"Planting the Dunk Botanic Gardens"

Powerful storytelling: played against the stunning projected images of botanic artist Linda Martin; solo Aussie actor David Malikoff weaves this passionate and funny story through the jazz rhythms of Todd Hardy’s masterful flugelhorn.

Directed by Olivier Award winner Emil Wolk.

Written by Mark O’Connor, Australia’s Olympic poet, this is the humorous and enthralling story of his fight to plant a Botanic Garden on tropical Dunk Island (near the Great Barrier Reef) against the challenges of time, cyclones and fellow man. O’Connor’s labours to grow an Eden were arduous, thrilling, life changing.

Now, at 3 minutes to midnight and close to the tipping point in climate change that could drown many tropical gardens forever, it becomes a poignant elegy for paradise forsaken.   read more...

The show was performed August
6- 25th at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Arts Festival at Venue 40-Quaker Meeting House
7 Victoria Terrace Endinburgh.

" David Malikoff gives a performance of great energy, creativity and love. Mark O'Connor's poem "Planting the Dunk Botanic Gardens " is simply a great yarn of paradise lost and then found, with a real message of hope for the future. It will capture your imagination and take you on a journey through a tropical paradise as diverse as the species and colours this production brings to life through the poetry, artwork, music and the muscle of David's masterful delivery."

Cameron Marshall ABC Radio