Augusta and Winston

To be honest with you, I've had better weeks.

This one started promisingly, as I attended the lovely wedding of my friends Emily and Troy on Sunday. It was a relaxed and happy day, with the ceremony and reception in one place (always the best option, I find). But a couple of slings and arrows during the week put a dampener on things. I guess them's the breaks in life, but combined with chronic tiredness from 4am starts, it hasn't made for a particularly happy Girl Clumsy.

Luckily the week ends with the final performances of Agatha Holmes, ImproMafia's latest long-form series, and that's more than enough to restore good spirits. I'm incredibly proud of this show, and have a great admiration for all the work director David Massingham has put into it, and to the talented and hilarious cast. A spoof of Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes murder mysteries, each night the great detective Agatha Holmes (played by The Wah) must solve a grisly crime.

I have a lot of fun with my character, Lady Augusta Wellesley, descendent of the Duke of Wellington, owner of Cadsworth Manor, ice queen, and dispenser of bon mots sharper than a weasel's flick-knife.

Lady Augusta eavesdrops.
Photo: Al Caeiro

Lady Augusta wears her Great-Uncle Otto's Prussian battle dress helmet.
For wooing.
Photo: Al Caeiro

The cast of Agatha Holmes episode 3 "The Riddle of the Red Herring".
Photo: Kris Anderson

Agatha Holmes and his assistant Wastings eavesdrop on Lady Augusta
as she talks to a former lover about "Winston Jnr".
Photo: Anthony Massingham

These photos are from nights 3 and 4 of the season, but they're just the very tip of the iceberg. We're lucky at ImproMafia to have a collection of talented photographers within the wider group, and all of the photos are magnificent. The final one there is from last night's show "The Footprint on the Wall Whodunnit". It's one of those wonderful things about impro - you can get endowed with something that will take the show in all sorts of interesting directions. It turns out that Lady Augusta's financial support for a local orphanage was in fact given out of guilt - she'd placed an illegitimate son there many years ago to avoid scandal. When this offer was given to me, a whole world of possibility opened up, and I wound up creating a backstory of an illicit affair with Winston Churchill, which in turn led to a rather amusing flashback involving Britain's greatest Prime Minister and a crack pipe.

It's impro. These things happen. :)

There are two shows left of Agatha Holmes - tonight 9 July and tomorrow night 10 July. Tickets are $15 adults and $10 concessions. You can grab them at the door, or book online.

So with that I saw toodle pip to a rather average week and hello to a fun weekend of performance.