POLLIES SITTING DUCKS FOR WHARF REVUE TEAM
In the art of the political revue, Jonathon Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott, are skilled practitioners. The setting for their new show, THE WHARF REVUE: DEBT DEFYING ACTS, is a circus, amusingly titled the Upton Circus. Much like a shooting gallery at a circus, the targets are lined up and the trio fire away.
The Murdoch clan cop a bullseye with a skit satirising this year’s phone hacking episodes. Murdoch is depicted as a tragic King Lear figure.
There’s a hilarious scene with Drew Forsythe and Amanda Bishop playing the LOVE NEVER DIES scene, with changes, out of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. With his phantom’s mask Forysthe is hysterical, as is Bishop at impersonating our Prime Minister. This year Bishop was the co-writer and producer of the popular AT HOME WITH JULIA television show, as well as now promoting herself as performing the role for ‘special events’.
There’s a great Western skit where our liberal Premier gets the razz as Marshall Barry Farrell riding into town to clean up the city. Amanda Bishop is great as one of his targets, the saucy, flirtatious Kittie Kenneally.
We have Drew Forsythe and Jonathon Biggins playing two of our former Prime Ministers who have to contend with each other, and their cantankerous natures, in a nursing home.
There’s a scathing skit on broadcaster Allan Jones, depicting him as a wicked sorcerer who has way too much sway on the general public’s psyche. The right wingers won’t be happy, not, I suspect, that many would go and see the Wharf revues in the first place.
Phil Scott’s wonderful piano skits, as always, are on display. My highlight of the evening is the ditty he wrote that critiques social networking sites that dominate our lives and invade our privacy.
The costumes, the make-up, the wigs, the video skits, the manic energy of the performers, the quick as lightning scene changes all work well.
By the end of the whirlwind ninety minutes, all of the targets, who bravely, some might say foolishly put themselves out there in the public arena, have been knocked down, and we laugh our way all the way to the Bar.
THE WHARF REVUE- Debt Defying Acts, performed by the comedy trio with the wonderful Amanda Bishop, opened at the Wharf 1 Theatre, Sydney Theatre Company, Pier 4, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay on Friday 18th November and plays until Thursday 29th December, 2011. The Sydney Theatre Company announced today that there will be a further return season of the current production which will play the Wharf 2 Theatre between the 8th to the 19th February, 2012.
(c) David Kary
24th November, 2011
Tags: THE WHARF REVUE- Debt Defying Acts, Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company, Jonathon Biggins, Drew Forsythe, Philip Scott, Amanda Bishop, Political Satire.