, as there was some concern about an unmarried woman being accompanied on the climb by a man, and also about the nature of her attire.

This was an immersive theatrical experience, where one group hiked around to the reading group and another to the lecture; where we all ended up in a giant projection which moved from the walls of the mental institution to the huge tents of a mountain-bound camping party.

They’d developed the play in Castlemaine for the State Festival, but Natimuk was the perfect location for its second outing, given the climbing history of that place.

The production was magical and inspiring, heart-breaking and confounding; Freda was well known in New Zealand where she was the first woman to climb several peaks, and the first human to climb others. In Australia however, it seems possible she was written out of the history books because of her sexuality. 

As the show finished, i didn’t want to leave, but i was invigorated to continue my festival day at 9am on a Sunday in this tiny enchanted country town.

Jim Coad’s put up a video about the creative back-story to the play:

http://madeinnatimuk.com/thefredaexperience/

It was so much fun to be involved in Tim and Sam’s radio show. The whole process of choosing songs, trying to find stories for each of them, burning them to CD.. and then driving off without the CD. As we were leaving Elphinstone, Tim drove off without an essential set of headphones. Then we got caught behind a learner driver, already behind schedule. Ah yes.. all part of the adventure.

The open mic can be a little terrifying.. even though we suspect there’s an audience of somewhere between 1-6 people. However these two wonderful people do their very best to make their guest feel comfortable. They are hilarious together, and are building up such a lovely new radio show.. i heartily recommend you listen in (fortnightly Wednesday evenings, wmafm.com).

Okay, here’s the set list i finally selected for Tim and Sam’s Junk City. Read the rest of this entry »

Been listening to Tim and Sam on Castlemaine community radio. They have a delightful session of stories about melancholy and joy, called Junk City. Each fortnight a guest will come on and talk about their top 5 songs in each category, songs that moved you or touched you in some way. Helen’s an artist in Castlemaine, and i loved her choices of Cat Empire, Paul Kelly’s Billy Baxter and yes Tim Deee-lite Groove is in the Heart.

..and now they’ve asked me to join them. The show is coming up: 9:00-11:00 pm AEST Wednesday 21 September. [you can stream live at

One of the highlights of the Castlemaine festival was the Baroqu-eoke performance, “So you think you can Prance”. This was a very fun event. We’d seen them dressing up in the early part of the day, and i was looking forward to finding out more. The costumes were magnificent, as were the instruments and their players. Genuine harpsichord, viol-de-gamba, mediaeval flute and fiddle.

For the first part of the show, the MC taught us a range of emotional expression, Baroque-style. When expressing emotions in the world of Baroque (restoration?) one must always place the weight on one foot or the other. Never evenly balanced.

After teaching us the basics, we were asked to dance these emotions to a series of classic karaoke numbers: Dancing Queen, Don’t you Want me Baby? and You Should be Dancing. Classic! At one point, there were no volunteers for the karaoke, so Tim in his role as Barry Fluff the festival host pointed at Sam and me, calling out, “They’ll do it! Choose those two!” Nice one Tim – clearly we were being too shy. Sam and i belted out a raucous version of ‘Don’t you want me baby’, and were awarded a free jug of Pimms next door at Madame Brussels. Sam mentioned later on that perhaps we might have attempted to sing in a more refined way, however i’d been following the lead of the “Village Idiot” character who would sing in the most tuneless and hopeless way.

Tim made a quick video, you’ll get the idea. Oh boo, it doesn’t work. Why not? Oh well you’ll have to go over to their site to watch it.