East Coast premiere sells out
The film, I TOLD YOU I WAS ILL, has played to packed houses during its limited theatrical release. Its world premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival on 22 February 2005 sold out, as did its East Coast premiere in Byron Bay on 8 April 2005. The Byron Bay screening was the first of three sessions held in the Northern Rivers to determine the potential for a regional theatrical tour called ‘Spike Milligan is Back!!’. The first part of the show features Spike’s eldest daughter Laura reading a selection of his hysterical poems and eccentric letters. Then Glen Cardier, who toured with Spike in the 1980s, performed a live acoustic gig including songs featured in the film. The trial tour grossed almost $7000 at only three small theatres in Lismore, Ballina and Byron Bay.
Following the success of this trial, Hatchling Productions now plans to stage a theatrical tour of regional towns and centres in eastern Australia in late 2005. It is our intention to sell the enhanced DVD on the tour, as well as online and in ABC Shops.
Using this opportunity to promote a cause about which Spike would have been passionate will be a key feature of the tour. Spike was a dedicated activist who took a stand on many, many issues and was a prolific letter writer about causes in which he believed. Therefore we propose to call this tour ‘Spike Milligan is Back!! Pick up a Pen’, encouraging audiences all around Australia to play a more active role in democracy –Spike would have been proud if he knew his legacy encouraged people to engage with the political process, to question the decision makers and to be passionate, not apathetic.
