What's going on around the globe
There are no seats at Ratty's House and Toad Hall. But it seems I'm the only one who doesn't know that.
As I perch on a park bench, ever alert to the bugs and biting things that are part of any Down Under outdoor experience, the rest of the audience arrives with deck chairs and picnic rugs, children and dogs, hats and sunscreen, hampers full of goodies, even a birthday cake. This is outdoor theatre, Australian-style - without the theatre.
Every year for 21 years promoter and director Glenn Elston has staged a singing, dancing, interactive version of Kenneth Grahame's classic The Wind in the Willows in Melbourne's Royal Botanic Gardens. This is also its fifth year in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, there have been Adelaide and Perth seasons, and Elston is hoping to take the show to Asia, including Hong Kong.
The idea came to him in the depths of a London winter as he reread the story while working in theatre there in the 1970s. 'I was living in this incredibly cold flat and I was reading it and literally imagining what it would be like to do it in the outside back home in Australia. Back then it was all pie in the sky and I honestly thought it would never happen.'
But when Elston returned to Melbourne his company won the Melbourne City Council contract to provide free entertainment such as buskers, bands and festivals in public places. So in January 1987 the show was born. The council subsidy ended long ago and ticket prices have crept up to A$25 (HK$150) this year, but every year the crowds - regulars, newcomers and tourists - arrive in all weathers.
