“It is an outstanding production, aided by some striking video visuals, that will shock you, make you laugh and cringe. It is a performance we should all see.”
Kerry Skinner, The Illawarra Mercury, 10/11/2011
“The play is often wildly funny, so improbable is the mire of greed and lechery, and yet every laugh is another nail in the coffin of the council’s probity. If the piece staggers occasionally under the weight of cross-examination testimony, it soon picks itself up and becomes rampant entertainment once more, thanks in part to imaginative theatrical sleights of hand and brilliant video projections. This is vital, engaging theatre that serves an invaluable function in helping to purge the canker. It will reward a trip to Wollongong.”
John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald, 2/9/2011
“With version 1.0’s signature style of blending video, multimedia and reenactments, they not only revisit the systemic corruption but also capture the extreme personal toll it had on all those caughe up in the scandal. It’s a tragic story told with sensitivity, humour, and a healthy skepticism that’s infectious. For a company that has already presented works on sexual violence in sport, the Australian Wheat Board inquiry and Australia’s involvement in Iraq, this is yet another production that proves that good political theatre can activate and anger audiences. 8/10”
Nicholas Pickard, The Sun Herald, 4/9/2011
“Version 1.0 takes a complicated story and tells it clearly, with trademark forensic rigour but also with much humour. [...] the lively production is an incisive examination of bribery and corruption at a local-government level, yet is also extremely funny and entertaining. Four stars”
Jo Litson, The Sunday Telegraph, 4/9/2011
“Version 1.0 and Merrigong Theatre Company’s show is not a classic political thriller, although it would be very easy to turn the story into one – it has sex, deception, con men, clandestine meetings in car parks, phone taps, dirty deals, and death threats. It has all the ingredients for something in the noir genre, but this is not the direction the show goes at all. Instead, nearly all the script is taken verbatim from the ICAC reports. This type of theatre owes a lot to the work of Brecht – the focus is not on the actors’ portrayal of the characters or even a linear narrative. It is not sensationalised or adorned. It is raw theatre – the players in the scandal literally allowed to speak for themselves. [...] The Table of Knowledge is a raw portrayal of the scandal that rocked a region without resorting to cheap sensationalising. It is frank acknowledgement that the personal can affect the political in not just an intense but a tangible way, a call for more critical thinking about and engagement with public affairs. Fantastic theatre.”
Jodi McAlister, The Australian Stage, 2/9/2011