The Wharf Revue: Pride in Prejudice.

What is it about some politicians that lends them so deliciously to satire?  Is it merely the high visibility of their individual quirks?  Is it their unshakeable certainties or invulnerable egos?  Is it the space their public personas fill in the political arena?

However their troubles arise, you can be sure that The Wharf Revue will seize the opportunity to capitalise on them.

One year on from the Revue’s Looking for Albanese, our favourite political scamps have identified a running sore that they have satirised as Pride in Prejudice.  And many of the Revue’s sketches and song-and-dance numbers touched on that same widespread political malady.  After opening with a most unlikely scene from Jane Austen’s world, the sketches and songs came thick and fast.  The sketches, mimicking always unexpected forms (beloved television series, classic movies, political advertisements, stage plays, and news analyses spring to mind), had a go at all sides of politics, including current and recent party leaders, several infamously individual independents, foreign indignitaries, and their reeking policies and rationales.

Many of these sketches included songs, in musical genres from opera and jazz to pop and theme songs — all, naturally, shockingly altered.  What makes these unmissable even by sworn enemies of musical theatre, though, is the cleverness of the altered lyrics.  It would be hard to overstate.  And if you missed a word here or there, both lyrics and spoken lines were displayed on screens placed to be easy to see from most parts of the theatre but also easy to ignore.  And clever brief videos screening several times between on-stage performances while the cast undertook quick costume changes left us feeling that there was not a single moment wasted.

A ticket to The Wharf Revue on the promise of sport at the expense of our most unruly servants is always money well invested. This year’s Wharf Revue raises the bar in the sport, its scenes’ pointedness exceeded only by their cleverness and hilarity. In magically becoming the political personalities best known to Australians, these consummate performers use the transformative power of satire to mine the political garbage of bigotry and prejudice for the gems of humour it contains and bring it to us with flair and polish.

John P. Harvey

Image: The Wharf Revue: Pride in Prejudice. Photographer: John P. Harvey.