What’s On [National]: The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour Q&A tour hits the road

Nitin Vengurlekar and Sabrina Chan D’Angelo in The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour.

The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour cast and crew are currently touring their new film across Australia.

All sessions will feature an in-person Q&A with key cast, including Nitin Vengurlekar and Sabrina Chan D’Angelo, and the creative team, including director Platon Theodoris and editor and cinematographer Brian Rapsey.

The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour premiered at the 2022 Revelation Perth International Film Festival followed by the 70th Melbourne International Film Festival where it was nominated for the BlackMagic Innovation Award. The film won Best Film at the 16th Sydney Underground Film Festival & Best Actor at the 24th Festival de Antipodes in Saint Tropez, France.

An existential mishmash of Spike Milligan and Jacques Tati with an Australian flavour, this is absurdist comedy at its weirdest and most charming.

Neville Umbrellaman is a verbose, velvet-voiced intellectual who hosts a late-night radio show from his parent’s garage. The alter ego of Rabindranath Chakraborty, Umbrellaman is deeply committed to the program, a labour of love and fantastical fancy that masks deeper, more tragic truths. Luckily, he’s got plenty of eccentric guests to help him out, from folk singer Kenneth Wong and Terry the neighbour to French baker Yvette and Chakraborty’s secret crush, Sabrina D’Angelo. But is anybody tuning in?

This adaptation of Nitin Vengurlekar’s lauded stage show of the same name is a rare gem of independent local filmmaking. Starring Vengurlekar as Chakraborty/Umbrellaman – reprising the role he also played onstage – the film builds on the warped whimsy of award-winning director Platon Theodoris’s debut feature Alvin’s Harmonious World of Opposites, enabling him to stake a claim as one of the country’s most distinctive and curious filmmakers. The Lonely Spirits Variety Hour is a hilarious, wonderfully weird delight.

Here’s where you can see it:

Fri. March 31st – 7pm
ACMI Federation Square
Melbourne, VIC

Sat. April 1 – 11am
Royal Theatre
Castlemaine, VIC

Thurs. April 20 – 7pm
Cremorne Orpheum
Sydney, NSW

Sat. April 29 – 4pm
Luna Leederville
Perth, WA

Tues. May 2 – 7pm
Mount Vic Flicks
Blue Mountains, NSW

Sat. May 6 – 4pm
The Piccadilly
Adelaide, SA

Thurs. May 11 – 7.30pm
Newcastle Civic Theatre
Newcastle, NSW

Sat. May 13 – 7pm
Elizabeth Picture Theatre
Brisbane, QLD

Wed. May 17 – 6.30pm
Dendy Newtown
Newtown, NSW

Sun. May 21 – 3.30pm
The State Theatre
Hobart, TAS

Sun. May 28 – 4pm
Randwick Ritz
Sydney, NSW