"After a sellout season early in the year, back by popular demand!

Australia's oldest theatre company - that "ratbag, lefty" New Theatre - celebrates a milestone birthday by taking a comic sprint through 70 years of Australian politics, headlines and social change.

Stop Laughing... This is Serious!

70 Years of Revue at the New - a mix of satirical sketches, comic songs, spoofs and cheap shots - opens in 1932 when the Harbour Bridge, the ABC and New Theatre were new and Australians were mourning Phar Lap and singing about Aeroplane Jelly.

Bob Menzies, Prince Charles, Harold Holt, Sonia McMahon, Dollar Bill and two well-known Governors-General show up, while John Howard goes overboard. Workers take on management, Bob Hawke takes on Darth Fraser with a Light Saber and the HMAS Melbourne takes on all comers.

Directed by Lyn Collingwood, the show is written and performed by three generations of New Theatre talent.

17-22 December 2002, 8pm Wed-Sat, 5.30pm Sun

Tickets $22/$15(conc). Bookings on 9519 3403.

Glebe & Inner Western Weekly December 18, 2002: "Stop laughing theis is serious" a political review from the new theatre.

Einar Docker, Bart Rose and Lee Lewis as characters. 10/12/02. Picture: John Appleyard Date: 18/12/2002

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This was the play poster which is a conversion of a classic Australian cartoon called..."Stop Laughing This Is Serious"

Featuring: Bridge Andrews, Chris Barker, Winston Cooper, Jennie Dibley, Einar Docker, Luke Finch, Neil Henderson, Deborah Hunt, Sally McDonald, Bart Rose, Gary Smith, Peter Talmacs, Anne Trefeli, Steve Vasquesz, Heath Wilder and Cheryl Ward.

Based on Ken Kesey's acclaimed bestseller, Dale Wasserman's powerful play takes us behind the walls of a psychiatric facility and into a tragi-comic, high-stakes power struggle between individuality and conformity.

Gambling that a six-month stay in a state mental hospital is preferable to a long stretch in prison, the free-spirited, silver-tongued Randle P. McMurphy fakes insanity and moves right on in. Immediately, his contagious sense of disorder runs up against the numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffle around in bathrobes when the World Series is on. This means war! Formerly cowed by the sadistic and tyrannical Nurse Ratched - one of the most coldly monstrous villains of all time - the inmates are now galvanized by McMurphy who enters a pitched battle of wills with the nurse. The struggle unfolds through the eyes of Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Native American inmate who alone understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward, and in particular the sanity of McMurphy whose mistakenly undertaken power struggle has ultimately tragic consequences.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the classic anti-establishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system. It challenges our notions of what constitutes insanity, and shows how seemingly democratic social arrangements can be readily manipulated by those in control. Raucous, searing, ribald, and ultimately shattering, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - as novel, play and film - left an indelible mark on the culture of the 1960s-70s. But like the multi-award winning film version, Wasserman's play is timeless because the human qualities it captures - playfulness, courage, stubbornness, inspiration and pride - are universal. 21 November to 8th December 2002.