Theatre / Big Name, No Blankets, directed by Rachael Maza and Anyupa Butcher. At Canberra Theatre, until July 12. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

This show is an epic and gorgeous tribute to the great Warumpi Band, but it is also a salutary history lesson. 

Warumpi sang in language out of the deserts of the centre of the country, and from the islanded fringes of the north (as well as in English), something that is very hard to describe properly if you are not connected to these places. But performance is a bridge and Big Name No Blanket succeeds because of the power of its performers and material.

Narrated warmly by Baykali Ganambarr, as founding member Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher, the show follows the story of the band from its founding in 1980 to its disbanding in 2000. Out in the desert in Papunya with only rudimentary instruments a band gradually comes together, picking up schoolteacher Neil Murray (Jackson Peele) along the way. 

Like most bands the history of membership can be complex. Sammy’s brothers Gordon (Teangi Knox) and Brian (Ari Maza Long) are good humouredly very present in the line up and in the band’s early days. But there’s a feeling that everything pales when the highly charismatic George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga (Taj Pigram), Sammy’s brother-in-law from Elcho Island, turns up. He becomes the one with dark glasses and a mile of charm out the front of the band. 

Meanwhile, Tehya Makani adroitly plays all the women in the story, notably the steadfast mother of the three brothers, a strong part of the connection to land that will draw them back home. 

How the band follows the classic trajectory of bands and breaks up is part of the tale but so is the music, here bringing the audience to its feet with the gusto of numbers such as Blackfella Whitefella. Of course it all has to end with My Island Home, in language. 

The set is a cunning mixture of outback and film and levels and old rock and roll lights (the old Parcans) that have thankfully not gone to the tip. And the heart takes a jolt when the outback band arrives in Sydney and realises that there are indigenous people who don’t know where their country is. Sydney was the frontline of the invasion.

An absorbing, sobering and enjoyable story of a band that should never be forgotten.