Who: Oily Rag Theatre
What: Kreepy Kensington
Where: Streets of Kensington
When: To 14 March
Cost: $20, tickets here
I picked this show at random because I wanted to take a friend who loves spooky stuff and lives in Kensington. I’ve never been on a walking tour, let alone a ghostly walking tour, so I didn’t really know what the show was going to be. I was delighted by just how fun it was! It was swelteringly hot the night we went (the mercury was still at 40 when the tour started at 7pm), but as the sun went down and we cooled off, our wandering tour became kreepier and kreepier.
Charlotte, the ghost of a ‘fallen woman’ who lived in Mary MacKillop’s women’s refuge (dressed in full period gear, sans skirt because of the heat), takes us around the leafy suburb of Kensington, telling us about the beginnings of what was then a village, the heritage of the beautiful buildings, and even local ghost stories. I’ve never lived in the Eastern suburbs (I worked at Burnside for a while but that’s the closest I’ve come), and it was lovely walking around the streets and parks of Kensington, and my historian side loved learning about the development of the village into the bustling inner-city suburb it is now. It must be exhausting for Charlotte, who stays in character throughout, referring to us as ‘modern-dayers,’ asking us questions about ‘what is yoga?’ and pointing out that drunk men (who heckled us as we walked by) are the same throughout history (always annoying).
This is a really lovely, wholesome evening for local history lovers, or for people looking for a family evening out!
3.5/5
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