the second solo show.
written and peformed by tommy bradson. composed and accompanied by john thorn.
- WINNER BEST CABARET MELBOURNE FRINGE 2011
- WINNER AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE SYDNEY FRINGE 2011
- NOMINATED BEST CABARET ADELAIDE FRINGE 2011
- NOMINATED GREEN ROOM AWARD BEST PRODUCTION 2011
- NOMINATED GREEN ROOM AWARD MUSICAL DIRECTION 2011
- NOMINATED GREEN ROOM AWARD ORIGINAL SONGS 2011
A Siren and Sailor, brought together by chance. Of shipwrecks and blowholes, their broken romance. Leave it all at the door, save your drink and your dreams. F**k Disney, they lied to us. This is the real story, the real romance.
Tommy Bradson retells Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ with an original score by the legendary John Thorn.
‘Elegantly vulgar and ferociously poetic.’ Australian Stage
‘A haunting, desperate, cheeky, ranting, gyrating, hilarious and tragic exploration of love.’ Arts Hub
‘His words ignite, lighting up the dark theatrette with a blaze that lingers long after he has continued into his next thought.’ Theatre Press
SONG LIST
Never Ride On A Whale With A Bloodthirsty Hole
Closed Down Cabaret
Excerpt from The Sailor:
“If I had a big cock I wouldn’t bother to sing songs and tell stories and wear a face of make up. I wouldn’t chase that horizon and whore myself sick so as to avoid real fucken love, ‘cause I’d have a big cock, and somehow… that’d make it all seem all right. I wouldn’t be so nice to people, I wouldn’t open doors or stumble over my words; I wouldn’t cry as often.
I would smile more and I’d slick back my hair and I’d say stuff like “Oh, are those dried figs?” and “Don’t you think that the post-modernist approach to rock n roll by faux heroes of the digital age is so overrated” and I’d probably carry smokes in my sleeve even though I don’t smoke, and I’d say really racist jokes and people would laugh, and my arsehole would taste like sunshine and I’d inspire someone’s first novel, and I’d run over animals on the street in my sweet ride, and I would win fist fights with men triple my size, and I’d brush up against girls in bars and wear tight jeans and say hello in a way that they know I know what happiness is, and I’d be a professional fencer, as in a guy who fights with swords, not a guy who puts up fences, if you are a guy who puts up fences for a living, good for you, you know, its great, but let’s be fucking honest with each other… its way cooler to fight with swords than it is to put up a fence, not that I couldn’t put up a fence, I could put up a mean fucking fence if you wanted me to… but if you asked me I’d probably tell you to do it yourself, you know why…? cause I’m too busy fucking people with my great big cock… no time for fencing…
If I had a big cock… I’d be invited to parties. Cool kinds of parties… you know with coloured drinks stirred by coloured umbrellas. The kind that start with a chilled glass of Cristal and end with you shafting an ecky or two and having your balls suckled by a bombshell in the corner of the room as you skull an imported beer and then smash the bottle over her head, licking the left over amal from your upper lip as the chorus to Billy Joel’s ‘Goodnight Saigon’ swells in the speakers, someone dives into the lap pool cracking their head on the tiles, someone stuffs handfuls of roasted pig into their mouth, someone sucks a smoking Camel, police crash through a door and wrestle a Mexican pimp to the ground and Robert Downey Jnr climbs out from under a couch he thought was a k-hole, it snows blow and it rains rum as you sigh and, with a wave of euphoria, ejaculate into the fruit platter!! *ffpt…”
Excerpt from The Siren:
“It can get quite slippery at times. Can’t it? Can it? Can it? I’m asking you… ‘cause I wouldn’t know. I don’t know what it is to have a man press his stubble to my soft lips and feed horses… I don’t know what it is to un-sheath a mans sword and drip with desire at the sight of him thrusting it headlong to my hull… it feels like velvet and looks like violence and though it started slow and soft its now with reckless abandon, hard and fast we chase that bunny up that big hill and we open every door in the palace of pleasure, where Jack loves Jill and your heaving oyster pulsates like an octopus birthing an accordion, the melody crescendos as it hits the dominant and crashes its final chord, your champagne sprays over my head, it hits the ceiling and splashes the lamp on the other side of the room and runs the length of the curtain and moistens the carpet and wets the door and drenches my face and drips from the fake Van Gogh that hangs over my four poster and you lay there glistening and catching breaths and we grin the same grin and sigh the same sigh and the world is silent again. I don’t know what it is… to open my eyes, to lay there wounded and wrecked and wonderful and to watch you run along the sand toward a higher tide. ‘I’ll call you… I promise…’ What makes you think I want you to call me? Do I not look happy that you’re leaving? That you’re leaving with that other girl? I’m happy for you… So fucken happy… Look at this happiness, there’s so much of it it’s coming out of my face…
As wonderful as our brief courting may have been wandering wearily and laying all the seeds of this uncertain romance there was always that elusive eye and that swaggering leg and his spark that seemed to find its snakey way into the charms and arms of other sluts but me. and mine. And time moved so fast I forgot how long I had followed him. And remained merely a friend. There are two things you give to a girl without question when she asks for them: one of them is chocolate and the other is cock. And I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.”