Overview

"The world's first play set and performed on board a typical Melbourne tram as it makes its way from the Mont Albert terminus to the City and back. An audience gathers at the terminus where the tram soon arrives carrying a conductress and a sleeping drunk. As the 'connie' struggles to get a fare from the old man various characters come on board her tram. There's a Balwyn socialite who's just split up from her husband and never been on public transport before, then a punk with a plastic dog (used for collecting money for the Blind Society) which he's obviously stolen, followed by a couple who apparently had a relationship six years ago and now find themselves bitterly arguing over the paternity of ""their son"". Just before the city an overzealous ticket inspector adds to the crazy mix of strangers and promptly sacks the connie for dereliction of duty. After interval at a hotel in the city the return journey sees the return of the old derro (who had been thrown off the tram on the way in by the punk) as well as the return of the bickering couple and the socialite who has just confronted her husband in the foyer of the Melbourne Theatre Company. As matters reach a climax the derro attempts to hijack the tram starting an altercation with the ticket inspector who staggers off into the night thinking he's stabbed the old man (but only hit his pie and tomato sauce). Eventually the police arrive, the wrong people are arrested and the punk makes an amorous play for the connie's affections. By the time the audience return to the terminus where it all started they know the lives of these characters will never be the same again."

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Reviews

"one of the most original and surreal events ever to animate Melbourne Theatre. It played to packed trams for 14 weeks and has more than confirmed the viability of TheateWorks. Jack Hibberd The Age Weekender Suburban theatre is booming in Melbourne. A new idea...this theatre is a moving tram! The play has had such a tremendous success it is running indefinitely... Carole Veitch Melbourne Herald On a Friday evening at approximately 9.20 pm a green tram travelling east along Victoria Parade, Fitzroy narrowly missed colliding with two buses travelling in convoy south along Brunswick Street. Passengers in all vehicles were stunned but sustained no injuries except for a debilitating contortion of the facial muscles... for theatre goers a unique event. Only the drivers were real. Using chartered public transport, the Bus and Tram shows are exploring different relationships between actors and audiences by creating theatrical events in everyday environments... the usual division between audience and performance is challenged which gives rise to ambiguities that are confronting and often hilariously funny... (Storming Mont Albert By Tram) has great tourist potential. It was phenomenally successful... I can see it becoming something like The Mousetrap was in London, a real tourist drawcard. Don Dunstan (former premier of South Australia) The Age A unique and intriguing production Eastern Standard Visitors from faster and trendier cities used to say there wasn't much fun at night in Melbourne. But not anymore. This year two hilarious night rides have grabbed the headlines. Storming Mont Albert By Tram is a sequence of amusing and startling ""happenings"". The commuters (audience) were starting to get the hang of the show and loving the diversion. But they weren't sure about the warring couple whose conversation sounded too real to be play-acting. None of it was real, but all of it was the sort of thing that COULD happen. Laurie Landray Australasian Post Innovative, a bizarre theatrical first: a play on a tram. Eastern Standard An inspired piece of lunacy. The production has enough scope for improvisation to accommodate the audience as actors. Nobody actually identifies themselves they simply start talking. A unique repertory conception, a play on a specially hired green tram is a theatre highlight of Melbourne's Moomba festival. The show is built for laughs Progress Press Storming Mont Albert By Tram not only takes theatre out to the people it makes theatre out of the everyday environment. Sherrifs and Davies have created a complete event that is more than just being on a tram with a group of actors. The event they have created, like real-life, has a multiplicity of focus and the script is only a part of it; what really is at issue and of interest is the subversion of the boundaries between theatre and life. The tram show has done more for the public transport lobby than Travelcard ever could, and en route created original, genuinely popular theatre. Suzanne Spunner Theatre Australia The show must go on! The freewheeling Number 42 tram packed with caricatures of the tram travelling society, an expectant audience is one of the most popular shows playing anywhere in Australia. Free Press"

one of the most original and surreal events ever to animate Melbourne Theatre. It played to packed trams for 14 weeks and has more than confirmed the viability of TheateWorks. Jack Hibberd The Age Weekender Suburban theatre is booming in Melbourne. A new idea...this theatre is a moving tram! The play has had such a tremendous success it is running indefinitely... Carole Veitch Melbourne Herald On a Friday evening at approximately 9.20 pm a green tram travelling east along Victoria Parade, Fitzroy narrowly missed colliding with two buses travelling in convoy south along Brunswick Street. Passengers in all vehicles were stunned but sustained no injuries except for a debilitating contortion of the facial muscles... for theatre goers a unique event. Only the drivers were real. Using chartered public transport, the Bus and Tram shows are exploring different relationships between actors and audiences by creating theatrical events in everyday environments... the usual division between audience and performance is challenged which gives rise to ambiguities that are confronting and often hilariously funny... (Storming Mont Albert By Tram) has great tourist potential. It was phenomenally successful... I can see it becoming something like The Mousetrap was in London, a real tourist drawcard. Don Dunstan (former premier of South Australia) The Age A unique and intriguing production Eastern Standard Visitors from faster and trendier cities used to say there wasn't much fun at night in Melbourne. But not anymore. This year two hilarious night rides have grabbed the headlines. Storming Mont Albert By Tram is a sequence of amusing and startling happenings . The commuters (audience) were starting to get the hang of the show and loving the diversion. But they weren't sure about the warring couple whose conversation sounded too real to be play-acting. None of it was real, but all of it was the sort of thing that COULD happen. Laurie Landray Australasian Post Innovative, a bizarre theatrical first: a play on a tram. Eastern Standard An inspired piece of lunacy. The production has enough scope for improvisation to accommodate the audience as actors. Nobody actually identifies themselves they simply start talking. A unique repertory conception, a play on a specially hired green tram is a theatre highlight of Melbourne's Moomba festival. The show is built for laughs Progress Press Storming Mont Albert By Tram not only takes theatre out to the people it makes theatre out of the everyday environment. Sherrifs and Davies have created a complete event that is more than just being on a tram with a group of actors. The event they have created, like real-life, has a multiplicity of focus and the script is only a part of it; what really is at issue and of interest is the subversion of the boundaries between theatre and life. The tram show has done more for the public transport lobby than Travelcard ever could, and en route created original, genuinely popular theatre. Suzanne Spunner Theatre Australia The show must go on! The freewheeling Number 42 tram packed with caricatures of the tram travelling society, an expectant audience is one of the most popular shows playing anywhere in Australia. Free Press

Author Information

Paul Davies is an award winning screenwriter, script editor and playwright who sharpened his quill on over a hundred episodes of Teledrama from classic Crawford series such as Homicide (1974-5), The Box (1975-76) The Sullivans (1976-78) and Skyways (1979), to Rafferty's Rules (1985), Blue Heelers (1997), Pacific Drive (1996), Stingers (1998-2003), Something in the Air (1999-2001) and Headland (2005). He also helped spark the site-specific performance revolution in Melbourne in the 1980s with TheatreWorks' production of his first play Storming Mont Albert By Tram (1982). What became known as The Tram Show played across a dozen years to packed trams in both Melbourne and Adelaide, travelling a total distance that would have taken the show halfway round the world. Its success lead to an outbreak of 'location theatre' in Melbourne throughout the 1980s including three other plays in real places: Breaking Up In Balwyn (1983, on a riverboat), Living Rooms (1986, in an historic mansion) and Full House/No Vacancies (1989, in a boarding house). These works became the subject of his thesis Really Moving Drama. Both The Tram Show and On Shifting Sandshoes (1988) were awarded AWGIES, along with Return of The Prodigal (2000) an episode of Something In The Air (ABC). Paul co-wrote the feature Neil Lynn with David Baker in 1984, and the docu-fiction Exits (1980) with Pat Laughren and Carolyn Howard. His novel, 33 Postcards From Heaven was published by Gondwana Press in 2005. Numerous articles, reviews, stories and interviews have been published in Metro, Cinema Papers, Cantrill's Filmnotes, Australasian Drama Studies, Community Theatre In Australia, The Macquarie Companion to the Australian Media and Theatre Research International (Cambridge University). He co-wrote three documentaries with John Hughes (All That Is Solid, Traps and One Way Street) as well as Holy Rollers with Rosie Jones. Paul has also given courses in literature and creative writing at various colleges and universities including: Southern Cross, James Cook and Melbourne State.

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