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Film Review: The Boy with Pink Trousers (2025 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival)

31/08/2025 Rob McKinnon🥉

The Boy With Pink Trousers (Italian Film Festival) Rating

★★★★★

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Film Review: The Boy with Pink Trousers (2025 ST. ALi Italian Film Festival)

The Boy with Pink Trousers is based on the actual story of Andrea Spezzacatena, a fifteen-year-old boy from Rome who was severely cyberbullied and is loosely built on his mother’s, Teresa Manes, autobiographical novel, ‘Andrea: Oltre Il Pantalone Rosa’. The film is an engaging sensitive retelling of Andrea’s story, beautifully acted by the three young leads and is a cautionary tale in this age of social media obsession.

The film begins with Andrea recalling his birth and contemplating what would have happened in his life, shifting then to an older Andrea watching DVDs of him and his family in happy times and wondering when his parents’, Teresa (Claudia Pandolfi) and Tommaso (Corrado Fortuna), relationship began to fail. Moving then to teenaged Andrea (Samuele Carrino) practicing piano as Teresa receives a call from Andrea’s school informing her that he has won a scholarship because of his excellent academic achievement. To celebrate, they go to the funfair with Daniele (Pietro Serpi), Andrea’s younger brother.

As the story progresses, Andrea auditions for a choir that will perform for the Pope where he becomes in awe of another student Christian (Andrea Arru) also auditioning for the choir. At the start of the eighth grade Christian, who is repeating a year, and Andrea become classmates. Andrea is befriended by fellow eight grader Sara (Sara Ciocca) after Andrea deliberately gets into trouble in class. Andrea becomes friends with Christian after Christian asks him to help him with his studies but Christian distances Andrea after Andrea is chosen to perform for the Pope, but Christian isn’t.

After Andrea’s parents split, he confides in Christian who shares the contents of their discussion with the rest of the class. As Andrea and Sara move into High School, they discover that Christian, who was going to a different school, has joined their school and is in the same classes as them. Christian plots against Andrea which leads to calamitous bullying.

The Boy with Pink Trousers is director Margherita Ferri second full-length feature film and she and writer/producer, Roberto Proia, treat the subject matter delicately highlighting Andrea’s journey in the film sympathetically. Martina Cocco’s cinematography is subtle and warm, adding depth and emotion to the film. The music by Francesco Cerasi sits well with the events in the plot. The main theme is “Canta ancora” performed by Arisa which won Best Original Song at the Nastro d’Argento.

The three young leads, Samuele Carrino, Sara Ciocca and Andrea Arru, deliver excellent performances, particularly Carrino who carries most of the screen time of the film with aplomb. They are superbly assisted by Claudia Pandolfi and Corrado Fortuna.

The Boy with Pink Trousers was the highest grossing Italian movie of 2024 for good reason, it is a compassionate portrayal of a sensitive topic featuring exceptional performances by the young cast that will bring a tear to your eye.

Reviewed by Rob McKinnon

Rating; 8 out of 10
Genre: Drama
YouTube trailer: The Boy with Pink Pants trailer I PÖFF28

To book tickets to The Boy With Pink Trousers (Italian Film Festival), please visit https://italianfilmfestival.com.au/films/iff25-the-boy-with-pink-trousers.

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Girl of the Frozen North

16/08/202516/08/2025 Rob McKinnon🥉

Girl of the Frozen North Rating

★★★★★

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The Tea Tree Players, under director Barry Hill, transports the audience to the freezing Yukon for this very amusing sing-a-long melodrama full of merriment and entertainment well worth attending as Adelaide’s own wintery conditions draw to a close.

The fun begins as the MC (Tim Cousins) introduces the play and the cast as they burst into song. The story proper begins during a day in June 1890 in the lobby of a dingy hotel in the Yukon Territory owned by the story’s villain, J Harrington Cesspool (Brian Godfrey). Cesspool is ordering around his employee Nanook (Georgia Gustard) as a fur trader Klaxon (Joel Strauss) enters with a bag of furs and haggles with Cesspool about their purchase price. After Trader Klaxon leaves, Cesspool tries to grab Nanook but she screams and the story’s hero, Corporal Dashiell H Goforth (Clinton Nitschke) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, enters the lobby to save her. Goforth then leaves but soon returns with Nettie Neetfoot (Charlie Klose), as she tries to evade the clutches of Cesspool, she explains that she is looking for her mother who has become lost in a blizzard as they searched for her kidnapped little brother. Nettie leaves the hotel to continue her quest.

As the story progresses, hotel guests Cleopatra Pannitt (Cathie Oldfield) the self-proclaimed “America’s gift to the Shakespearean stage” and her daughter Hyacinth Klutz (Selena Britz) both stuck at the hotel because the “touring troupe went broke at the local opera house”, are introduced. Goforth re-enters with the missing Mrs Neetfoot (Elizabeth Ferguson) and later Professor Fredrik Pjoole (John Hudson) from Washington DC arrives to study the local First Nations people’s “time-reversing experiments”. Goforth is accused of theft and tries to clear his name as the search for the missing continues.

Along the way, the MC emboldens the audience to “aaw”, “ooh”, “boo” and “cheer” but often the engaged audience is ahead of his prompting. Between scenes the audience is encouraged to sing along with the classics, “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”, “Roll Out the Barrell”, “Knees Up Mother Brown” and “I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside”.

Additionally, between a scene change in Act 1, the audience is entertained by the dancing Harry the Hippy Horse (Ashlee Brown as the head and Lachlan Blackwell as the other end). In a scene change in Act 2, ballerinas Tatiana Orlovski (Lachlan Blackwood) and Olga Ripsacorsetoff (Ashlee Brown) perform “The World Famous Balloon Dance”, which is one of the hilarious highlights of the whole performance.

The production team including Beth Venning for props and set dressing, Barry Hill for set design, Damon Hill for scenic artwork, Merci Thompson for costumes and Robert Andrews and Mike Phillips for lighting and sound design and operation, are to be congratulated for producing an excellent set, costumes and a near faultless technical performance.

The cast all perform superbly, Tim Cousins is warm and enthusiastic as the MC binding the performance and the audience participation skilfully together. Brian Godfrey, with his Riff Raff like appearance, makes a first-rate villain and is outstandingly juxtaposed by the brilliantly often over-the-top performance of Clinton Nitschke. Selena Britz is also commended for her performance and her song and dance routine. The rest of the talented cast also deliver outstanding performances.

The Tea Tree Players’ Girl of the Frozen North is great fun and is full of melodrama and audience participation. Barry Hill, the cast and crew are to be congratulated for this exuberant and splendid production.

Girl from the Frozen North runs from Wednesday 13 August 2025 – Saturday 23 August 2025

Venue: Tea Tree Players Theatre

Cnr Yatala Vale Road and Hancock Road, Surrey Downs SA 5126

To book tickets to Girl of the Frozen North, please visit https://teatreeplayers.com/production/girl-of-the-frozen-north/.

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When We Dead Awaken

10/08/2025 Nicole V🥉

When We Dead Awaken Rating

★★★★★

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When We Dead Awaken, by Henrik Ibsen, follows the story of Professor Arnold Rubek, his wife, Maia, and his original muse, Irene, as they tackle their relationships, nostalgia, and acceptance of life and death. Ibsen was known to work with self-analytical themes, and When We Dead Awaken is the perfect example; written to make you consider life from the perspective of others, be honest with yourself (and your potentially declining artistic inspiration), morality, and mortality.

True to the time this piece was written, the play has three acts and two intermissions, with the beginning of each act providing a new location, soundscape, and sometimes lighting, for the story.

We join the gravelly-voiced Rubek and his wife as they return to their home country, a lovely soundtrack of birdsong offsetting Frau Rubek’s obvious frustration as she attempts to gain her husband’s attention. We learn the pair are staying at a Norwegian Spa and Mountain Resort, and Professor Rubek is enquiring after a woman in white being followed by a woman in black, whom he saw walking in the middle of the night.

This woman in white, we learn from the well-spoken Hotel Manager, is another guest from the hotel, but the woman is an enigma to the hotel manager. While the Professor is attempting to speak to the woman in white, his wife is enthralled by the life and stories of the loud, and sometimes not too subtly lewd, bear hunter. When the Professor finally has a chance to speak with the woman, it is revealed that the woman was the Professor’s first muse, the artwork of whom made him famous: Irene.

Irene has a voice of honey, but is not afraid to hold back and raise her voice to scold the Professor when it is needed. During her scenes we are witness to a woman with severe trauma and hysteria (which these days we would recognise as mental illness) doing her best to navigate her way through a life of pain, regret, and lost love, while battling her inner demons.

As the history between the Professor and Irene unfolds, there is a juxtaposition between them reminiscing on the past, and Maia being stubbornly set on future adventures with the bear hunter. The audience is gently rocked between past and present as our eyes ping pong between the characters on stage, glowing under the sunshine-like lights.

The only concern I found was that some of the more intense background sounds in Acts One and Three overwhelmed the voices of those speaking, but I am also aware this was probably done on purpose, because those sounds most certainly achieved their desired effects, and matching sound speaker volume with a human voice is a very fine line.

Each cast member melts into the persona of their character and bounces off their character’s partner with ease, the emotions weaving off the stage being almost palpable. Boasting minimal sets, props, and lighting changes to keep the focus on the characters, the story unfolds gracefully and ends in a way which will keep you thinking about the characters on your drive home.

The director made a creative choice to focus on the relationships between the characters, and some of the characters’ story arcs in Act three have been intentionally left out for the audience’s interpretation. If you are familiar with the play, be sure to come prepared to experience a fresh perspective on the story; if you are unfamiliar, allow the characters to carry you through a past-and-present experience of human nature.

To book tickets to When We Dead Awaken, please visit https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1385262.

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Neighbourhood Watch

09/08/2025 Rob McKinnon🥉

Neighbourhood Watch Rating

★★★★★

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The always reliable St Jude’s Players latest production is a journey from suburban Australia in 2007 to Hungary in World War Two with Lally Katz’s Neighbourhood Watch resulting in an excellent version of the play anchored by a marvellous performance by veteran actor Julie Quick as Ana.

Beginning the day after the election of the Rudd Labor Government in 2007 the play is centred in the neighbourhood of Mary Street in suburban Australia, where housemates Catherine (Ellie Schaefer) an out-of-work actor and Ken (Dylan Megaw) a diabetic want-to-be film maker are discussing the election. Across the road, an aging and often cantankerous Ana (Julie Quick) a Hungarian Australian refugee delivers a bag of leaves to her neighbour Katrina (Taya Rose) that have fallen from Katrina’s tree into Ana’s yard. Ana asks Katrina if she will pick her up from a specialist appointment the next day, but Katrina responds that she is too busy. Jovanka (Gail Morrison) an aging Serbian woman tries unsuccessfully to visit Ana.
As the plot progresses Ana and Catherine develop a friendship and as they talk Ana tells Catherine of her life story and the play travels to war time Hungary. As Ana’s journey unfurls, Catherine’s own story develops, affected by her own unhappy memories and life lessons are learned.

The multi award winning and one of Australia’s most performed playwrights, Lally Katz, based the character of Ana on stories that her real life aging Hungarian refugee neighbour told her. In Neighbourhood Watch, Katz honours her neighbour’s desires that her stories should not be forgotten. The plot explores the themes of isolation, friendship, war and the consequences of war, grief and the seeking of refuge. Katz weaves these themes cleverly throughout her play.

Director Lesley Reed, with many years of experience in professional and community based acting and recently directing productions for Galleon Theatre, Adelaide Repertory Theatre and the Stirling Players, has the formidable task of managing nine actors into around twenty five characters throughout the play and taking them from the Australian street to doctor’s rooms, chemist shop and cinema to war-torn Hungarian streets, tram, river crossing and dark fabric factory. This assignment she does seamlessly.

To help Lesley, set designer and construction coordinator Don Oakley, has provided innovative solutions to the staging given the limitations of stage size and budget, even if some solutions require a little creativity by the audience. Sarah Bradley’s original music is brilliant and adds another level to the production.

The whole cast, Julie Quick, Ellie Schaefer, Dylan Megaw, Nathan Brown, Taya Rose, Gail Morrison, Matthew Chant, Christopher Cordeaux and Megan Robson perform excellently, smoothly transitioning through their multiple characters. The experience of performing in over one hundred productions oozes from Julie Quick’s superb performance in particular. Her outstanding acting skills ameliorates the production.

St Jude’s Players’ production of Neighbourhood Watch is an ambitious project by this well-established theatre group, and they deliver an impressive result highlighted by superb acting worthy of the audience visiting Mary Street and beyond.

Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
Rating; 7 out of 10

Neighbourhood watch runs to 19 July 2025; remaining session dates and times are as follows:

Thursday August 14, Friday August 15, 7.30 pm.

Matinees Saturday August 16, 2pm.

Venue: St Jude’s Hall, 444 Brighton Rd, Brighton, South Australia.

Tickets (from July 17): https://www.trybooking.com/DCCMU
Or call 0436 262 628/email bookings@stjudesplayers.asn.au

To book tickets to Neighbourhood Watch , please visit https://stjudesplayers.asn.au/https-stjudesplayers-asn-au-wp-content-uploads-2024-11wp-content-uploads-2024-11-neighbourhood-watch_poster_final-jpg/.

Photographer: Les Zetlein

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