Tom Flanagan is one of Australia’s youngest leading acrobatic clowns. A graduate of the internationally renowned circus school, The Flying Fruit Flies, Tom started tumbling, twisting, flying and falling at the age of six. Tom has performed at festivals and venues around the world collecting accolades including the Argus Angel and Star of the Festival Award. In 2005 Tom formed The Tomali Brothers, with acrobatic partner Mali De Goey. The collective performed at festivals and events throughout Australia including Burtons Circus, Lennon Brothers Circus and Dreamworld. Tom recently performed in Feasting on Flesh at the Sydney Opera House and Tom Tom Club at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Program: Kaput

How to put a likeable man in a hapless predicament and witness his struggle to regain situational control: Flanagan’s Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin influence is a proud one. In Kaput, the likeable man is an eager young silent movie projectionist whose uncomplicated goal of showing a film on a screen is frustrated by a glitch in his temperamental projector. The combination of a heart of gold and very poor spatial reasoning leads Flanagan's character into increasingly desperate attempts to repair his equipment so as not to deny his audience the film that's been advertised.

Chaos, of course, ensues – a flat-capped Flanagan struggles with ladders, trestle tables, various pieces of dysfunctional machinery and a growing pile of stage debris, accompanied only a keyboardist contributing cheesy muzak as an ironic musical commentary to the disaster as it unfolds. Flanagan's signature leaps and tumbles are present, but it is tricks like a set of twists with an exploding roll of sticky tape that show him to be both an exceptional talent and a unique one.

Kaput is a beautifully poignant step back into the ‘golden era’ of black and white silent film, produced by award winning, internationally renowned production company Strut & Fret.

"Tom Flanagan’s silent movie-esque slapstick with a bucket and stepladder is elegant buffoonery at its finest, climaxing with a surprisingly heart-stopping piece of acrobatics."

- Three Weeks (UK)