The magical world of laughter, this encapsulating play reiterates to us never to judge a book by its cover. A cover, a first appearance leads us to believe that PUFFS is a sole comedic look at the now notorious Hogwarts, less known boarding house Huffle Puff. Mark Cox’s ingenious play actually offers viewers a reflection of growing up in the 80s and 90s.
How magical is Hogwarts and the Gen Y obsession when those slightly older kids remember a time of X Men, Batman, and the late 90s existential Crisisio that affected anyone aged 14+.
Feel free to laugh along with jokes about now partly forgotten movies such as Free Willy and Rambo 2. For those who missed the scent of Teen Spirit from the likes of Butter Beer there are obviously plenty of references to the Potter books themselves, and even the ultimate cosmic evil, Daleks!
For theatre junkies the play was fast paced and tight knit and happily the cast took us back to our high school years. Adding to the sense of the plays timeline. With a brief quip about the age of the main character.
Make sure you don’t rush out of the Alex Theatre before admiring the prop lined walls with humorous spells gone wrong and hessian cobwebs. Sign of the kind of all encompassing event, a real magical romp.
St Kilda Artist Thomas J. Barker-Webb, also professionally known as Tommy Langra and Tomb was born into a loving home where formal education mattered.
At the age of 4, upon reading a library book introduced to him by his mother referencing the mystical powers of Buddhist meditation Tom became hooked on the world of the unseen. From that point he continues to be a voracious reader and his quest for knowledge and inspiration remain paramount.
By the age of 8 he is reading books assigned to 20 year olds. Needless to say the authorities determined that Tomb, as he would sign his Art from an early age, was deemed an above average intelligence.
With the support of his loving family, his diet of books, his formal education at Scotch College, Geelong Grammar and Deakin University where Tom completed a Masters Degree in Architecture, he was earmarked for ‘old school’ success. After working as a draftsman in tandem with his studies and then professionally for 4 years after graduation a total of 10 years, Tom was advancing in his professional popularity and his 6 figure career.
Some would call it self-sabotage, others would call it artistic liberation that a number of years ago Thomas decided to live the road less travelled and leave his Architectural career to be the quintessential grass roots, street artist / vendor. A lifestyle, from my view, that is not for the faint hearted.
After such an investment in your Architectual career why did you put it on the back burner?
I simply didn’t have the energy to work on all the creative agenda that I had set myself. The more I was surrounded by regular office culture, I invested less in my productive self, and the more I behaved like a regular 9-5er.
I simply couldn’t face being in front of a computer day in day out. I had become an architect in order to draw – with a set of manual tools, the industry doesn’t support that as much as it used to.
Tell us what you love about your current lifestyle and artistic expression?
Whenever I think ‘oh maybe I should get a desk job and earn some money’ I look at what I’m doing and I can’t help myself but pick up my drawing utensil and keep going.
It’s extreme; it’s exhausting, mentally and physically and I love that, it tests my capacity as an individual to the limits. I draw non-stop all day in all weather conditions from gale force winds to 45+ degree days. What I work on is as important if not more than how I would work in professional practice. It requires all the same problem solving skills – and more because of the conditions!
How does your robust formal education assist you on your current journey?
Good question. I apply all my studies to the task: from research and essay writing, to woodwork, to physics, to architectural contracts.
By Tommy Langra
At the end of the day, what we produce is only a display of our own conceptual understanding. Our desires and our distastes: the effort and patience, the diligence that we apply ourselves to them. The more that we nourish them and test them, the wealthier, richer and more resilient the outcome, both to our own selves yet also to the questioning minds of others.
The better the sources that we rely on, the less arguable is the notion, as the soil that nourished; has stood firm through human history.
“An educated person’s ideas of Art are drawn naturally from what Art has been, whereas the new work of art is beautiful by being what Art has never been… A temperament capable of receiving, through an imaginative medium, and under imaginative conditions, new and beautiful impressions, is the only temperament that can appreciate a work of art.” Oscar Wilde
Every day except Sunday Tommy Langra of ArchAngle Studios rides his self modified bike and homemade draftsman cart from St Kilda to his current post at the front of Hamer Hall at the Art Centre.
You will also have the opportunity to meet this extraordinary artist at Punchinello Pop Up 33 Fitzroy Street during this forthcoming St Kilda Art Crawl on the 25, 26, 27 May 2018. Stay tuned…
St Kilda seems to have it all, spectacular sunsets and beach side boardwalks. A rich history of vice and crime, art and culture. Trams that connect to the four corners of Melbourne and beyond. Palm trees, parks, lots of heritage buildings, three outstanding theatres as well as eateries, pubs and bars that play live music to a reasonable hour.
Why has the centre of Fitzroy Street turned into a tumbleweed zone? No one seems to be able to pinpoint the answer to that.
Legend has it that when the artists colony that was Chronicles Bookshop was unceremoniously closed down due to relentless external pressure for dubious and nebulous reasons Fitzroy’s street’s soul had been ripped out.
Or when the toilet block was demolished in what was nationally known by the indigenous community as Koori Park a spookily vacuous and resonating effect was left on the street. Who knows for sure?
What we do know is that the culmination of many quickly imposed plans devised to reinvigorate Fitzroy St. have predominantly failed.
Sadly, despite heavy investiture the area still has issues. Many people including local and state governments are looking to local Arts & Culture as a potential remedy..
I asked local St Kilda resident, mentor, writer and visual artist, Emily Humphries to comment on how the area and local Art and Artists might be able to lend a hand, and if she has any insight into a problem that many wealthy residents and investors have failed to solve. This is what she said.
…“ When Dolores San Miguel opened the doors of the Crystal Ballroom in 1978 it dragged St Kilda groaning and kicking from its post war malaise as Melbourne youth awoke with a yelp. What had once been the terrain of wealthy seaside residents, the area that spans from the juncture of Barkley St and Alma Rd. was held high with grand mansions, which scattered like in any European seaside town, over the hill and down to the sea.
The Ballroom was a cultural incarnation of what had been a once vibrant area, yet with quite another face and sadly Melbourne failed to truly celebrate the relevance or recognize quite the qualities of the
power house of talent destined to largely desert not just St Kilda, but our shores. Thus there is no real mystery to its decline.
A failure to support or invest in the arts and artists is deadly. There is the organic folding process of any place or thing as it reshapes into another, as a fairly natural phenomenon. St Kilda has never really reformed since the late 80’s and since the large flight of junkies and drug culture to the North of the river there has been a slow process to rocked St Kilda’s heart.
St Kilda is loaded with potential however sometimes the grander enterprises spit people back onto the street with their exclusivity and frosted windows. The general public walk by with nothing much to grasp onto. Where is the soul in this?
The recent rise of the St Kilda Art Crawl in the city of Port Phillip was a really exciting thing. Despite our craft run along the Esplanade there is a chance here to bring back some of the vitality St Kilda now lacks. Why, because it brings a focus back to the expressive, the ‘street tongue’. If you want the street to resound you need to give it a voice and how better to do it than to support and invest in those who make the area their dialogue not just their economy. I really believe it is in the interest of the local businesses to invest in those who make a kind of “noise” about and around them.
There is a reflective quality to the neglect we have given our artists being played out in our deadly streetscape. We have Rowland Howard Lane but where is Rowland Howard? Despite being one of our precious jewels of cultural input Rowland died way too young and although some point the finger at a kind of lifestyle, artists very often have little choice in how they live as they medicate to navigate a culture which undervalues and fails to support them financially or even expressively.
Often our greatest talents end up in housing commissions on disability pensions or are forced to be educators. Without the support or security to simply weave their magic alight and contribute en force, artists in this country are robbed of their esteem by a culture which puts too much emphasis on convention and economic prowess.
I believe, with all my heart, that local business would benefit by investing in local Art & Culture artists that live in every St Kilda block, our heritage alive yet buried,
If we bring in some respect, some heart back into the heart beat of our culture of our area the vigor will return and our street and geography will not be left desolate and reflecting a kind of grief that no end of designer shops or fancy restaurants can stuff”…
The wonderful thing with comedy is that you don’t need a big stage or audience to have a good laugh and a great time.
Three weeks in and I haven’t missed a show so that must be testimony that the gig is good.
Hosted by the St Kilda Comedy Club, 25 Blessington Street, St Kilda is the place to be on a Tuesday night from 8pm.
Resident MC CJ Fortuna warms the crowd for a night of open mic with a smattering of seasoned pros. With host Paul Blackburn working his butt off serving the odd free cocktail to punters that can hold the vibe and win the trick questions. Always the entrepreneur Paul suggests that you get there early to secure your seats.
Bill Tolson has been in and around Melbourne’s rich music scene from when he was at school with Nick Cave, who would perform in their school cafeteria at Caulfield Grammar.
Not long after leaving school Bill launched and operated the iconic Greville Records that today is still opened as a funky eclectic shop for second hand vinyl & CDs.
After working in music management and starting his indie label Rampant Records Bill’s journey took him to the corporate world where he stayed for a long time.
About three years ago he re emerged as a prolific full time singer / songwriter as a way of dealing with the cataclysmic and tragic death of his son Conor Tolson also a prolific songwriter musician.
Since 2015 Bill has written, produced and release 50 songs and 8 albums. He has performed many solo and support gigs with bands and artists including The Badloves, Hugo Race, Stephen Cummings and Glen Shorrock.
His new CD “A Few More Summers Here” showcases eight of those songs.
‘me human’ exhibition by Master print maker , painter and sculptor Adrian Spurr, now showing at The Gallery, St Kilda Town Hall until the 22 November 2017.
A must see for all serious artists, enthusiasts and art collectors.
Where: The Gallery, St Kilda Town Hall – 99a Carlisle Street, St Kilda.
The magical world of laughter, this encapsulating play reiterates to us never to judge a book by its cover. A cover, a first appearance leads us to believe that PUFFS is a sole comedic look at the now notorious Hogwarts, less known boarding house Huffle Puff. Mark Cox’s ingenious play actually offers viewers a reflection of growing up in the 80s and 90s.
How magical is Hogwarts and the Gen Y obsession when those slightly older kids remember a time of X Men, Batman, and the late 90s existential Crisisio that affected anyone aged 14+.
Spirit from the likes of Butter Beer there are obviously plenty of references to the Potter books themselves, and even the ultimate cosmic evil, Daleks!
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