My reviews of Happy Days and Care Instructions, which both opened last week at the Malthouse, are respectively in Friday's and today's Australian. More to follow here later this week. I hope.

My review of the MTC production of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party was in yesterday's Australian. Lots more to think about, and I hope I get a chance to do so (time is in short supply in Ms TN's world): on the one hand, how liberating to see these excellent Indigenous actors on the MTC stage; on the other, how disappointing that their talents are not fully exploited. It's an intelligent production that soft-pedals the underlying violence and terror of the play. I see that Captain's B'log has no such reservations: but he has uploaded a clip from the original film, which shows how absurdity and menace can run together in the same breath. My god, that Patrick Magee was something, eh?

Along with half the population of Williamstown, Ms TN has been struck by a nasty cold. No sign of trotters and snouts as yet, (though obviously, since I live in Plague City, it's only a matter of time) but it's definitely made action of any kind a bit difficult this week.

I have been thinking, through the fog, about Tracy Letts' August: Osage County. (The Australian review was in on Monday). I've been reading Sam Shepard and hemming and hawing about American drama. In short, my dears, Ms TN has been a dutiful and beetle-browed crrrritic in her own trousers all this week, but every two seconds her brains explode out of her ears and she has to begin all over again.

Speaking of which, the cartoon below has been doing the rounds for weeks, so I realise it's old news. But it still warms the cockles of my nasty heart.