The Swimming Club Review

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 , Posted by Should I See It at 11:08 PM


Show: The Swimming Club
Presented By: Melbourne Theatre Company
Directed By: Kate Cherry
Starring: Tina Bursill, Caroline Gillmer, Megan Holloway, Nicholas Papademetriou, Angela Punch McGregor, Igor Sas and John Waters.
Plot: In 1983, six friends were without a care in the world, spending one glorious summer together working and loving on a Greek island. Now that they are middle-class, Middle-aged, mid -career and mortgaged to the hilt, do they really want to carry all their burderns halfway around the world for a reunion?
Date Reviewed: Wednesday 10th February, 8pm.


The Swimming Club is the first play in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2010 season. It’s a new work from Aussie playwright Hannie Rayson, and unfortunately it’s not as strong as it should be.

Here are all the nice things that I have to say The Swimming Club: So it's great that Australian playwrights are getting work, and Australian actors are getting work putting on the plays that they have written.

And that’s about it.

Well, to be fair, there are a couple of good performances.

Caroline Gillmer gives one of the best performances of the night as Bird Rossitor. She is understated, realistic, and gives probably the most well rounded performance. Tina Bursill as travel writer Laura is good too, even though her 'Canadian' accent is a bit all over the shop. Newcomer Megan Holloway as teenager Sappho is also impressive. I look forward to seeing her spread her wings in years to come. And John Waters proves why he is one of Austalia’s best actors.

Matt Scott also provides some beautiful lighting. The scenes where the characters are swimming in the sea are particularly impressive. Actually, thanks to the lighting, those are the only scenes were you are actually transported into the story, as opposed to feeling like you are watching a play.



Now for the not so nice things.

As previously mentioned, The Swimming Club is a new play by Hannie Rayson. I have not seen any of Ms Rayson’s previous works, so I had no preconceptions going into the show; only high expectations.

This play doesn’t quite work for me: the first act and the second act seem at odds with each other. The first act uses a lot of different narrative techniques (jumping back and forward in time, monologues etc) to fill the audience in all he back story. While it is quite jarring for the first five to ten minutes, the play soon settles into its own rhythm. Then the second act uses a linear timeline to tell the rest of the story. It is strange coming out of the creativity of the first act, and is probably why act two looses a lot of its momentum.

In Act Two, the characters are older, but certainly not any wiser. Apart from Dave (John Waters) they don’t seem to have developed much in twenty five years. The characters are mostly cliché any way. Sappho I your typical ‘rebellious’ teenager, who rebels against her parents and their upper- middle class lifestyle by becoming a goth, taking ecstasy and dating a Muslim Emo (okay, so that last part is unique). Then there’s Kate who’s having an affair. Bird was left by her husband for a younger woman, and then gets breast cancer and has to fight it on her own.

And don’t even get me started on Nikos: the token gay man who is in love with Laura!?! Don’t get me wrong, Nicholas Papademetriou did a decent job, but I have no idea what the character was doing in the play. He was undefined, had no arc and no development.



As for the Plot: Greek islands- wedding- old lovers reunite…. This play is pretty much just a whacked up version of Mamma Mia, without the songs. Whenever the girl in the white dress appeared on stage I half expected it to be Amanda Seyfried and for her to burst into a chorus of ‘Honey Honey.’ I wish I could say it was like Mamma Mia without the dancing, but unfortunately there are a couple of times where the cast breaks out into some really bad Greek dancing (trust me, that’s a couple of times too many).

The constant references to 'The Swimming Club' were irksome. First of all, who would call themselves that? Who forms 'clubs' anymore? It sounds like something out of The Famous Five, not what six twenty-something’s would voluntarily call themselves.

I don’t expect things to end neatly tied up with a ribbon, but the ending was awkward: letting teenage Sappho join 'The Swimming Club' was silly. The whole idea of the club is that it was tied to one particular summer. And can I just say that every one who is a member of ‘the swimming club’ ends up miserable; why would anyone want to willingly inflict that on their daughter????

The play is too long; it needs at least half an hour trimmed from it. Even a day later I am left thinking about the play, but not in a good way. I am wondering what the point of it was. Was it to say that things are easier when you are younger, before you enter the disappointment of middle age, children, a mortgage, and maybe facing up to the fact that your life and your love isn’t what you thought it would be? Well, I thought that was just life. No need to waste two and a half hours of my time telling me that, aren't we surrounded by that every day?





And for my final rant: Angela Punch McGregor archaeology professor Kate Morton was absolutely awful. She was ridiculously over the top. There was nothing real or believable about her presentation of her character.

In the first act I found her irritating, but in the second act she was out of control. How can a director not helm in a performance like that? And for an actress with so many credits, I’m surprised that she never knew what to do with her hands.

Then I read in her bio that she is the Senior Lecturer in Acting at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Really? She is teaching the next generation of Australian performers how to act?! Heaven help us all!





Should I See It?

Nope. Save yourself the trouble.


The Swimming Club runs until 14th March 2010.

All photos courtesy of Melbourne Theatre Company.

Melbourne Theatre Company Official Site here.