Silliness and hit songs, nice work, if you can get it

Queanbeyan Players in rehearsal for the upcoming Nice Work If You Can Get It show… the twists and turns
of the plot involve every theatrical cliché imaginable. Photo: Alison Newhouse

by Helen Musa

I spent one of the silliest theatre nights on record recently when I attended a rehearsal for Queanbeyan Players’ production, Nice Work If You Can Get It, coming up at The Q.

If the title sounds familiar, it is. That’s the name of one of George and Ira Gershwin’s most famous numbers, but the musical bearing the same name is quite another matter. 

Originally staged on Broadway in 2012, it’s a semi-modern take by Joe DiPietro on the prohibition era, with care taken to update the gender balance, giving equal weight to men and women, and full of contemporary references, so that it’s not a period piece at all.

I rolled with it, though I could hardly believe the twists and turns of the plot, which involves every theatrical cliché imaginable.

Luke Ferdinands, an actor-tenor who’s been taking the odd class with Jared Newell and at Bom Funk dance studio, plays the triggering drunken protagonist playboy Jimmy Winter with a touch of vacuous charm and a penetrating voice.

Larger-than-life comics Duke and Cookie are played by John Whinfield and Anthony Swadling, while an inexplicable chorus of ditzy showgirls and a phalanx of dim cops swan in and out of a Gatsby-like mansion.

All this silliness is interspersed with some of the greatest hit songs ever written, with Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off, Someone to Watch Over Me, Lady Be Good and ‘S Wonderful just the tip of the iceberg. 

Well-known musical theatre performer and former professional opera singer Dave Smith is director and says that while he certainly has no intention of forsaking the boards permanently, getting the skills to direct is a logical extension from acting as he juggles his day job in the public service with his great love of theatre and raising three small kids. 

He praises Queanbeyan Players for encouraging new talent while trying to get lesser-known works on stage.

Smith and his choreographer wife Kirsten saw Nice Work on Broadway in 2013 and he says it’s an incredibly well written text but that when it comes down to it, “sometimes we just need entertainment”.

“It’s a modern take, so the fact of the music is unexpected and it works,” he says.

By the time I get to rehearsal, most of Kirsten’s work is done and she’s just putting the finishing touches to the high kicks of the showgirls while fine-tuning the tap-dancing skills of the men. All these skills are put to the test in the Act I curtain number, Fascinating Rhythm, one of the hardest Gershwin pieces to play, as musical director Brigid Cummins’ band will find.

This is a romp in which the thick-headed but affable Jimmy is smart enough to catch a rich girl, Eileen Evergreen (Anna Tully), but not smart enough to spot her pretentious claims to be “the finest interpreter of modern dance in the world” – now that’s a contemporary joke if ever I heard one.

Jimmy is certainly far dimmer than the feisty female bootlegger Billie Bendix, with whom he falls in love as the plot thickens.

The part of Billie looks like a great role for Sienna Curnow, who plays a mix of wisecracking and emerging emotions as she realises she’s falling for the charming Jimmy.

Curnow, who played Mozart’s wife Constanze in Amadeus at Canberra Rep last year, thinks that the updated plot works because there’s a lot less underlying sexism in this show, which is full of strong female characters, as the roles for Kay Liddiard as Jeannie, Lillee Keating as Duchess and Fiona Hale as Millicent show.

Pat Gallagher, too, has a plum role as the hypocritical mayor/judge/father of the bride who turns out to have a shady past that leads to the contrived ending of the musical, one that puts The Comedy of Errors in the shade.

For once I can say that it’s a happy ending. This is one show where you can safely put your preconceptions about history to one side and soak up the fun.

Nice Work If You Can Get It, The Q, Queanbeyan, November 1-10.

First published at Canberra City News, October 22, 2024

ONE RESPONSE TO SILLINESS AND HIT SONGS, NICE WORK, IF YOU CAN GET IT

Tony Magee says: 22 October 2024 at 2:22 pm

I worked with Dave Smith in 2007, in a fun show, which was also very special and sometimes emotional, called From Heart Attack to Artistic Success. The venue was the now demolished Teatro Vivaldi, a wonderful theatre restaurant in the ANU Arts Centre (now also demolished). The star of the show was the late Stephen Pike – former artistic director of the Queanbeyan Performing Arts Centre, and before that a prolific and extremely talented and highly respected singer / stage performer in countless musicals and variety shows. But at this particular juncture in his life (2007) he had just recovered from serious heart problems and his doctor told him, “Stephen, if you would like to return to performing, you can.” Stephen and I jointly devised this variety show. He chose most of the repertoire though, with myself at the piano accompanying him. But, Stephen wanted back-up singers for most of the numbers. I arranged the harmonies for them to sing. Dave Smith was one of those singers, the others being Tim Dal Cortivo, Adrian Flor and a 12 year old Billy Bourchier, who has now gone on to become, in his late twenties, an Australian professional Musical Theatre superstar. Just before opening night, I said to Dave, “Let’s devise a medley of “heart” songs to open the second act.” He loved the idea, and as a special surprise for Stephen and the audience we did precisely that. Starting with the Peggy Lee classic You’ve Got to Have Heart, we moved into Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, then Anyone Who Had A Heart, made famous by both Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick and Neil Young’s Heart of Gold. Stephen loved it, Dave and I had great fun singing the medley together and the audience loved it too. A really special memory for me, as was the whole show. Dave, if you’re reading this – thank you.