Mr Bailey’s Minder

It starts with a brilliant bang, the best set-up scene I’ve seen in many a year. Two women enter the ramshackle cliff-side studio/home of Leo Bailey, famous Australian artist now gone to seed with booze and self-loathing. 

One is Margo, successful and abrupt, the only one of his several children willing to care (at a distance) for a loathed father; the other is Therese, newly released from prison, desperately needing this job as the old man’s live-in minder. She’s obviously unsuitable, but Margo is equally desperate after experiencing many failed others.

Now Therese must meet Leo. Drunk, as per usual, ready to strike with a vicious tongue, he finds he’s met his match with Therese, who has been in trouble since being caught shoplifting at the age of 11. Margo abruptly departs, leaving them to it. This will be some battle.

The cast at the Ensemble are exceptional. Extravagant Leo is played by ‘national treasure’ John Gaden, ripping the guts out of this portrayal of the painter’s life, making the evils of his 4-wife choices seems normal. It’s a great pleasure to watch this actor spreading his wings, delivering the goods.

Margo is Rachel Gordon, tall and well dressed, clutching at her determination to overcome her awful father’s daily choices; and Therese is played by Claudia Ware, quite splendid in her determination to stay the course with this outstanding artist, to keep him off the booze, to return him to active life. 

Also in the cast is Albert Mwangi as the tradie who has been brought in to repair a wall and, along the way, falls for Therese.

First produced at the Sydney’s Griffin Theatre in 2004 - and winner of Griffin Award as most outstanding Australian play of that year - Mr Bailey’s Minder bristles with ideas. If the rest of Debra Oswald’s play doesn’t quite match up to that amazing opening scene, it makes for a first-rate show under the direction of Damien Ryan. The tension between the two women is maintained to the bitter end.

The setting by Soham Apte features a long staircase to Leo’s upper floor sleeping arrangements. It’s a journey that would surely have stopped him over the years. Nevertheless, there are plenty of places for hidey-holes, for places to stash rolled-up paintings of long ago.

Frank Hatherley

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Photographer: Prudence Upton