Tales of Kabbarli

Robina Beard has been working all her life in television, dance, drama, comedy, children’s theatre, and theatre restaurants, both as a performer and director. Her most ‘famous’ persona was that of Madge the Palmolive Dishwashing Lady. In 2011, she was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for Services to the Theatre. 

In “Tales of Kabbarli” she plays the legendary figure of Daisy Bates, a journalist and anthropologist who lived with aboriginal tribes for over 30 years, at Ooldea, on the Nullabor South Australia, and before that in Western Australia. Robina has been playing the role for many years, in Adelaide, Melbourne and Riverside Parramatta.

Robina says the show is a unique venture in dramatic acting in her busy career of dance, music theatre and comedy. She is pleased at the positive feedback it has received from reviewers. “One knows they are in the presence of a consummate actor." (Adelaide Theatre Guide) The Sydney Morning Herald said “Beard’s performance as Bates in Geoffrey Sykes’ one-woman play is so featherlight she barely seems to be acting. She creates a character as soft as early morning light and just as luminous. The music of her lilting Irish accent effortlessly entwines with the poeticism of Sykes’s script.”