RAT FOLLIES

$5.40 – $15.00

Darlinghurst was Australia’s heart of darkness in the burlesque aftermath of World War II—a heaving slum, home to prostitutes, gangsters, druggies, con-men, crooked cops, petty crims, sly grog, bent pollies, psychos and SP bookies.

The rest comprised poor, honest battlers doing their best in difficult times. Or so it seemed. Several battlers were further afflicted by spectacularly unpleasant Thallium poisoning, NSW being the only state where deadly Thallium-based rat poison could be purchased freely.

Unpleasant husbands, friends and relatives surplus to requirement, fared ill on the statistical spike.

Rat Follies is based on the true stories of Balmain footie star and league international Bobby Lulham, who accidentally drank the suicide draught mixed by his remorse-wracked mother-in-law and lover Veronica Monte; down-to-earth Beryl Hague, driven to desperation by mindless brutality; Yvonne Butler/Fletcher, who lost two entirely unsatisfactory husbands to the popular, cruel but effective rodenticide; and, above all, Darlinghurst’s 'saintly' grannie Caroline Grills who sent two step-mothers, a sister and brother-in-law to their reward while striving to murder her sister-in-law and two young friends in nearby Redfern.

As told from the deathbed of a relatively minor, and not too trustworthy, cop, set in Sydney’s gothic sewers, satirically seasoned and performed by a nimble ensemble of rat-like actors with rat puppet support, Rat Follies is an epic entertainment and seamless spectacle, a dark circus tumbling on to the highest courts of the land and the tabloid-tailored trial of Mrs. Caroline Grills—Aunt Thally, Loony extraordinaire.

APT