Friday night I was very excited to be joining together two of my great passions sport and the arts in going along to Barassi!
I must confess I'm not a huge footy head, and didn't know a lot about the legend that is Ron Barassi before going along. But I definitely learnt a few things.
Both myself and the person I went along with are both a bit artsy at times and were amused by the eclectic mix of people in attendance… but that's by the by – what did we think.
Jane Clifton as the narrator Collingwood supporting narrator was excellent delivering a great performance as did Chris Asimos as the young Barassi and Matt Parkinson as Norm Smith – I must confess I'm a bit of a long term fan of Matt.
There were some great funny moments with Russell Robertson doing ‘I'm an individual' reminding me of that crazy song by Jacko and a quick cameo as Warwick Capper and reminders of why we love football.
The choreography for the players playing football was great but after a while you wanted it to speed up a bit or be a bit shorter.
Overall I did enjoy the show and learnt a fair bit about Barassi but it was a pretty long play the performance coming in at just over two hours…. there wasn't anything I thought that needed cutting as such but like the great recent bestsellers such as the last couple of Harry Potters and 50 Shades – it was in need of each scene having a bit of an edit. I also wanted to have a bit more understanding as to why he was successful in coaching Sydney after the disaster at Melbourne – beyond my own theory that favourite sons of clubs make generally make terrible coaches of that club. More of this and some insight into how he reconciled keeping footballers in check but not his own family – what I took from the play – I have no idea myself.
If you're into your footy and interested in the life of a living legend in Barassi and keen to go down footy memory lane then it's a great night out for you.
Barassi runs from Sept 21 – Oct 7 and tickets can be purchased via Ticketek you can follow @BarassiShow on Twitter
Sports Geek would like to thank the promoters of Barassi – The Stage Show for tickets to the show.
