Bill Massey's Tourists

Jan Bolwell brings ‘Bill Massey’s Tourists’, her acclaimed WW1 solo play about her grandfather, to the Hamilton Fringe Festival.

It will be presented at the Waikato Museum from March 9 to 11 at 7.30pm with door sales only.
Bolwell says: “This is the fourth of my plays to be presented in Hamilton. I am delighted to be returning with this solo play about my grandfather Arthur. He never talked about his experiences in WW1, and I wrote ‘Bill Massey’s Tourists’ to try to discover what happened to him. “

Bolwell continues: “I am also thrilled to be doing my play at the Waikato Museum where there is a current WW1 exhibition about Waikato soldiers who served in the war. It feels like the right place to be doing ‘Bill Massey’s Tourists.

This is a performance that has left audiences weeping and laughing up and down the country. Veteran Auckland theatre director Raymond Hawthorne says of this play:
‘Bill Massey’s Tourists is a great piece of theatre! Based on her grandfather’s reflections of World War One, Jan Bolwell reveals both as a writer and performer the horrors, humour and pathos of those hellish times at the front. A moving experience.’

The play is peppered with movement sequences set to amusing and original WW1 soldiers’ ditties and First World War poems set to music by composer Laughton Pattrick.

Dunedin reviewer Terry MacTavish writes:
“Not only does Bolwell change character in the blink of an eye, but lighting up the stage with energy, she breaks effortlessly into perfectly integrated song and dance, whether it’s Arthur’s waltz with his bride-to-be or the more vulgar capering of the soldiers.

‘Bill Massey’s Tourists’ is directed by the award-winning Wellington theatre director, Kerryn Palmer, with design by Nicole Cosgrove.