DIRTY DUSTING

Gardens Point Theatre, 29 – 31 March (4 performances only)
Starring: Joan Sydney, Anne Phelan, Maggie King

“Remember Matron Sloane? Well now she’s doing phone-sex.” This was the opening remark, punctuated by a shriek of laughter that could shatter glass. So began what was to be a “quick” interview with Joan Sydney. Famous for her enduring television role on ‘A Country Practice’ Joan is in town with two other very funny ladies of Australian theatre, sharing the stage, and bucket loads of belly laughs in Dirty Dusting.

Joan’s character Gladys, and her two mates Olive and Elsie are pensioners trying to earn a little extra cash doing a cleaning job at weekends when they learn they are about to be made redundant. Not one to take much lying down anymore, Gladys is persuaded that they ought to set up a phone sex service from the very offices they are cleaning. And so “The Telephone Belles” are in business. Their bosses don’t know about it, their families would never guess, and their very willing customers are certainly none the wiser. So the laughter begins.

“I love doing comedy, it’s one of the hardest things you can do in theatre, but listening to that audience roar with laughter night after night is its own reward,” said Joan.

“Apart from the funny script, working with Maggie and Anne is just the best thing. We can all still find new pieces of funny business that are fresh, surprising and invigorating. It’s a lot like sex really. Well, as I remember it.”

Joan finds it hysterical that she has made her name in theatre, film and television by playing uptight, thin-lipped, bossy autocrats when she herself is such a bohemian and anti-authoritarian. This is something that her 3 children and 7 grandchildren also find highly amusing. And so forty minutes later, our “quick” interview was over, left with the sound of her laughter ringing long after the call had terminated. Now that’s better than phone-sex.

CLICK: www.gardenstheatre.qut.edu.au
CALL: (07) 3138 4455 (10am – 4.00pm M-F)