Squizzy

Squizzy
Barry Dickins
At La Mama
Until 24 June

You know, there’s a lot of old guys in the Melbourne theatre who spend a lot of time telling us how great things were back in the Pram Factory days. Phooie I say to them usually. Only I tend to say it a lot less politely and in the comfort and safety of my own home. Well, me ol mate Barry Dickins and me other not so old but still kinda old mate Greg Carroll are a bit prone to golden days syndrome too on occasion, though not always. They’re just as liable to tell you how shit everything was back then and how such and such playwright was an arsehole no matter what the history books say.

They’re also two of the only guys left from that generation, keeping the spirit of the pram burning, kickin it live and keeping it real at spring break y’all. Woooh.

Squizzy is about the closest thing I think we’ll see to what things were like back in those days, and judging by the amount of grey hair that made it’s way into the Courthouse on a cliché cold Melbourne night , I reckon I’m probably right. A rambunctious, ramshackle, vaudevillian performance of mobster horror from the streets of Fitzroy and Carlton. The Chopper of his day, Squizzy Taylor, gangster and psychopath is a loveable rouge like Sweeny Todd or Macheath. Syd Brisbane is spectacular as Squizzy, surely one of his best performances in years, and Sean Barker, nearly unrecognizable in his new blonde hair, earns that horrible reviewer statement, “he’s one to watch.”

These days there’s so much focus on the new, “young” independent theatre mob, that it’s easy to let the guys from the Pram slip into legend and memory. With Squizzy, Greg and Barry once again prove that there’s still a couple of the old farts out there, who’ve still got enough steam to blow.