Written, performed & designed by Brian Lipson (& Francis Galton)
At Trades Hall, Council Chambers, Carlton, until 7 June 2026
RISING Festival 2026
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****/1/2 (4.5)
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| Brian Lipson, A Large Attendance in the Antechamber, supplied |
A Large Attendance in the Antechamber, Brian Lipson's solo show about British scientist, Francis Galton, is riveting in this return season 26 years after its premiere in Melbourne in 2000. Lipson’s writing is complex, intelligent and vivid, the style absurd, his performance detailed, intriguing and outrageously hilarious. The production is enhanced by Susie Dee's deft direction.
Lipson’s imaginative leaps illuminate Galton’s character, and use his eclectic scientific interests and his recognised genius as the starting point for an inventive and thoroughly entertaining piece of theatre.
The title of the performance, A Large Attendance in the Antechamber, refers to Galton’s peculiar image of the conscious mind as a chamber with an adjoining antechamber in which ideas wait to enter the consciousness.
Lipson, dressed initially in full period costume, is seated in a tiny replica of a Victorian study, jammed with a peculiar assortment of scientific devices, projectors, lamps, candles, umbrellas and pictures.
This is not merely an impersonation or characterisation of Galton, nor is it a dramatisation of his life and work. Galton is constantly conscious of, and irritated by being played by an actor, Lipson.
He repeatedly refers to the actor, reminding us that Lipson has the temerity to pretend to be Galton. He insists that he, Galton, is dead and that this is a theatrical environment which must abide by the conventions of theatre. He even imprints 'Lipson' on his forehead to reinforce the presence of the actor.
The pace shifts swiftly, sometimes meandering, then suddenly galloping at a pace. There is no logical sequence to the dialogue as Lipson/Galton launches from bizarre and often hilarious experiments, to lantern slides demonstrating his alarming theory of Eugenics.
Galton's obsession with the nature of the Jewish physiognomy is at the core of Lipson's interest in him. Galton was the first to study Eugenics. He proposed the perfecting of the human race by selective reproduction. He was the precursor to all that was evil in the Nazis racial purification.
Lipson leaps about inside his tiny, Victorian cubicle and also launches himself into the space to explore Galton’s theories with the startled audience. He manipulates our behaviour as much as his own or Galton’s, and both ridicules and is alarmed by Galton's bizarre behaviour and experimentation.
A Large Attendance in the Antechamber is the perfect combination of theory and practice, theatre and reality, present and past, truth and fiction. It is a splendid, disturbing and compelling performance by an exceptional actor with impeccable comic timing.
By Kate Herbert
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