Shane Warne - The Musical

[samcd3]

Posted: 12/16/08 at 7:56pm

Have you guys heard of this? Just opened in Melbourne Australia. Written and Starring the talented Eddie Perfect as Shane. Getting very good reviews. You guys will most likely Never see it though as Shane is an Aussie Cricket legend and wouldn't really appeal to a US market.
www.shanewarnethemusical.com.au



Updated On: 12/16/08 at 07:56 PM

[CMU_bway_lover]

Posted: 12/16/08 at 8:08pm

Haha actually I totally want this to transfer. I adore Hollywood though more for antics and ability to get 25yrs olds into bed while looking like a beached whale than for his spin.

I desperately want to see S-M-Mess". Who's playing Simone?

[samcd3]

Posted: 12/16/08 at 8:19pm

Rosie Harris playing Simone. I hear she is great. there has been a lot of press about this. Mainly due to the fact that Shane attended the opening and gave the show the thumbs up after publicly voicing his disapproval. I believe Simone doesn't want to see it

[dramarama2]

Posted: 12/16/08 at 8:45pm

I recently saw this. It doesn't have the snap and pop of Keating, but theres some good tunes, some hilarious moments. Unfortunately, the joke wears off. It's a little long for what it is and really just an extended skit.

[samcd3]

Posted: 12/16/08 at 11:51pm

perhaps you saw one of the workshop productions as it has only officially been open for about a week. I have not seen it myself but have worked on a previous musical with eddie. I am very interested to see

[CMU_bway_lover]

Posted: 12/17/08 at 3:01am

I can't blame Simone, I mean they have kids and she did see her whole life splashed on the tabloids.

Can you give us a hint as to what's in it besides the SMS and weight control drama? I'm curious how the cricket was worked in and how they made the audience sympathetic to Warney (since my immediate reaction is to laugh as him). Is it a lot like Damn Yankees in tone and staging?

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 12/17/08 at 6:18am

Shane Warne: The Musical. By Eddie Perfect. Token Events and Trafficlight. Athenaeum Theatre, Melbourne, December 10. Until January 11. Regal Theatre, Perth, March 18-31. Enmore Theatre, Sydney, May 15-30. Tickets: $74.90.

YOU need more front than Myer to get away with an idea such as Shane Warne: The Musical. Fortunately, Eddie Perfect is your man for front.

Perfect takes no prisoners in this glorious piss-take on celebrity, cricket, Australia and musical theatre.

His unlikely hero is a flawed everyman ("there's a little bit of Shane in all of us"), a suburban boy from Ferntree Gully with a golden arm and a mullet.

After he fails in his first ambition of becoming an AFL player, he lounges in a beanbag like Jabba the Hutt, eating pizzas, smoking and being nagged by his mother, until the call comes from the Australian Institute of Sport. He loses the mullet, buffs up his spin bowling and makes it into the national side. The rest is history.

Warnie is a kind of tragic antihero, wandering haplessly amid the pitfalls of celebrity and tumbling into most of them. He wins his girl and loses her. He wins the Ashes and loses them. Along the way, he takes those diuretic pills (label warning: "may cause drowsiness or bad theatrical dream sequences"), discovers the charm of groupies in hotel rooms and accepts bribes from seedy Bollywood types.

And, of course, he exercises his thumb on his mobile phone ("I've got an erection in the frozen food section," he wails in the song, What an SMS I'm In). After a few scenes, Perfect looks more like Warne than Warne himself. He has that vertical ultra-blond hair and slightly stocky build.

In one of the peculiar reflexive moments that characterise modern celebrity, Warnie was there, two rows in front of us, watching his own life written -- or sung -- very large. He can't always have been comfortable, especially in the numbers that record his marriage, which go for the big musical moment and are surprisingly moving.

The show's cheerful obscenity is shot through with Perfect's intelligence, which mercilessly skewers the absurdities of mass culture. Besides being a fond tribute to Warnie, it's a dizzying musical tour: the songs range from rap and rock'n'roll to gospel and Sondheim. Perfect has surrounded himself with a top production team that includes Neil Armfield, who provides the seamless direction, and Gideon Obarzanek, whose choreography is snappy and hilarious.

It shows what can happen when the cream of contemporary Australian theatre goes for the commercial throat. It's vital, rude, smart, irresistibly funny and passionately performed. Don't miss it.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24786956-5013577,00.html