GOMIL
Energy Event Centre - Founders Heritage Park, Atawhai Drive, Nelson
30/11/2024 - 14/12/2024
Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch
10/02/2025 - 21/02/2025
Production Details
Written and Directed by Gregory Cooper
The Professional Theatre Company
Mark Hadlow is back!
The ten years post-MAMIL (Middle Aged Man In Lycra) have taken their toll on Wayne (Hadlow). He’s lost his beloved wife Maggie, his son has moved to the other side of the world and getting on the bike just seems to be getting more difficult every day. Then calamity strikes, life is turned upside down and Wayne must face a whole lot of new questions.
Can he still take care of his quarter acre section? Is a four-dollar glass of shiraz and free bowls enough incentive to move into a retirement village? And why is he still getting up at 5am when there’s nothing for him to bloody do anymore? A funny but poignant examination of one Kiwi bloke’s battle to find purpose amongst prostate examinations.
MAMIL was enjoyed by 70,000 people around Aotearoa-NZ and Hadlow is expecting a similar response to his follow-up show GOMIL (Grumpy Old Man In Lycra).
Duration: 80 minutes (no interval)
Isaac Theatre Royal, 10 – 21 February 2025.
Christchurch tickets via Ticketek
Energy Event Centre – Founders Heritage Park, Atawhai Drive, Nelson
Sat 30th November – 14 December 2024
Nelson bookings via www.theptc.co.nz
Actor: Mark Hadlow
Lighting Designer: Sean Hawkins
Sound Designer: Bob Bickerton
Production Manager: Steve Thomas
Stage Manager: Bob Bickerton
Theatre , Solo ,
80 Minutes (No Interval)
Slick switching of characters and from jarring comedy to winning pathos
Review by Ruth Allison 05th Dec 2024
A fast-paced and at times wordy script addresses the issues of aging with a hefty dose of painfully embarrassing stereotypical humour. Some how Mark Hadlow, in his inimical style, brings out the pathos of a man suffering guilt and regret, and begging for forgiveness.
Underscoring the stock tropes of race, culture, relationships, age, counselling and the horrors of retirement villages, is Wayne’s story. Wayne is the typical New Zealand boomer dad; a grizzled, morose curmudgeon. A character straight out of a Roger Hall comedy: comic and pathetic at the same time.
Hadlow makes us believe in Wayne. In his love for his wife of 49 years and her sudden death. In his often uncommunicative relationship with his biking buddies. We are desperate for him to make up with his only son Keith. We long for him to open up to his Scottish counsellor. We thirst for him to tell us what happened after he had a panic attack on a bike ride with his friend Brian. This is the stuff of theatre.
It is delivered to us through a series of cheap tricks. Making fun of the Scots counsellor, snide comments about ‘kids’, the archetypical rest home manager, the philosophical gym attendant, driving a Tesla and taking the mickey out of lawn bowls.
Luckily for us the pathos wins out. The moving finale of a man who finally finds contentment in Fairhaven Glen retirement village and who gains forgiveness from his friend Brian, allows us to forgive some of the more jarring humour. Humour that belongs in the past.
This is a slick production of sound, lighting and stage set. Haddon is in his element in 80 minutes of polished delivery. He gets to grip with a multitude of characters, switching deftly from one to the other. He is quick-silver in his timing and responds skilfully to changes of place and time.
His audience are quick to show their appreciation. They laugh at the sharp one-liners but they know enough about the inevitable approach of old age not to get too complacent. After all, it is coming to us all sometime soon.
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