Tuesday, 15 August 2023

 Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (13:11): I rise to acknowledge the wonderful production of Matilda Jr. put on by Preston High School last month. School productions are always exciting, but this one was particularly so because it was the very first full school production by the new Preston High School, which was built, funded and opened by this Labor government. I want to thank Sean Butler and all his team there for the great work that they are doing to embed the arts into the emerging progressive culture of that school.

I did get a chance to catch a matinee production. It was absolutely fantastic. I will not, like the member for Albert Park, read out the entire cast list, but I do want to acknowledge some of the great performances. Of course in Matilda it is the baddies who are most fun to play, and a credit to Quinn MacCartney as Ms Trunchbull; Nicola, Jasper and Frankie as the evil Wormwood family; and Vinh King for a great cameo as the lead Russian gangster at the end. I also want to recognise the two other amazing leads: Chloe Bellchambers as Ms Honey and Riley Richards as Matilda. I met Riley’s grandmother after the show, Ursula Richards. She had flown all the way from Western Australia to see her granddaughter’s performance, and I imagine that all of the friends and family who were there would have been very proud of the cast and the crew for their wonderful efforts.

Finally, I should note that this performance took place in the Northern College of the Arts and Technology auditorium, which is a fantastic performance space. We are very grateful to principal Raffaela Galati-Brown and all her team for their support of the performing arts across our community.