Lyrebird
Tales of Sir Robert Helpmann
Written and acted by Tyler Coppin
“You can create an illusion of almost anything with people who don’t know you.”
How true, sir, how true. Coppin’s illusion of Sir Robert Helpmann can only serve to illustrate this point. Having never seen the actor/playwright as his ‘normal self’, I can only say that I literally did not associate the man who appeared at the start of question time with the one who had minutes before enthralled his audience at the Space Theatre.
“Two words; ‘Max Factor’”. Under that much foundation and with the drawn on features and greatly changed voice and accent, he was quite unrecognisable as himself, but easily identifiable as Helpmann. Not for one moment did his cover slip as he pranced and flounced about stage in nothing but a leotard at certain points (didn’t really want to see that display of lycra…), in the most convincing caricature I’ve ever seen.
Hilarious, witty, and absolutely spot on with the South Australian descriptions and humour, the perfect blend of irony, self mockery and occasional bawdiness, which is quite a feat for a man born and brought up in Placer County, California.
Just to exemplify, here’s his description of a road trip North along Prince’s Highway:
“First you have Robe, the princess of the South. Then there’s Millicent, her ugly sister. After that, Kingston, the retarded cousin nobody likes to talk about!”
Chapeau en bas, monsieur! GREAT show :)
9/10 (I was going to take off a point for the lycra, but I put it back on for the accent transitions).
