THEATRE: 07 NOVEMBER 2017 By TONI CARROLL

The Wharf Revue 2017: The Patriotic Rag, by Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott

Sydney Theatre Company (www.sydneytheatre.com.au) | Wharf 1 Theatre, Walsh Bay, Sydney | Until 20 December

Back in the day, I remember appearing in the early ’80s in such Uni Revue gems as Are You a Fat Christian?, dressed in a black leotard and nun’s veil doing the Christian equivalent of Aerobics Oz Style, Love is the Drug,  singing off-key as a high Debbie Byrne (to this day I want to look her up and apologise), and Nuclear Kiddies, chanting bleak nursery rhymes as a post-apocalyptic radioactive toddler.

“Asked my mother for fifty cents

To see the bombs destroy the fence

It remained

Every bit

But everyone else was shot to shit, hahahahahaha”

The writers of our revue have gone on to become incredibly successful writers in radio, TV and film and I’m sure, like me, remember our early days fondly. Those shows were fun and passionate and raw and gritty and often biting topical satire.

This was my first Wharf Revue. Crazy, I know. I’m a born-and-bred Sydney-ite theatre goer and had never yet seen one. How unAustralian! I have heard nothing but praise for this Sydney tradition and its three creators and stalwarts, Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott.

I wonder if I was trepidatious because THIS is what revue is supposed to be. THIS is the zenith of theatrical sketch comedy. Perhaps subconsciously I had not wanted to see just how amateurish our own revues had been, those many years ago.

Wharf Revue is polished. Every actor in it (the three creators plus Blazey Best) can sing, can dance, can mimic, has great timing, great presence, great chemistry. They hit their marks and the show flows, with sketch changes seemlessly choreographed and orchestrated.

Wharf Revue is spectacular. Music is analogue and digital, and lighting goes from tight spot to fireworks in a second. Video sketches give the actors time to costume up and give the show another layer of texture.

Wharf Revue is funny. Malcom Turnbull singing Chisel’s Working Class Man anthem? Hilariously ironic. Michaelia Cash singing with the Union Choir? Spot on. Drew Forsythe’s Pauline Hanson is so en pointe it will have you jaw-dropping awe and fits of laughter all at once, as will Phillip Scott’s Kim Jong-Un and Jonathan Biggins’ Donald Trump. Trump is also gleefully represented in the video sketches as Louis XVI and Vlad the Impaler.

Surprisingly, these seasoned professionals still have it in them to hit a bum note. The audience’s mix of groans and gasps as lights came up on the Clarke and Dawe sketch, where Clarke is in heaven talking to St Peter, made it clear that, yes, too soon, too sad.

But mostly, the professionalism and talent in this show could not be faulted.

A part of me felt a little flat, and it could have been precisely because it was so professional, so slick, so polished. It was missing something. It was missing the vibrancy and poignancy that only a bunch of undergrads can give a piss-take.

Images: Brett Boardmann.