A Triple Threat Comes Home

Coral Drouyn looks at the home-coming of triple threat performer Max Patterson.

Based on the 80s film of the same name, The Wedding Singer opens at HOTA on the Gold Coast this Friday night (June 18, 2021), and there are a lot of good reasons to hurry and buy what tickets are left for the two week season.

1)    It’s the first professional musical to reach the Arts Centre since Covid stopped theatre touring in its tracks last year ..and we’ve been having withdrawal jitters in the interim.

2)    It’s a chance to get out your hottest outfit (can there be such a thing as too many sequins?) and make your hair really BIG.  Chances to really dress up these days are few and far between… and if you still have some disco platform shoes hidden somewhere, then get them out too.

3)    You can enjoy the joyful pop music sounds of the eighties and the OTT dancing without having to endure Adam Sandler on the big screen (sorry if you’re truly a fan).

4)    It has great choreography by Michael Ralph, whose career I have followed for the past decade.

5)    It has an absolutely stellar cast that includes local Gold Coast triple threat Max Patterson.

Max Patterson was born and bred on the Gold Coast, actually at Pindara hospital in Benowa, and last played HOTA as Bert in the 2016 production of Mary Poppins. Not that the role was his first foray onto the main stage. At the age of 9 he was a munchkin in the Gordon Frost production of The Wizard of OZ, where the sequins were confined to Dorothy’s shoes.

Brought up in Burleigh, Max was by his own admission “a brat of a kid.” His older sister Roxie was already heavily into dancing when Max turned three and his parents decided to enrol him too.

“I think they wanted to get me out of the house” Max explains, “or maybe it was just cheap baby-sitting.”

Roxie and Max were both taught by the great Todd McKenney’s mother, Peta Norton. By the time Roxie left to pursue a career in Sydney (her credits include The Boy from Oz) and eventually become a respected dance teacher herself, Max was tapping his way through school concerts at the very theatre he’ll be appearing in from Friday.

School concerts are noted for sequins, but Max believes there are more sequins in the wedding singer than all his school concerts put together.

Max’s big break came when David Atkins auditioned him and then cast him in Hot Shoe Shuffle. The rest is history and he’s been working professionally ever since, even touring the east with a variety of shows and working in London’s West End. Interestingly, Max should have been back with Hot Shoe Shuffle in a Perth revival this year, but the Pandemic ended the planned production.

In between gigs he’s a sought-after dance teacher at some of the finest dance schools around the world. And it helps that he doesn’t just tap. You want a dance style? Just name it.

Oh, did I mention he sings and acts too?

Despite the pandemic, we’ve all survived pretty well on the Coast. But there’s no doubt we have been starved of entertainment. The Wedding Singer is just the feel-good tonic we need as a pick-me-up. And for Max, it’s a chance to catch up with family and his former dance teacher – if that’s not feel-good I don’t know what is.

The Wedding Singer plays at HOTA on the Gold Coast from June 18, ahead of a season at Sydney's State Theatre from July 1, 2021.

https://weddingsingermusical.com.au