Bosom Buddies

Toowoomba’s crown-jewel, the art-deco Empire Theatre, was host to two of Australia’s musical theatre crown jewels when Nancye Hayes and Todd McKenney, in their only Queensland performance, presented their two-hander theatrical walk down memory lane Bosom Buddies.

To hold an audience on stage for one-hour is a feat and a half, to do it for over two-hours requires not only stamina but amazing talent, and Hayes and McKenney have bucket-loads of both.

On a bare stage dressed with two arm chairs, two canvas director chairs, and an upstage screen, the stars reminisced about their backstage life, told funny and amusing anecdotes, and sang and danced, interspersed with rare video and film clips of their historical performances. It was a bit like a documentary on stage and it was marvellously entertaining.

Although there’s probably a thirty-year age difference between them, their rapport and affection for each other was palpable. They first worked together in 1989’s 42^nd Street, and bonded for life in Richard Alfieri’s two-character, Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks which they toured for two years in 2007.

Early film clips of Hayes as Charity Hope Valentine in Sweet Charity, Sally Bowles in Cabaret and Roxie Hart in Chicago were a magical treat, as were McKenney’s turns as a mean judge on Dancing With the Stars and as Peter Allen in The Boy From Oz.

McKenney amusingly captured the disappointment of being passed over for the Allen role on Broadway by Hugh Jackman, with a parody laugh-generating version of “It Had to be Hugh (You)” and later donned make-up on-stage to become Cabaret’s Emcee for “Wilkommen, and dueted with an on-screen Peter Allen in a sincere version of “Tenterfield Saddler”.

The show was not short of emotion with particularly poignant moments being McKenney’s reveal of his father walking out on the family when he was 9-years old, and Hayes’ guilt at not being there when her mother died because she was appearing in Sweet Charity.

The first-act featured a long medley of songs from shows they had appeared in, whilst the second started with a This Is Your Life sequence which segued into a revealing (and funny) section there they answered audience questions.

The co-ordination of video-clips and musical backing tracks was perfect, as was Trudy Dalgleish’s lighting, Michael Tyack’s musical arrangements, and Jason Langley’s direction. Nostalgia has never been more enjoyable.

Peter Pinne