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VICTORIANA! 2009
in
Bavaria
46th Annual Production
Victoriana! 2009 has now left the building.
Watch this space for news of the 2010 production.
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Victoriana! is Australia's longest running theatrical production and one of its most enduring and endearing. |
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Run under the auspices of St Paul's College Union, it has helped fund the operations of the Union for four decades, provided untold amusement for two generations of Paulines and become a tangible link to the College for Old Paulines who delight in returning for Victoriana! and bringing friends for this remarkable evening of formal dining and entertainment. |
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Originally brought to Australia from England in 1956 by Pamela Trethowan, Victoriana! found a permanent home at St Paul's College at the instigation of prominent Pauline Lloyd Waddy in 1964, and has played to a succession of packed houses ever since. |
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Based on the English Music Hall tradition, the show draws on music and comedy of the Victorian era. The entire show is performed on a tiny stage in the College Hall, after a usually excellent three course dinner before an audience in formal attire, but always ready to sing boisterously whenever the opportunity arises. |
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Under the masterful baton of the Master of Ceremonies, the audience is invited to join in the choruses of many of the numbers and does so with gusto: Daddy Wouldn't Buy me a Bow Wow, I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside, There Was I Waiting at the Church and Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty (to name but a few). |
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For 36 years the show was hosted by Lloyd Waddy who built up a reputation for himself as a cult figure and for the show as a "must see" across those sections of Sydney society fortunate enough to receive an invitation. Since 1999 the MC has been Christopher North, already establishing himself in the hearts of a new generation of Paulines. |
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Over the years the show has featured some wonderfully talented artists including many who have gone on to become household names in the entertainment industry. |
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Traditionally the evening ends at midnight with the audience standing on their chairs waving sparklers and singing "Land of Hope and Glory", followed by "grand illuminations" (in the modern era called fireworks) in the splendour of the Blacket Quadrangle....after which the choruses can be heard tinkling off into the darkness as the guests make their way home...in the knowledge that a whole year will pass before they can do it all again |
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