Wharfies overboard, but not before one last show

Wharf Revue members, from left, Mandy Bishop, Jonathan Biggins and Phillip Scott. Photo: Vishal Pandey

by Helen Musa

October 16, 2024

In November 2020 CityNews ran a story headlined, “Wharfies are absolutely not winding up”, but now, alas, the time has come for the final revue, The End of The Wharf As We Know It, and it opens in Canberra.

Written by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott, it will feature the four faces best known as stars of the revue beloved of Canberra’s for a generation – Biggins, Scott, Forsythe and Mandy Bishop, with regular guest David Whitney making up a fearsome five.

Scott has long been musical director and when I catch up with him by phone to Sydney, they’re deep in rehearsals.

 “We’re drawing a line under the revue after this,” he tells me.

“Our producer Jo Dyer is terrific – she used to work at the Sydney Theatre Company and we still have costume and set people at the STC who work with us – but we didn’t realise what we were taking on and, yes, we are really planning to retire.”

Not all of them.

“Drew and I are the older ones,” he says, “Jonathan has a stellar career and Mandy, who’s been dividing her time between the US and Australia for a few years, wants to build her career here.”

As for Whitney. Well, he’s definitely younger.

“But Drew and I have got to an age where we’d like to take things easier,” he says.

It’s fun, but it’s a slog. They open in Canberra then go to Sydney and after Christmas hit the road for another three months, he says.

“If we were just in one place like Melbourne, we’d have a life, but to be in the car all the time, it’s very tiring.”

Scott’s not complaining, acknowledging that many people in the theatre industry have no work at all but feels, well, we’re all getting on.

Against all the odds, Scott is going to attempt one small private act of enjoyment while he’s in Canberra – he’ll pop in on Part II of Everyman Theatre’s production of The Inheritance then, back to front, he’ll see Part I in a completely different production in Sydney – it’s just the way his schedule works out.

After The Wharf Scott will take time to write more cabaret shows and his agent is urging him to take a small role in TV, but on the other hand, he tells me, “I might do nothing”.

This final Wharf Revue will not exactly be a “best-of” show, as all the writing is new, but he agrees that it’s a summary of the major parts that they’ve been playing for more than 25 years.

Satire-loving Canberrans can expect to see familiar people on stage – Bishop as Julia Gillard, Scott as Kevin Rudd, Biggins as Paul Keating and Forsythe as Pauline Hanson. 

“We’ve built up an interest in these characters and in real life they still pop up and have something to say,” Scott says, adding that Whitney fits in well because he does a very good Peter Dutton.

Scott’s not going to give us too many spoilers, but he will tell us that he gets to play Miriam Margolyes in a “non-political silly sketch” about how the English make programs about Australia then only bump into other English people – like Martin Clunes and King Charles.

Oh yes, and Biggins has an entirely new character called Angus Taylor Swift. 

Scott, master of the keyboard, is also the master of musical parody and over the years has put political words into famous songs as when Julia Gillard sang Bizet’s Habanera. 

This time he’s whipped up a parody of Michael Jackson in Bad and Noël Coward in Mad Dykes and Englishmen, sung by Joanna Lumley.

It wouldn’t be a Wharf Revue without a big blockbuster ending.

In this case, it’s been based on The Simpsons, partly because Dutton looks so much like Homer Simpson that it was impossible to resist. 

Readers in the know will be aware that Homer works in a nuclear facility owned by a sinister character called Mr Burns.

In this case, Rupert Murdoch heads up the nuclear facility and Sideshow Bob Brown makes an appearance – there’s a political joke in that — one for Simpsons’ aficionados.

The End of The Wharf As We Know It, Canberra Theatre, October 25 – November 2.

First published at Canberra City News, October 16, 2024

ONE RESPONSE TO WHARFIES OVERBOARD, BUT NOT BEFORE ONE LAST SHOW

Tony Magee says: 18 October 2024 at 11:41am

I produced a five week cabaret festival at the Street Theatre in 2001. Phil Scott and Peter J Casey were my headliners. Both pianist-singers, but very different shows. And they were the only two of my twelves acts who booked out the venue every night. It was packed. Phil’s show was filled with mostly musical comedy pieces from Noel Coward, Stephen Sondheim, Kurt Weill, Tom Lehrer, Dave Frishberg and a whole lot more, including some originals. One piece by Sondheim, from his musical Pacific Overtures, called Four Black Dragons, depicts the Japanese reaction, surprise and wonder, combined with fear, of the four American ships spotted off the coast of Japan. A most unusual inclusion and an extremely difficult piece to perform with just piano and one single voice. But Scott pulled it off. The audience were left stunned, rather than entertained. After his two act show concluded, Scott returned to the stage and announced, with a grin on his face, “Now the real show starts” and continued for another hour, including a comedy send-up of Liberace. I eagerly anticipate the Final Wharf Review, particularly in light of Helen Musa’s phone interview with Phil Scott.