THEATRE
THE END OF THE WHARF AS WE KNOW IT!!!
Seymour Centre, November 12
Until December 23
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
★★★★

Wanted: satirists to fill gaping holes in the political and theatrical landscapes. Must be able to write, act, sing, dance, direct, play musical instruments, cross-dress, mimic, and be funny for 25 years. Yes, that’s how long Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott have been creating and performing The Wharf Revue, having announced The End of the Wharf as We Know It!!! is their final splash.

Helping them maximise the displaced water were the inestimable Mandy Bishop, whose acting range has enriched so many editions, and the versatile David Whitney, diving in for a third time.

Despite the challenging physics, they managed to go out on a high while making that final splash, the pinnacle being Bishop reprising her Jacqui Lambie, this time MC-ing the parliamentary Midwinter Ball and singing a revamped River Deep – Mountain High. There’s always been a divide between the pollies lampooned affectionately and those who, having been skewered, receive an extra twist of the blade. Lambie is in the former bag, and Bishop’s mimicry and Tina Turneresque dancing even outstripped the sidesplitting lines.

As well as a disturbingly creepy Rupert Murdoch, Drew Forsythe administered a final dose of Pauline Hanson, a feat of mimicry that’s become more eerily accurate with the passing years. The queen of spoonerisms assured us British Muslims believe Shakespeare wrote his plays in Islamic pentameter, that she is not anti-semantic, and nor is she self-defecating.

Biggins reprised his timeless Paul Keating, gave us a grotesquely idiotic Tony Abbott, a young Albo and the self-destructive Adam Bandt (singing “I’m Bandt” to Michael Jackson’s I’m Bad). Scott revisited his Kevin Rudd, who’s grown ever weirder, and offered cameos as diverse as Miriam Margolyes, Alan Kohler and a gifted musical director. Or perhaps the latter was real. Whitney had fun with Joe Hockey to Biggins’ Mathias Cormann, while his pitch-perfect Peter Dutton was part Evangelical, part Halloween spook.

They astutely shied away from Trump (what more can be said?), and a Zuckerberg/Musk/Bezos sketch landed rather bumpily on Mars. But lesser material fades quickly from the mind, leaving ample room to relish countless uproarious moments from across all those years. What a gift – not just to us but to the health of the political discourse. The run-up to Christmas will never be the same again.