Three Summers

Ben Elton is one of those performers who was big in the 80s and has spent much of the last couple of decades somewhat reviled. And it's true that he's had some high profile crashes ("Live on Planet Earth") and has, even worse, written jukebox musicals of dubious merit (the well known "We Will Rock You" and the lesser known "Tonight's The Night"). But if the ranting outrage has been replaced by something a tad gentler and more consumer friendly, a little bit of the political intention remains behind in "Three Summers", a gentle comedy taking place over three annual folk music festivals in a small Western Australian town.

There's a little bit of subplot overload, such that a couple of the cast on the poster end up with little to play (Deborah Mailman in particular is there to provide very brief support to two characters and never really gets any decent jokes), but the general intention, to use the music festival to reflect various elements of society, whether it be racist granddads, Aboriginal traditionalists, right-on protesters, self-righteous musical innovators, just-getting-by performers, immigrants, career mothers or officious security guards, gives us a range of stuff to tell. And if there's rarely a particularly quoteable one-liner, there's at least a gently pleasant feeling from the main plot thread as a theramin playing experimentalist meets a violin-playing traditionalist and they both soften towards one another. And while there is a thread to parody right-on-political-statements, there's also a little bit of a burst of them as well, presented somewhat more softly.

I can't bring myself to hate this, it's soft and gentle and kinda likeable. But I can't really say it demands to be seen either.