The Wharf Revue - Beyond The Rings of Satire
The Wharf Revue 2012 - Red Wharf: Beyond the Rings of Satire, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1, 27 November-23 December 2012.
Every year since some time back in the last century, Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phil Scott have sniffed the zeitgeist, examined the entrails and come up with a collection of characters and sketches, songs and political satire to be performed under the Wharf Revue banner. This year it's been same same but different and I'm only sorry I didn't see it until the last week of the marathon season. So this is a retrospective rather than a review.
For the first time, Biggins has not been part of the on-stage team - instead channelling seminal PJ Keating interludes via a disembodied snowdome-style thingy - but his contribution to the scripting is as powerful as ever. In his physical place the team has enlisted Josh Quong Tart - and a damn fine recruit he's turned out to be, seamlessly fitting in with Amanda Bishop, Forsythe and Scott.
Quong Tart's most eye-opening moment(s) are a new version of Finnegan's Wake, written by Scott in brilliant pure Joyce (James and Alan) and representing the essence of this show. Beyond the Rings of Satire is darker, sharper and less pantomime than past Revues. If the absence of one set of old favourites could accurately pinpoint the difference between then and now, it has to be the ridiculously comical, knobbly-kneed, baggy khaki-shorted Australian Democrats. While the party's self destruction made it pretty difficult to continue with the characters, they had also outlived their amusement value - despite the starring role of the Biggins knees (the funniest in Australia). And they're rightly gone and - in the context of this show - not missed.
Beyond The Rings of Satire has more in common with the sardonic, sometimes melancholic and much richer traditions of 1930s Berlin; the style and substance we haven't seen since Robyn Archer's Tonight Lola Blau or the uber-medleys such as Scandals, Cut and Thrust Cabaret and so on. As well as a more considered, less rubber-faced but even funnier Forsythe, the show is made possible by Scott's sublime musicianship and Bishop's musical and acting versatility - from the Prime Minister to operatic high notes in quick succession. The team is as strong as ever.
The political landscape being the fast-moving and unpredictable thing it is, the opening sequence, with various intergalactic personalities representing the cream of the body politic, is the one that has least well stood the test of passing time; but with Darth Vader, Princess Leia and others on hand, it's still wicked and gone before it matters. What follows is a rapid but fully realised set of sequences - not sketches, they're more fully realised and scripted - that offer a lot to the audience; (the same sex The Marriage (Equality) of Figaro, for instance). So much so that during the show's 90 non-stop minutes it's obvious that people are listening intently and almost holding onto their laughter in order not to miss anything.
The next Wharf Revue is already slotted in to the STC's calendar and it will be fascinating to see where they go with it - being an election year and possibly right in the middle of the melee. It's rumoured that Phil Scott may be taking leave of absence from the onstage piano and singing roles. If nothing else that should flag to Kevin Rudd that he's going nowhere in 2013. But whatever happens next year, this Revue has been a fruitcake of a show (deliciously rich, dark, juicy and full of nuts).
