The End Of The Wharf As We Know It

By Diana Simmonds

November 13 2024

THE WHARF REVUE: The End Of The Wharf As We Know It, York Theatre, Seymour Centre, 11 November-23 December 2024. Photography by Vishal Pandey

It’s become a tradition, over the 25 years of Wharf Revues, to announce to one’s companion – or vice versa – that this was definitely the best ever, or perhaps not quite as good as last year, but certainly the biggest laugh we’ve had all year. And it remains true of this show – declared by its creators to be the last and titled The End Of The Wharf As We Know It.

One amazing thing about the creative team of Jonathan Biggins, Phil Scott and Drew Forsythe is their ability to consistently find brilliantly witty, sharp, insightful, and just plain hilarious material in the mostly not-witty, rarely sharp, almost never insightful and never intentionally hilarious creatures that inhabit our public life – most in federal parliament but also the extra-curriculars. The latter, in this show notably include world champion farter and lesbian Miriam Margolyes, the velvet-voiced Bolly-swigger Joanna Lumley, the more odious by the day Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart (the Ballad of Bonny and Clyde rewrit), and darling Taylor Swift.

And if you can’t imagine Jonathan Biggins as Tay Tay, you’re missing something precious. The same can be said of Drew Forsythe’s Pauline Hanson. Ironically this stain on the Senate benches is a Revue favourite as Forsythe so brilliantly inhabits her shaky, swooping delivery, darting eyes and firmly-convinced malapropisms.

New this year but equally almost painfully accurate is Phil Scott’s turn as Margolyes. The veteran outrageist bumps into other aged Brit thesps all wandering the world making chatty docos, and the sketch underlines how devilishly astute its creators are.

For her part, Mandy Bishop returns as inter alia, Julia Gillard and Allegra Spender, and an electrifying triple threat turn as Jacquie Lambie hosting the parliamentary Midwinter Ball as Tina Turner. It’s a showstopper. Funnily enough, so is the Biggins show-starter – Paul Keating. On opening night his mere appearance was enough for rapturous applause. Unlike the response to David Whitney’s uncanny Peter Dutton…

The politics of the Seymour Centre audience was fairly clear in the slightly muted reaction to Coalition figures such as Joe Hockey and Mattias Cormann and their big fat cigars, and Bridget Archer from Tasmania. An exception is Bob Katter, who is as oddball funny in reality as Drew Forsythe makes him on screen. Nevertheless, Whitney’s Dutton is scarily Voldemortian, even in Queensland formal: bad tie, short shirt sleeves and sky-blue trousers.

This Revue doesn’t dwell on past glories, however. Rather – because they’re so damn clever and wicked – a brief return to 1984 and Bob Hawke (Forsythe) is actually the permission point for politically incorrect language and attitudes. “I can say that because it’s 1984,” is ingenious – and shrewdly resourceful in today’s climate of taking offence at anything and nothing.

The variety of material, pacing and style is possibly greater than it used to be and makes for a rich and rewarding 100 non-stop minutes. The quieter or more poignant moments are powerful in this context. For instance, this time the USA is seen in a series of images on the back screen ranging from dream to nightmare, as the Simon and Garfunkel ballad America is rewritten into a threnody for lost hope and ideals in achingly-beautiful five-part harmony.

There is so much more besides and all of it makes either your face ache with laughing, or your heart ache with sadness. The Wharf Revues have been an integral part of the theatre year for a quarter of a century – an extraordinary fact in itself. And it’s a unique achievement – no one, anywhere in the world, has accomplished such a feat of creativity and laughter. It’s truly astonishing, and gratitude and appreciation are in order. We shall never see their like again.

The perpetrators: writers: Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott. Co-directors: Jonathan Biggins and Drew Forsythe. Musical director: Phillip Scott. Lighting Designer: Matt Cox. Video designer: Todd Decker. Sound & video systems designer: Cameron Smith. Costume designers: Hazel and Scott Fisher. Company stage manager: Tim Burns. Producer: Jo Dyer.