After Washington Post critic Peter Marks took particular issue with a possessed pig’s penis, for example, it was cut – literally – from the show and mounted on a board at New York’s Winter Garden Theatre. “As you were walking through the underpass, you’d go past the Peter Marks Memorial Pig’s Penis,” Perfect says.

Perfect announced last year the show would be heading to Australia, but has been coy about the casting until now. And though he didn’t write the role for himself – Alex Brightman played the undead agent of chaos on Broadway – the 46-year-old always had the local lead in his sights. He was the first person locked in for the Melbourne show and then helped find the rest of the cast (which is yet to be announced).

“There’s not a huge number of places to hide if it doesn’t work. I can’t blame the music and the lyrics. I wrote them.”

“I’m at that age where a lot of people I know are finding grown-up, physical challenges for themselves,” he says. “They’re doing marathons, or they’re riding their bike across Europe, or they’re climbing snow-peaked mountains … Beetlejuice is gonna be my Everest.