Verdict: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 (reviewed Tuesday 3 September).
Sydney Fringe Festival 2024 is jam-packed with top-tier theatre performances, many of them produced by independent theatre companies.
An Apprentice in Western Sydney is a hard-hitting tongue-in-cheek comedy where white-bread elitism from Sydney’s East clashes with flat-bread folk from across the border in the Western suburbs.
Writer / Producer Daniel Azzi takes all the cliches and insults and whips them up in this hilarious Shakespearean-sounding mashup. The rhyming scheme of iambic pentameter keeps this script fresh and catchy. You as the audience will be crying with laughter at each absurd impending disaster!
Director Nick Bradshaw translates Azzi’s vision with faithful integrity, while from the seating shadows Azzi turns the pages of his carefully crafted script that took three years to write. The currency of contemporary language and social attitudes may have changed a lot in that time, but there is a brutal, wry honesty to what Azzi & Bradshaw manage to capture and present to the audience. Every ethnic kid that grew up in Western Sydney will relate so hard to this (I know I did!).
David Dawod plays Michele, a timid young man eager to do the best that he can, serving as an tradie apprentice to his overbearing white male boss, Oliver, played by Simon Lee. Sam Daoud plays Nasir, Michele’s mate and Josie Waller plays Miranda, Oliver’s wife.
Tensions flare when Oliver’s ‘limp d!ck donkey’ energy gets in the way of running the business fair and square. Lee plays the role of ‘racist white c*nt’ with astonishing conviction, revelling in the script with powerful precision. Daoud as Nasir brings a heart-warming comedic element with his send up of Lebanese locals, the ‘hero bro’ of the story. Dawod as Michele is softly spoken, vibing a young Lou Ferrigno. Waller is comedy gold as Oliver’s suffering wife, who isn’t afraid to stand up to her arrogant prick of a husband.
The situations are sitcom-farcical but there is also honest truth telling; I vividly remember during my HSC year reading in the Daily Telegraph letter section that “…it’s truly a miracle if 1% of all Western Sydney kids go on to credible success in their lives”.
Judging by all my friends and allies doing great work in the theatre space and beyond…I think we did alright, bro. 👌🏼
An Apprentice From Western Sydney is playing at multi-venues during Sydney Fringe Festival. For tickets & showtimes click here.
You can also make a donation via PayID to: anapprenticefromwesternsydney@gmail.com
Credits:
- Director – Nick Bradshaw
- Writer, Producer – Daniel Azzi
- Designer – Lochie Odgers
- Associate Producer – Grace Ho
- Starring – David Dawod, Josie Waller, Sam Daoud, Simon Lee