THE BALLAD OF BACKBONE JOE (2009)
Written, created and performed by Miles O’Neil, Joseph O’Farrell and Glen Walton
The Ballad of Backbone Joe is a murder ballad of junkyard theatre, visual trickery, dark humour and rag’n’bone live music. The work tells a gruesome tale of a murder set in a small country town and combines the influences of detective fiction, film noir, Australian Gothic and back shed lunacy to take audiences down a rabbit hole of narrative twists and turns
Awards:
Best Theatre Work, New Zealand Festival Award 2015
The Guardian UK Critics Choice Award 2011
Shortlisted for the United Kingdom Total Theatre Award 2010
Seasons:
2008 June, Melbourne, The Federation Square Puppet and Visual Theatre Festival
2008 August, The Darwin International Arts Festival
2009 February, Sydney Imperial Panda Festival
2009 June, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen, Germany
2009 August, Melbourne Artshouse.
2010 February, Brisbane Powerhouse
2010 August, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
2010 September, Sydney Theatre Company
2011 July, Soho Theatre, West End London
2012 June, Adelaide Cabaret Festival
2014 March, New Zealand Arts Festival, Wellington, NZ.
2015 Festival of Colour, Wanaka, NZ
2017 Nelson Arts Festival, Nelson, NZ
2017 Regional Arts Victoria Supported tour of Regional Victoria.
Review Quote:
“Backbone Joe is a bare-knuckle fighter in outback Australia, who fights in the local abattoir for local butcher and promoter Messy Dimes Dan. Detective Von Trapp is summoned to town by a femme fatale with a message that may explain the recent death of Joe’s wife. Suitcase Royale are the band-cum-theatre trio telling the story, ramshackle purveyors of dirty blues and comedy noir, on a set made from rubbish reclaimed from the streets. If Tom Waits and the Mighty Boosh went to Australia, they’d come back with a show like this. But I’d welcome more of the Waits, and less of the Boosh. The script forever cedes to mickey-taking among the three performers, who pick up gleefully on one another’s slipups and self-indulgences. Miles O’Neil as Dan hams up his own death scene to the point that his amiable grandstanding more or less eclipses the denouement of the show. It’s about striking a balance – and if I’d like to see the trio take their own story a mite more seriously, that scarcely diminished my enjoyment of their idiocy. ‘I’ve got bad news,’ says Dan. ‘Good or bad?’ says Joe. There are delicious running gags, including butcher Dan’s effort to buck the vegetarianism craze with a new innovation: meat-fruit and Von Trapp’s climactic boxing bout – a shadow puppet show remade by Loony Toons – the tomfoolery is fun enough to forget the story altogether. At intervals, O’Neil, Joseph O’Farrell and Glen Walton man banjo, drums and double bass to pass Nick Cave-style sepulchral comment on the action. The whole thing has a pleasingly down-at-heel, Kneehigh Theatre-ish griminess about it, with plenty of that company’s raucous good humour, to boot. The set may be assembled from rag and bone, but there are moments here of 24-carat entertainment.”
-Brian Logan, The Guardian, 13th August 2010.