IF YOU could wave your magic wand and assemble all of Australia’s 27 prime ministers in the same room, you’d have a very odd group of people indeed, but also a fascinating one.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Over the years we’ve elected Mandarin and Latin speakers, spiritualists, atheists, republicans, monarchists, graziers and bodgies.
There’s been an array of eyebrows, hairdos, pipes and spectacles, and between them they’ve had the unenviable task of leading our country through eleven turbulent decades.
And in their biggest theatre production yet, Bungendore-based cabaret-duo Shortis and Simpson are bringing the lives of these 26 men and one woman to life on stage at The Q in their new show Prime Time, along with a 36-piece choir and four stage actors.
Songwriter John Shortis said he’d been working on the songs since 2008 following his fellowship at the Australian Prime Minister Centre at Old Parliament House.
“Looking at Australia’s prime ministers, you can’t help but touch on our history, and big issues like wars and depressions, immigration issues, indigenous history and the White Australia policy, and all these things that have come up over the last 112 years of our history,” Mr Shortis said.
There are plenty of curious tidbits in there from the personal lives of our political leaders. Take John Watson, the first federal Labor Party PM anywhere in the world, who happened to be born on a boat in a Chilean harbour to a German father and Irish mother.
Or Australia’s second PM Alfred Deakin, who dabbled in the spiritual and the occult. He was literally a ghost writer, Mr Shortis said.
“He’d write books that he would say were not exactly dictated to him, but he’d claim the pen was moved by the ghosts of dead writers. He had quite an interesting other side to him.”
Tying the lives of the various prime ministers together is a 36-piece choir who act as something of a traditional dramatic chorus, representing the wider electorate, and also a storyline that follows a newly married couple with opposing political views.
“The idea is that we bring in not just stories of the public figures, but also of the electorate, both through the choir singers and this other storyline,” Mr Shortis said.
“It includes the role that us voters have as well, because we elect them and then we live behind the decisions they make.”
The cast includes John Shortis and Moya Simpson, as well as actors Nick Byrne and Kate Hosking, the Worldly Goods community choir, with dramaturgy by celebrated playwright John Romeril, and direction by Catherine Langman.
It’s all part of the Centenary of Canberra celebrations, and is set to be one of the theatrical success stories of 2013.
*Don’t miss Prime Time at The Q Theatre, Queanbeyan, running from Thursday May 23 to Saturday, June 1. Tickets are $39/$34 concession and groups, $20 schools. Phone The Q box office on 6285 6290 to book, or visit www.theq.net.au.
