The Wharf Revue: The End of the Wharf as We Know It!!!

Building satirical songs and scenes on well-known soundtracks such as Ghostbusters, on the music of greats such as Paul Simon and Leonard Bernstein, and on such television staples as The Simpsons and Insiders, for its 25th and final annual revue, the Wharf Revue team reprised a host of our favourite characters.  With the relatively recent addition of David Whitney to the team, the characters who loomed large this year included former Australian P.M.s, memorably Jonathan Biggins’s Paul Keating delivering an ostensibly serious address, Bob Hawke offering sage advice, and a lip-licking Tony Abbott; the ever smiling Jacinda Ardern and ever serious Peter Garrett; and easy targets such as Clive Palmer, Gina Rynehart, Peter Dutton, and Pauline Hanson.  It also included relatively unknown entertainers on the Revue stage, amongst them Allegra Spender, Adam Bandt, and A Koala.  The cast made gentle mock even of such dignified figures as Sir Geoffrey Robertson and King Charles.

What makes this year’s revue special, though, as it makes every Wharf Revue special, is the sophistication with which it pokes its fun.  The jokes are, as ever, pointed but not unkind, meaningful but not heavy-handed.  They are above all else subtle — light irony and suggestiveness being the order of the day — and perfectly capable of satirising the character of a Jacqui Lambie or a Pauline Hanson by having them perform in a totally unrealistic context.

And when it comes to such rich pickings as Miriam Margolyes, the sky is the limit.

The Wharf Revue has always been about the foibles of politics as much as about the foibles of political players, and with its own light touch has played a role for 25 years in shining the light of ridicule on the most deserving of flagrant idiocies.  This year’s show says a poignant goodbye to the ideals of America, dramatises the eternal fence-sitting of the old guard of the Australian Democrats, deals a swift blow to the nuclear distraction, even highlights a major new environmental contaminant.  And late political news has frequently led the team to create brilliant new work with little time to spare.  Yet the team’s professionalism is such that you’d never know it.

This nearly ninety-minute show passed by far too quickly, as the entire series of Wharf Revues has.

The Wharf Revue team never fails to surprise with its winning combination of talents.  The team’s musical versatility included tricking out well-known numbers with new key changes, invention and tight execution of four-part and five-part singing, and playing together as a decent little band.  Actually, their ability to memorise the new lyrics to a great number of songs and pour them out as they played instruments or danced was impressive in itself.  But the most enormous entertainment value of their music lies in its lyrics’ unrivalled ingenuity.  If the Wharf Revue ever decides to put out the songbook of its greatest hits, it could remain a favourite for generations.  In the meantime, grab your last chance to see and hear this incredibly talented troupe.  You won’t regret it.

John P. Harvey.

BUY MUCH REVUE ABOUT NOTHING A WHARF REVUE PLAY SCRIPT COMPILATION.

BUY BACK COPIES OF THEIR DVDs.

Image: The Wharf Revue: The End of the Wharf as We Know It!!!  Photographer: John P. Harvey.