Boy Swallows Universe announces cast and extended season

It’s months away from going on stage but already the stage version of Trent Dalton’s novel Boy Swallows Universe is going gangbusters.

The full cast has been announced for the world premiere of Trent Dalton’s Boy Swallows Universe and it’s impressive.

Adapted for the stage by Tim McGarry its promises to be a hit and it is selling fast. So fast in fact that what is expected to be the hit of the year for Queensland Theatre and Brisbane Festival has been extended. The highly anticipated adaptation will now play in the Playhouse at QPAC from August 30 to September 25.

Former Queenslander Anthony Phelan will play a leading role in the stage play of Boy Swallows Universe

We already know that Brisbane-born actor Joe Klocek will play the role of Eli Bell in his hometown. Making his start in Queensland Theatre’s Young Artists’ Ensembles, Klocek most recently appeared in Australian feature film The Dry.

Meanwhile Vietnamese-Australian actor and playwright Ngoc Phan will fill the shoulder pads of formidable matriarch ‘Back Off’ Bich Dang. A graduate from Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Phan has stage and screen credits to her name and has a long association with Queensland Theatre as a Teaching Artist.

Another big theatre star to join the cast is Helpmann Award-winning actor Anthony Phelan who is originally from Queensland and was a well known face on our stage for years.

Boy Swallows Universe is coming to the stage.

He will tackle the roles of bone-chilling prosthetic limb and drug merchant Tytus Broz and convicted murderer-turned-babysitter Slim Halliday. With a vast career spanning film, television and theatre, Phelan’s recent screen projects include the miniseries The Kettering Incident, Top of the Lake and Wanted, and he has appeared on stage for the likes of Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir St Theatre and Sydney Theatre Company. Eli’s sidekicks comprise Tom Yaxley (August Bell), Ashlee Lollback (Caitlyn Spies/Shelley) and Hoa Xuande (Darren Dang).
Michala Banas is Eli’s beloved mother Frankie Bell, while the other men in her life will be played by Mathew Cooper (Robert Bell), Anthony Gooley (Lyle Orlik) and Andrew Buchanan (Teddy Kallas).

Ashlee Lollback as Lucy, the undead, in shake and stir’s Dracula will now star in Boy Swallows Universe at this year’s Brisbane Festival. Pic by Luke Marsden.

Joss McWilliam will take on underworld figures Iwan Krol and Alex Bermudez, and Hsin-Ju Ely and Charles Ball join the cast as ensemble members.
Queensland Theatre Artistic Director Lee Lewis said it was a thrill to see Queensland Theatre’s pathways for young artists lead to Joe Klocek taking his place as the beloved Eli Bell among some of the country’s finest acting talents. “Boy Swallows Universe is the play the whole of Queensland, indeed, the whole of Australia has been waiting for,” Lewis says. “This is how we truly come back from COVID-19 — with the best story, told by the best artists,” Ms Lewis said.

Author Trent Dalton.

“Hold on to your sunhats, this play is going to be the story that brings us all back together.”

Propelling audiences to Australian suburbia in the 80s, when Paul Hogan was putting a shrimp on the barbie and Ataris were bought from the classifieds, Boy Swallows Universe is inspired by Brisbane author Trent Dalton’s childhood and will come to life under the directorship of Sam Strong and design by Renée Mulder.

Tickets to Boy Swallows Universe are on sale via qpac.com.au or 136 246.