Brisbane Showgrounds turns into a killing field for Throttle
You’ve heard the horror story ... three young people on a lonely road, when weird things start to happen. It’s the scenario behind one of the last shows of the Brisbane Festival and it played out in the middle of the main ring at Brisbane Showgrounds.
Brisbane Festival
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I think I can safely say that the Brisbane Festival show Throttle is the first time there has been a decapitation in the centre ring at the Brisbane Showgrounds in Bowen Hills.
Okay there was no EKKA this year but last night I went to the alternative EKKA. Very alternative.
It’s called Throttle and it’s a dance/theatre work by the very talented and enterprising Gold Coast outfit The Farm.
This production is on again with two performances tonight but like most things at Brisbane Festival it’s sold out. But it has been done before – at Bleach Festival on the Gold Coast – and it will be done again somewhere, sometime so keep an eye out for it. It’s terrific.
Inspired by B-grade teen horror flicks its about three people in a car on a lonely road and when they stop weird and awful things begin to happen. The action took place in the middle of the showgrounds while the audience, including me, sat in our cars to watch feeling very strange indeed.
I haven’t been to the drive-in since I was a teenager but this was a different experience sans the herbal cigarettes and the surfie mates I used to go to the Southport Drive-In with.
Those were the days, right? So it was novel to be back in the car watching a film – not on a big screen but live, right in front of me.
There are demonic goings on surrounding the people in this car which, ironically, is a white Volvo, a very innocuous vehicle if ever there was one and not the sort of vehicle that you imagine would appear in a horror story. There’s a demented motorbike involved and demons that wear motorcycle helmets and they harassed us in our cars at one stage. That was embarrassing because when they started rocking my vehicle I shouted out, by reflex, “Don’t touch the f***ing car!” Sorry about that folks.
There were snacks on hand – you have to have a nibble at the drive-in, right?- and 25 cars parked in a semicircle for this bizarre show. When it was over nobody was quite sure how to respond so everyone honked their horns and you could hear sporadic applause from inside the cars. We had an FM band to listen to the soundtrack instead of those hokey old speakers you used to have to hook onto the side of the car at the drive-in back in the good old days.
Brisbane Festival artistic director Louise Bezzina has worked with The Farm many times in her previous incarnation as artistic director of Bleach Festival on the Gold Coast and this was the perfect show for her very different Brisbane Festival.
And what a festival it has been with hundreds of performances, most free, across the city providing employment for a staggering 1002 local artists and arts workers. Bezzina was used to community events outdoors at Bleach festival and it turns out that experience was invaluable for this year’s COVID-safe Brisbane Festival which finishes tonight. The finale is not aerobatics or fireworks (they were cancelled) but instead we have Sunsuper Night Sky and some poor bastard getting his head chopped off in the middle of the Brisbane Showgrounds. Cool.
In fact if they put Throttle on at the EKKA next year I might even go. But I guess the decapitation and demonic possessions might be just a tad too much for People’s Day. Wouldn’t want anyone to choke on their strawberry ice cream.