image of person or book cover 5896483875287284480.png
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play single work   musical theatre   humour   - One act
Is part of Penguin Australian Drama series - publisher
Issue Details: First known date: 1974... 1974 Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Playfully vulgar, bawdy and boisterous, Dimboola plays out the wedding reception from hell, with the audience actively playing the roles of the guests. A celebration as much as a satire, the play joyously takes a familiar ritual and turns it uproariously on its head.

Source: Currency Press

(http://www.currency.com.au/search.aspx?type=author&author=Jack+Hibberd)

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Dimboola Jack Hibberd , ( dir. John Duigan ) 1979 Melbourne : Pram Factory Pictures , 1979 Z872646 1979 single work film/TV humour

Based on Jack Hibberd's popular comedic play and set in the small rural Victorian township of Dimboola, the story takes place in the three days leading up to the marriage of locals Maureen Delaney and Morrie McAdam. Although the film adaptation contains much that is in the original play, it also allows the narrative to move beyond the confines of the single stage setting. Framed around a visiting English journalist who has arrived in the town to study the ways of the 'natives,' the story offers up a variety of images and situations that allow the apparently dim-witted Aussies blokes to do typically ratbag and oddball things with and to each other, usually while knocking back another 'tinnie' or trying to crack onto a sheila.

The dramatic action sees, for example, Morrie undergo the rigours of the shearing-shed bucks party. Amid the booze, obscenities, and fist fights arrives Angelique, a stripper who'll do more than just strip--if the price is right! Complications arise when Dangles, the best man, delivers incriminating photographs of Morrie and Angelique to Maureen, and the mayhem worsens when Morrie's mother reveals that the future bride and groom could actually be first cousins because of a pre-marital fling!

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For

AC: Year 11 (Literature Unit 1)

Themes

Australian identity, community, gender, misunderstanding/miscommunication, satire, satire of modern Australian society

General Capabilities

Critical and creative thinking, Intercultural understanding, Literacy, Personal and social

Production Details

  • First produced by the Australian Performing Group at La Mama, Carlton, 6 July 1969 and then professionally by the APG at the Pram Factory, Carlton, 25 April 1973. Dimboola has been produced around Australia.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
c
England,
c
c
United Kingdom (UK),
c
Western Europe, Europe,
:
Penguin , 1974 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Last of the Knucklemen, John Powers , single work drama

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

      .
      Extent: 38 leavesp.
      Description: Typescript with ms. emendations (photocopy).
      (Manuscript) assertion
      Note/s:
      • Undated

      Holdings

      Held at: University of Queensland University of Queensland Library Fryer Library
      Location: Hanger Collection
      Local Id: H0798A
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Penguin ,
      1974 .
      image of person or book cover 4852548227231888976.png
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 55p.
      Reprinted: 1977
      Note/s:
      • Two plays issued jointly, with separate front covers (but no back covers) and title pages, and bound together.
      ISBN: 0140700420
    • Harmondsworth, Middlesex,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Penguin ,
      1978 .
      Extent: 1 vol.p.
      Description: illus., music.
      ISBN: 0140700420
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Country Quinella : Two Celebration Plays Jack Hibberd , Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1984 Z186592 1984 selected work musical theatre humour Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1984
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Plays Jack Hibberd , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2000 Z795032 2000 selected work drama (taught in 3 units)

    Three landmark plays from the renaissance of Australian playwriting: 'White with Wire Wheels' was the first play to examine the insecurity inherent in the male culture of women and cars; 'Dimboola', a Rabelaisian account of a country wedding; Monk O'Neill, of 'A Stretch of the Imagination' has become an archetype of Australian character.

    Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2000
    pg. 65-106

Works about this Work

Wedding Party Blues Ron Cerabona , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 13 September 2011; (p. 13)
For Better, For Worse, Dimboola Erin O'Dwyer , 2010 single work prose travel
— Appears in: Red Dust and Wanderlust : Tales of Travel in Australia 2010; (p. 179-186)
Untitled Bart Hosking , 2008 single work correspondence
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 April 2008; (p. 2)
Timeless, Riotous Marital Mayhem Martin Ball , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 29 March 2008; (p. 23)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
Too Close To Home Graeme Blundell , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 March 2008; (p. 6)
Graeme Blundell re-visits the original production of Jack Hibberd's Dimboola (directed by Blundell) and reflects on Hibberd's lack of popularity among theatre companies in the early twenty-first century. Blundell also refers to a 2008 production of the play, noting that Dimboola has been seen by more Australians 'than any other stage musical, comedy or straight play'.
Timeless, Riotous Marital Mayhem Martin Ball , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 29 March 2008; (p. 23)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
Playhouse Caper Bloody Terrific Dan Drummond , 1973 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 12 May vol. 95 no. 4854 1973; (p. 42)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
Untitled H. Frizell , 1973 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 11 July 1973; (p. 7)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
[Review] Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Helen Garner , 1973 single work review
— Appears in: Digger , no. 17 1973; (p. 10)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
Untitled L. Glickfeld , 1973 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Telegraph , 29 April 1973; (p. 30)

— Review of Dimboola : A Wedding Reception Play Jack Hibberd , 1974 single work musical theatre
Too Close To Home Graeme Blundell , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 22-23 March 2008; (p. 6)
Graeme Blundell re-visits the original production of Jack Hibberd's Dimboola (directed by Blundell) and reflects on Hibberd's lack of popularity among theatre companies in the early twenty-first century. Blundell also refers to a 2008 production of the play, noting that Dimboola has been seen by more Australians 'than any other stage musical, comedy or straight play'.
Untitled Bart Hosking , 2008 single work correspondence
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 April 2008; (p. 2)
Jack Hibberd Jennifer Palmer (interviewer), 1979 single work interview
— Appears in: Contemporary Australian Playwrights 1979; (p. 120-136)
Wedding Party Blues Ron Cerabona , 2011 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 13 September 2011; (p. 13)
For Better, For Worse, Dimboola Erin O'Dwyer , 2010 single work prose travel
— Appears in: Red Dust and Wanderlust : Tales of Travel in Australia 2010; (p. 179-186)
Last amended 23 May 2017 11:10:48
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