Extravaganza twists Sparkie?

The Moon is Green

Extravaganza 62 was a show we could be proud of. Paul Spender, who wrote the script, looks like becoming an important asset in the Big Business. His twisted mind produced such irresistible scenes as a rocket launching from the Nelson cotton mill, and cheese-making fertility rites led by Kang Cheddar on the (green cheese) moon. Any relation to the Order of Service purely coincidental.

King Cheddar is the unsuspected Denise Renwick and Dinah Bradalter ego of Keith Holysmoke, who was played by Barry Green. Aided only by a couple of fetching ministerial outfits, this was one of the hardest and most-appreciated roles in the show.

This year Extrav introduced a number of very promising newcomers, Including Frances Lipson, Barrie Travis, John Metekingi, ley. We look forward to the development of another Extrav nucleus for the years ahead.

An Extrav blue to honorary student John Koolman, as agent in the "redistribution business." who ended up close beside Margo Sutherland, or a reformed Russian agent called Titania in Nelson and Tanya in Moscow.

Margo, the audience solidly behind her, balanced delicately on the absolute brink of censor's tolerance with some of that particular shade of Extrav humour which is guaranteed to elicit a slow, deep "heh heh heh" from the back stalls. I hope someone got a recording of one of her songs, "Femininity."

Jeff Stewart is number one of the people who should get a lot more credit than they do for the success of the show. Smooth producing was very unobtrusive, but very impressive in looking back at such scenes as the Nac flight to Nelson and the waterfront shambles.

It was a pleasant relief to find that songs have become just incidental again. Instead of the musical show hits of recent seasons, there was a tendency to use older stuff ranging from "Two Little Girls in Blue" to the just un-copyrighted Gilbert and Sullivan. But the songs were never allowed to intrude on the continuity of the plot; the emphasis was on the dialogue.

Congratulations to everyone concerned for a lively and quite successful season.

—L.L.C.