Jack Charles versus the Crown: An actor from the Black Theatre Movement in Australia knocks us out of our seats!
Photo: Bindi Cole
The NAC studio will never be the same again and it is clear that the sensitive and strong handed guidance of director Rachael Maza has been central to our encounter with Uncle Jack Charles. Tramping on stage followed by his three musicians, Nigel Maclean, Phil Collings and Malcolm Beveridge, Uncle (Elder) Jack Charles moves into Emily Barrie’s multiply focussed set, sits down at a potter’s wheel , plunges his hands into the drippy muddy clay as the wheel spins, getting deep into that substance from which his ancestors came and from the land where his history emerges and brings people closer to their origins. An art form he began while he was in prison and which obviously liberated his artistic spirit.