My two cents on... Australian Musicals
Australians seem to have the unique gift to make a musical out of just about anything and anyone. Examples of this include: 'Shane Warne- The Musical', 'Keating!-The Musical' and even an opera about a dingo that stole Lindy Chamberlain's baby. More recently, Australians have brought to the stage some of our most iconic films; 'Priscilla- The Musical' is a two-and-a-half hour romp around Australia following the lives of two drag queens, one transvestite and a mechanic called Bob.
How about rolling the lives of several of Australia's most infamous politicians into one dazzling show? 'The Wizard Of Aus', I call it. It's noice, it's different, it's unusual. Picture this: an Aboriginal girl called Dorothy is forced to flee from her banana plantation in Queensland after it is destroyed by a vicious hurricane. Dorothy is forced to hitch-hike down highway number 1 with her pet kangaroo Skippy, when she meets none other than Peter Costello, who wishes that 'he only had a spine' (and he doesn't mean the book spine of his newly-released memoirs, either). Further down the track we meet another character who wishes that they 'only had a heart'. There are not one, but two Aussie icons vying for this role- John Howard is eligible due to his handling of the 'Children Overboard' incident, while Naomi Robson redefines the meaning of the word sincerity (she would be wearing a lizard on her shoulder). The last character of this four-man-band is Dr Brendon Nelson, who wishes that he had the courage to attack the labour party on their handling of the economic crisis in the same way that Malcolm Turnball has after only one day as the liberal leader.
But the road to the wizard is not an easy one. The group has to survive several high-powered attacks from the wicked witch Pauline Hanson, who thinks that Dorothy, the Chinese and Kevin Rudd should all go back home to Asia. Thankfully, the white witch Gabriella Cilmi saves the day by driving her away with the grating teen pop number 'Sweet About Me' that she sings over and over (and over) again. Finally, they reach the 'wizard', who is actually a chronic drinker lingering in a pub at Alice Springs. In his intoxicated state, he advises Dorothy to get the heck back home while wearing a large pair of red Converse sneakers. But when she gets there, she finds the place as she left it- a sunburnt, desolate wasteland and the new home to a family of deadly taipans. At this stage, all Dorothy can say is 'There really is no place like home.'