This debut play by journalist Pat Sheil runs more like a painful trip to the olds’ house than an engaging piece of theatre. Structured as the long-winded monologue of an egotist, Legend! – ‘Slips’ Cordon – A Safe Pair of Hands meanders through notable events in Australia’s history, reinterpreting each of them through his own prism of arrogance. From chauvinistic boasts about stretching the vocal chords of Dame Nellie Melba to revealing the truth about Don Bradman’s famous innings, in an 80-minute diatribe, Slips recounts how he was somehow involved with each of the defining moments of this country’s past; because, as he repeats over-and-over throughout the show: ‘I was there!’
Veteran actor John Derum’s mannerisms are appropriately matched to how we would imagine someone such as Slips to be. Tottering around the 30s themed set, replete with vintage golf clubs and a Mac’s Liquor box, Derum manifests Slips’ eventual decline into senility. With a discombobulated rendition of how the fate of the 1930 Melbourne Cup winner Phar Lap is linked to the horse that bears De Groot in his spectacular interruption of the harbour bridge opening, Slips teases the audience with his almighty knowledge, proclaiming in none-too-discrete tones that he knows things about the horses that no one else knows.
Guided by the direction of Lex Marinos, Slips’s indignation at being ‘hard done by’, by each of Australia’s iconic heroes, crescendos into anger at the unjustness of being almost robbed by John Simpson at Gallipoli. Derum is given latitude to expand upon the soliloquy style of the script to integrate a re-enactment that involves grabbing an old-fashioned rifle from the wall in a welcome and long overdue change of pace from the verbose litany comprising the bulk of the play. As the scene closes on a haughty and defiant Slips, I am left pondering why such extremes of character development do not feature earlier in the piece rather than arriving, almost as an afterthought, at the end.
With a recollection of events that ludicrously span over 140 years, Slips is a character who is a good example of how not to grow old gracefully. While the show elicits a few chuckles from me, particularly the climactic revelation regarding ‘the ass and his animal’, I find it hard to be as enthused about Slips’s old man antics as the other members of the audience on the opening night, almost all who seem to be enjoying a riotous affair. For those that get a kick out of comedy in the style of Barry Humphries and other such ‘modest’ comedians, then this show is for you.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Legend! – ‘Slips’ Cordon – A Safe Pair of Hands
Writer: Pat Sheil
Director: Lex Marinos
Cast: John Derum
Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo
28 January – 15 February
