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The by-product is sometimes more valuable than the product.


Stairs to the stars. Fire escape from the Theatre Royal, Hobart. November 2010.

This one is a (slightly different) look at the Theatre Royal, right at the heart of Hobart. It is a versatile location, staging all kinds of events including ballet, opera, drama and musicals. When the theatre opened in 1837, it was located among the pubs, brothels, gambling dens, factories and tiny workers’ cottages of Wapping. As such, it is the oldest continually operating theatre in Australia.

This nearly wasn’t the case though! No less a figure than Sir Laurence Olivier himself spoke passionately to Tasmanians, urging them to resist the urge to demolish it an start again in the 1940s, telling us to "never let it go"!

Obviously, someone was listening.

Countless lesbians [ahem] thespians have trod the boards of the Royal. Indeed, reading through a simple list is like gazing up at the sky in the dead of night!

Laurence Olivier!

Noël Coward!

Vivien Leigh!

Lillian Gish!

Peter Ustinov!

Hell, we’ve even had little Ronnie Corbett strut his stuff!

Of course, I’ve only even taken on show at the Royal myself. No, it wasn’t Olivier as Hamlet or Noël Coward doing Mad Dogs and Englishmen unaccompanied on a harpsichord.

It was the one and only (well, the fourth iteration anyway), Hi-5!
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