Rob Carlton brings his award-winning show to Glen Street Theatre
Award winning Australian actor and writer Rob Carlton grew up on the Beaches, attending Mona Vale Public School and Pittwater High School. Now Rob is bringing his one-man dramatic comedy Virgin in a Knife Fight home to Glen Street Theatre this August.
Rob’s list of accolades includes Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo for which he won a Logie, Chandon Pictures, Boy Swallows Universe and The White Lotus. In award-winning Virgin in a Knife Fight, Rob brings to life four true stories from four different moments in his life.
“Three years ago, I started touring these solo shows…my children had left home and so I got out on the road and started telling these stories,” Rob tells PL.
“I guess the theme of Virgin in a Knife Fight is surprises. These are four different things that happened to me in my life that surprised me greatly. I was a virgin in a knife fight when I was 18 years old and hitchhiking around Europe and a guy came at me with a knife. It was a terrible situation to find myself in and as a young person that’s the world surprising you.”
Then follow stories of university, a Northern Beaches courtroom drama and tales of fatherhood and friendship. Rob says as you get older you can surprise yourself.
“You can surprise yourself with your own behaviour, your own flaws and foibles,” he says. “It becomes fun to share those glaring mistakes from my past because I’ve learned something from them. The stories are very much told through the perspective of the age of the man who experienced them.”
“I was a virgin in a knife fight when I was 18 years old and hitchhiking around Europe.”
Rob Carlton, Australian Actor
The shows are fully scripted and theatrical, with Rob moving around the stage and every word has an action to match. Rob tells his stories straight from the heart with warmth and wit and he says that the show is ‘emotional and moving.’ There are tears as well as laughter.
“I tell these stories with the same guilelessness or innocence that I experienced them in and with the same confusion and state of perplexity that I experienced at the time which allows my audience to remember their own inadequacies when they were younger. The show is great for parents with older children…because it reminds each other that we were young and silly once,” says Rob.
“It just reminds an audience what it’s like to be a bit foolish,” he adds.
VIRGIN IN A KNIFE FIGHT
Glen Street Theatre, Frenchs Forest
Friday 21 and Saturday 22 August
$25+
Glenstreet.com.au or call 9470 5913