Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
Unfortunately, I forgot to recharge my camera battery, so no pics this week. We’ll have to content ourselves with an image from Keating! The Musical, which I took my mum to see last night for Mothers’ Day (she’s a big PJK fan). Apparently, I’m not alone, as Paul Keating also took his mum to see it. I’d be really interested to know what non-Labor folks would think about it. They’d have been lonely in the audience at the QPAC Playhouse last night, surrounded by a gallery of Labor luminaries from Anna Bligh down. It’s also interesting to speculate whether a hypothetical Howard! The Musical would get much of a run – and I’m not sure Terry Serio would be cast in the eponymous role – his portrayal of Howard was cruel in its verisimilitude. Alexander Downer, in Rocky Horror style fishnets and corset, came off much better.
I also enjoyed catching up with a couple of friends who’d been at the matinee for a drink at The Point on Grey Street at Southbank first, always a good spot for a glass of wine or a cocktail, and while I’m doing recommendations, I went round to some other friends’ place for dinner on their back deck on Friday night and ate a very scrumptious lasagne concocted out of the pages of the Veganomicon – best. cookbook. eva! Today? Well, it’s been a lazy Sunday!
Hah! I was there last night too. Are you saying Capt. Bligh was there as well?
What a great show. Funny, very clever lyrics (“Mateship…welcome aboard”), great acting.
The portrayal of Downer was hysterical and Howard was justifiably mocking and cringe-worthy.
One can only wonder how they haven’t been sued by Hewson
)
Having a passing but ongoing acquaintance with Cheryl Kernot, I would love to hear her opinion too.
We also discussed what non-Labor voters feel about the show and whether there will ever be “Howard the musical”.
All in all, a good night out – makes me want to see another show – and that’s from someone who hasn’t been to the theatre in a fair while.
I saw it at QPAC on Thursday night. Bloody hilarious! Loved Downer’s “I’m too freaky!!” I’d give it a solid 10 out of 10 for piss funny.
One small quibble though, where was ‘the recession we had to have’? That could have been done really well too! Obviously, the musical was an unabashed homage to the great man, but surely they could have spiced things up a bit by at least including some passing reference to that famous line??
This weekend was pretty sedate,with Mother’s Day. Last weekend, I went and visited friends and got tied up and flogged. Was nice.
I’m encouraged by all the good reviews I’m seeing, particularly from folks I know. I have tickets for the next run down here in Canberra (June, I believe). Stephen shall not be accompanying me, but I believe that’s more to do with his general dislike of musicals than his non-ALP history.
I’m a non-Labor person, and I loved it. I’ve seen it twice actually, the first time a couple of years ago as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
It’s evolved a bit since then — the sequence about Howard and ‘the Mateship’ is a new addition, among others.
The song ‘Freaky’ about Alexander D was, in my opinion, even funnier the way it was done the first time. A different guy was playing Downer, and he walked on stage quietly with a long black cape wrapped around him.
As the audience was wondering who the hell he was supposed to be, he whipped off the cape to reveal his black leather outfit and fishnet stockings, and launched into “Look at me, I’m Alexander D …”
The audience erupted in laughter.
The best part of the whole show was when he sauntered into the crowd, picked out some guy at a table in a business suit, sat down in his lap, ruffled the guy’s hair, kicked up his heels, and sang:
“Look at you, you don’t know what to do! Never thought a man could be so … Liberal through and through.”
I almost died laughing.
To his credit, the real Downer had some nice words for the musical in a recent article in the Adelaide Advertiser.
I saw the show in Canberra, before the election. It’s my favourite musical ever. I bought the CD and play it all the time, know all the words. PK’s ‘da Man’!!
I’m definitely not a Labor person and I thought it was excellent. I would have liked to see more made of Keating’s trash-talk though! Particular mention should be made of the excellent backing band.
The portrayal of Howard was a fairly cruel characature but whateves. The Alexander Downer parody was hilarious. Not sure they really captured Dr Hewson though.
I really can’t see a Howard! musical getting off the ground. Costello! the Musical may have more luck though?
ate a very scrumptious lasagne concocted out of the pages of the Veganomicon – best. cookbook. eva!
Be it ever such a good cookbook, I can’t imagine using its pages as lasagna sheets would be very tasty. You must be suffering agonies of indigestion at this moment, Mark.
Ha!
Touche, Helen!
How would it ever be possible for a musical about (the by then unpopular) Paul Keating to be so widely successful? Was it ever to be so, that it would be successful, or were undercurrents beneath electoral jerkings brought to the surface? Or was it not really about Keating?
The Howard proposition as a musical or play stonewalls the mind instantly – but for one thing, which opens the mind intriguingly. The character Howard need only be the catalyst by which so many characters can be formed. By Howard obfuscating and othersuch, characters ripe for development can evolve from contact with the Howard characteristics, and from contact with those who’ve also developed from such contact – and you have a very intriguing play where once a play was thought utterly impossible.
While not having seen Keating, one imagines it riffs off at least some of the big picture themes.
Howard, in contrast and as proposed, would provide riveting insight into human nature. Add to that the overt born-to-rule force within the characters affected, and the skinny but fleshing-out softockedness hiding under it – all of whom the play would be built around – and you’ve got a stand-up sit-down pisser, I reckon.
Somewhere sometime a documentary went to air about a wilderscape waterhole slowly drying. Bit by bit, the characteristics of the animals ever-more drawn to the waterhole changed. The meek became brave; weak became strong; strong became weak, or more perilous, malicious, calculating. Characteristics changed dramatically.
Characters swift in otherwise daily life met with – now within the closing confounds of that limiting environment – otherwise clumsy creatures now also grown swift, as the latter realises its reduced opportunity and conserves for its moment of opportunity. Characters grand in a thousand ‘kills’ aforehand, lolled over fucked(ly), (pre)killed now regardless of changed circumstance by their own unchanging belief in their self-inestimable powers.
Howard. I can see it now.
Bring that on!
Keating was loved as much as he was hated. As with most strong leaders, few who are more engaged with politics were indifferent – if 30% of the electorate despised him, then so too did 30% love him.
I doubt Howard attracted the same intensity of support.
Nor, I suspect, will we ever see Rudd! The Musical.
Excellent to hear this is good.
I, like arielladrake, will be going to a Canberra showing in June, and also taking my Mum
Yep, up in the balcony.
Mark wrote:
Jeebers, were we living in the same country for the past 10 years? Howard was far more polarising than Keating, at least among the people I know. That may have been a function of those environments though (financial circles in Sydney, outer suburban Sydney, regional NSW).
Speaking of which, Lazy Sunday for me was manning a stand at Wool Expo. Nobody mentioned Keating or Howard, but mulesing was a hot topic.
Mark, one thing which has receded into the background with ‘the economy’ taking on the face of ‘the government’ in this searching (bravely) world, is that Keating was loved.
Even to use the word ‘loved’ for a politician, in today’s world, is met with emotional constipation (borrowing a phrase which the author might one day translate into a novel), if not outright scorn.
And this is to say you’re right. Keating was loved, by very many. For some, it was the ideas held forth for the nation, for others, it was that someone would do such a thing. Much more else, no doubt.
But you’ve missed the point about the Howard musical/play. It’s not about Howard. It’s about that waterhole, receding, and how it affects and changes people. (And parts of that are bloody funny, too).
Rudd the musical? It could be built on cartoons alone, so far!
David, we may be on cross cutting tracks here, but what I’m saying is that I don’t think Howard attracted the same sort of love (and Robert’s right – it is love) from his supporters as Keating.
Robert, you should probably see Keating! As I said, the Howard portrayal is so real it’s cruel.
Well, I enjoyed it:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/02/05/keating-hes-baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack/
But I am bit weirded out by the number of times Keating has obviously seen this show.
Well, on sunday morning I had breakfast in Netwown. Was unusually busy with lots of people taking mum for brekky.
On the way home I came across a group of guys doing some graffiti art in one of the back lanes so stopped for a while to watch them.
As someone who has trouble contolling a pencil (even my stick figures are dodgy) and has used spray cans for painting the odd bit of garden furniture I was very impressed with their skill with a spray can.
Did a long post for this thread, then accidentally hit the wrong key and deleted it. So I’ll skip all the stuff I wrote re my memories of Keating – couln’t go through it again – and get straight to the weekend.
Saturday. Helped a 15 year old with her oral history ptoject – 1960-1970.Night, watched Bed of Roses, the Bill. Sunday, reading, notes taking various books, including Cochrane’s Colonial Ambition, again. Its utterly brilliant.Nght, watched ABC News, kids next door round using the internet for a while. watched BB, and the Getman movie on Dresden. Read a bit. To sleep.
I was given a ticket for me birthday and went on Wednesday. I loved it, although a I was a bit surprised there was no ‘book’, or any dialog at all. Just song, song, song, bang bang bang. It was almost more of a revue.
Costello! The musical? Hmmm. A musical is ’supposed’ to have an ‘I want’ song up front, in the first couple of numbers, and you’ve got to want it with the sort of longing that makes you burst into song. It comes from the iceberg, not the tip.
(And that’s, I think, the weakness in ‘Keating!’. We never really get a big ‘I want’ out of him, but we all think we know what they are, and there’s a little list in the ‘Leader of the Land’ song, so it doesn’t matter so much)
d
@Robert: “The Howard proposition as a musical or play stonewalls the mind instantly – but for one thing, which opens the mind intriguingly. The character Howard need only be the catalyst by which so many characters can be formed.”
OMG. I just had a vision of “Company”, but with John Howard in the Bobby role, surrounded by members of the Cabinet giving him a birthday cake. I need a Bex and a lie down now ’cause, yeah, that could *totally* work.
d
Mark wrote:
How do you explain Harry Clarke, or even Jason Soons explicit “I have never loved him so much” gush on Catallaxy a while back. I didn’t love the little mongrel, and I think it was a different kind of affection that drew people to Keating’s larrikin ability to skewer opponents with words alone, but the blogosphere was awash with the right wing bemoaning the end of a golden age when J-Ho lost.
I’m not a regular reader of Harry and Jason’s effusions on Howard, David.
Agree, Paulus. Downer’s review was humourous and generally pretty good. It was what prompted me to see the show which my daughter and I saw in April in Adelaide. We both loved it and both agreed that the Downer routine nearly stole the show, especially when he came down to our side of the theatre and mooned the first few rows. I was in the aisle seat but wasn’t fast enough to slap his bum!
Spent my weekend helping my mother-in-law slip the leash for the day yesterday and doing more bloody sewing for my daughter. As well as spending a small fortune buying filing cabinets and such-like for her and eating way too much junk food!
Slunk home today to gritty reality. I had to cook a meal tonight, instead of letting some other poor schmuck do it. Sigh!
And I didn’t win Xlotto. This is getting to be a habit. Does this mean that I have to keep grafting? But I wasn’t meant to do actual work! It’s all a vicious plot! I was meant to be rich! Where’s the prozac?
I also went to Keating the M with friends & family last Saturday… loved it all, especially Downer and Keating’s sexy number with Hewson ‘I’m gonna do you slowly’, and yeah, the band was great. I’d love to see it again but I think it’s at the end of its run.
Howard the musical? I reckon it could be done – maybe with a Greek chorus variously representing indigenous people, refugees, unionists etc… I can imagine a newly elected (or about to be elected) Howard ministry dancing a self-loving, grooving strut & singing ‘we’re coalitious’ (a bit like bootylicious), & someone holding aloft a chalice and sipping it, then spitting the poisonous liquid out, exclaiming “ugh, Latte!” It would be fun to see someone have a go… Hanson would have to make an appearance, as what – a siren? a serpent woman?
Mark, here is what I said on Darlene’s post, more or less:
I saw it twice. Once during Howard’s final term, and once in the week following the election. What was most interesting for me was the audience reaction to Howard and how it changed pre and post the Howard era. The first time Terry Serio’s satirisation was too close to the bone for people and they could barely bring themselves to clap – there was an undercurrent of aversion to this character. With Howard still in power, it was obvious Serio captured it so well it made people recoil from him. In the week following the election however, I noticed how that mood shifted – people could now afford to laugh, be indulgent of Howard the character’s foilbles now he had departed the scene. That was most memorable for me. As much as Keating was being viewed through rose coloured lenses, Howard’s satirisation was now afforded an almost affectionate (thats prob too strong a word) remembrance, that was certainly not evident previously.
What did you think? Did people laugh with ease at Serio’s reminders of Howard’s manipulations and motivations? Or did they still recoil a little? And do you think if I see it a third time Im getting a little obsessed with Mike McLeish? Who else could make a Zegna circa 94 look good like that I ask you!
In fact, did I ever tell you I worked in parliament house circa 94 and ran into Keating himself in a Zegna in a parliamentary coridoor on a golden afternoon when only the sunbeams and bogong moths were there to witness the momentous exchange between me and that god of a man? About the exchange you ask? Well, being a slip of a girl, I became quite speechless, pressed myself up against the wall and verily genuflected slightly as he passed. Oh embarrassment. But God that man had the most gorgeous smile. He giggled at my antics. Crap, I thought, at the time. I should have done the sign of the cross and be done with it. Sometimes that catholic thing really came out at the worst moments you know?
I couldn’t possibly comment, casey! However I can inform you that I am the proud owner of a navy blue Zegna suit – made in Mexico! There’s a Keatingesque motto in there somewhere….
Laughing (with you!) at your Catholic anecdote!
It’s interesting what you say about Terry Serio. The audience lapped his performance up! I don’t know that it was affectionately, though. However, perhaps some of us can feel sorry for the old bugger now – now that he’s gone – because both the performance and the script were really so close to the bone.