FOLLOWING GEORGE WALKER by Rory Walker + Chris Drummond, with Phillip Kavanagh
Naracoorte Town Hall
11 & 12 August, 2022
Sir Robert Helpmann Theatre, Mt Gambier
15 & 16 August, 2022
Suitable for ages 14+
Following George Walker is inspired by the life of Adelaide actor Rory Walker’s great grandfather George W Walker: a vaudevillian and impresario who toured Australia in the early 20th century, alongside some of the biggest theatrical stars of the day.
Rory has mined the legend of his great grandfather in this deeply personal one man show. As a baby George was left in a box on doorstep in Aberdeen and throughout his career was a restless traveller, working around Scotland, America, South Africa and throughout Australia. A singer and comedian, he worked with Harry Lauder and the eccentric Walford Bodie, a hypnotist and magician famous for his ‘mock’ electrocutions and act of ‘bloodless surgery’. Still, it was a rough and lonely life. At the end of his days, George returned to Scotland and wrote a memoir that Rory would later find as a young boy, left forgotten in a cupboard in the Walker family home.
Following George Walker hilariously captures the spirit of a travelling road show as our hero Rory struggles to piece together the fragments of his great grandfather’s life, even as he struggles to piece together the fragments of his own performance in a one-man vaudevillian extravaganza filled with music, sketches, songs, comedy, magic, ventriloquism and cinematography and – in the midst of it all – a moving story of family, community, love and legacy.
Presented by Brink Productions in association with Country Arts SA and the following funding bodies.
