The Grenade readies for STC season

The Grenade is the latest hilarious romp from indomitable comic playwright, Tony McNamara (The Great, The Give and Take).

The Grenade is the latest hilarious romp from indomitable comic playwright, Tony McNamara (The Great, The Give and Take).

Directed by his regular collaborator Peter Evans, for Melbourne Theatre Company, with a cast including Garry McDonald, Mitchell Butel and Eloise Mignon, The Grenade is a whodunit comedy of fidelity, marriage and inter-generational relationships.

Performances are at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House from Novembe 4.

Someone has planted a grenade in the kitchen of the McTavish family home. Although the pin remains in place, political advisor and lobbyist Busby McTavish (Garry McDonald) has just exploded into a paranoid frenzy of security insecurity. Is it a warning? Or someone’s idea of a practical joke? Or maybe the threat comes from within, from among his troubled family. Or was it his jealous work colleague political consultant Whitman (Mitchell Butel)?

As if the prospect of an imminent and gruesome death weren’t sufficient reason to be anxious, Busby has other causes for paranoia. Sexually voracious author of erotic fiction, Randy Savage (Bert LaBonté), is paying an alarming amount of attention to his wife (Belinda Bromilow), while his precious daughter Lola (Eloise Mignon) is being wooed by the slightly strange, balaclava-clad Wheat (Gig Clarke). 

Tony McNamara is one of Australia’s most successful playwrights, renowned for his wild-swinging satire and cheerful swipes at the darker side of human nature. McNamara was nominated for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for his first play The Café Latte Kid and he won the 1995 Phillip Parsons’ Award for Young Playwrights. His plays include: The Great, The John Wayne Principle, The Give and Take and The Unlikely Prospect of Happiness. Film credits include Kick to Kick, Seduction, The Rage in Placid Lake and The Best Manifesto which won the Australian Film Institute award for best screenplay. He has also written for successful television series: Tangle, Love My Way and The Secret Life of Us.

Peter Evans, MTC’s Associate Director, has previously worked with McNamara on The Great and The Give and Take, both presented by Sydney Theatre Company. His other work seen at Sydney Theatre Company includes Don’s Party and Fat Pig.  He takes up a new position as Associate Artistic Director at Bell Shakespeare at the end of the year.

Bookings: (02) 9250 1777.