For My Family, And Yours
The Bowling Club, 337 South Road, Caversham, Dunedin, Dunedin
14/03/2025 - 16/03/2025
Production Details
Written, performed and produced by Ravi the Poet
(Ravitesh Ratnam)
For My Family, And Yours is a heartfelt blend of poetic storytelling and music, exploring the relationships that shape us. With guitar in hand, Ravi the Poet shares personal stories of love, gratitude, and difficult truths, inviting audiences to reflect on their own experiences of family.
This award-winning show is a celebration of connection, filled with vulnerability, joy, and healing. You even leave with a postcard—and a reason to reach out to someone who shaped your journey.
“Gently confronting! Vulnerable storytelling that will take you on a journey and remind you who matters most.”
https://www.dunedinfringe.nz/events/for-my-family-and-yours
Prices – $15 General / $10 Concession
Cabaret , Music , Spoken word , Solo , Poetry , Theatre ,
60 mins
Charm and sweetness results in a gentle show, with laughter and thoughtfulness
Review by Hannah Molloy 17th Mar 2025
Content warning – mentions suicide and mental illness
Charming. Sweet. Introspective. Caring. These and other similar adjectives scroll through my mind as I listen to Ravi the Poet’s show For My Family, And Yours.
Ravi welcomes his audience personally, shaking our hands, introducing himself and giving each person a postcard with some questions. He explains that he will explain what they’re for once he gets underway. We settle into our seats, with cups of tea and tasty Indian snacks.
The show is a series of songs punctuated by Ravi’s stories about the why of the song or the family member it’s about. He intersperses questions for the audience – are we here with family, do we have memories of summer holidays with family, what about a memory that makes us smile. We’re encouraged gently and without pressure to share these memories with the group and to write them down so he can share them with the next audience, creating a thread – a cord – that connects us beyond our immediate group.
There are three sections to the show, but it felt more like two – the first being a love story about Ravi’s family and his ideas of family and the second a more serious retelling of his experience and diagnosis of bipolar disorder and suicidal ideation.
His family relationships and memories of his childhood are wholesome and filled with pride but there are also undercurrents of the complexities of family dynamics and relationships. Ravi speaks of these very frankly.
He enters the second part of the show slowly, with plenty of advance warning of the topics he’s going to cover and time for people to leave if they want to. It’s a hard listen but important that these stories are shared and that we talk freely about mental illness so that people who are struggling can be supported.
Throughout the show, Ravi talks and sings about finding new chords – my mind pondered the idea of c(h)ords and the ways we are connected and the ways we choose to connect with others, whether through familial relationships, through art, through sharing stories with strangers. The cords that bind us together can help us stay afloat as well as sometimes doing harm.
Ravi’s charm and sweetness results in a gentle show, with laughter and thoughtfulness, leaving us with plenty to think about.
The questions from his postcards for you to take with you into your day:
- Who makes you smile?
- Who doesn’t get enough thank yous?
- Who misses you?
- Who are you proud of?
If you need mental health support, there is a list of numbers you can call at https://mentalhealth.org.nz/helplines
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments