The Wharf Revue: Looking for Albanese | Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott

I don’t think I’ll ever run for politics after seeing The Wharf Revue: Looking for Albanese. Truth! Or is that Treaty before Voice? Yes, they went there and further.

Quite often elected representatives get into politics for the right reasons and some don’t. Many are backed by religion, mining, media or some other nefarious high net individual or corporation. For those that are on the good side, they put in the hard work during pandemics and floods especially on a local level. It is often a thankless task, and yet they are upheld to the highest scrutiny.  

All images: Darren Thomas

But let’s be frank – they can’t please everyone, and they often don’t read the room, which shows up at election times. The cycle goes ‘voted in, did nothing, voted out, next’. What if Australia was the most diverse political landscape in the world and their absurdities could be spun worse than a Rupert Murdoch propaganda piece slapped together to deny climate change backed by the most weaselly of them all?

Those weasels were laid bare like the losers they are in The Wharf Revue. In fact this show made it plain obvious you knew who they were. A few visits overseas to host Trump, Sanders even a choral number by the Supremes, actually it was the Supreme Court singing their joy about unwedded heathens made to make babies “Stop in the name of love”, full of anti-abortion sentiments and back to wax lyrical with the Mad Abbott, the holy ghost that was (Scomo) and overseas again to a preloaded, nauseatingly privileged old boy Boris Johnson with a song about the names of all of the COVID variants which led to his demise.

I want to give credit where credit is due (or is that credit rating due) for the level of forensic accuracy underlying the script used to take the piss out of each failed, neurotic or eccentric public figure the team has portrayed from the Wharf Revue. The show rolled effortlessly between sketches, to TV segments – You can’t ask that with Putin chucking out the questions - to the amazing piano accompaniments, solo and group songs.

I don’t think the audience, who was an average age of 60+, having followed the past 30 years of Prime Ministership, expected the acerbic and ‘no holes barred’ approach that The Wharf Revue took. I laughed hard and cringed at the absolute massacre of each well-crafted act, which flowed better than natural gas (or outlawed as is the case in this show due to rising costs).

All images: Darren Thomas

Anyone who is an avid party supporter will find this show amusingly confronting across the whole political compass. You might smirk at someone else’s party getting joked about, but it’s not as funny when it is your turn. And this is exactly what political satire should achieve. The point is, all politics are fair game, just as much as Kristina Keneally calling Peter Dutton ‘Voldermort’.

The first sledging went to Greensland or the new Gang Green, with their ‘Wiggles’ Toot Toot, Choo Choo Electric Car, they go fast, but they don’t go far… then they run out of power.  I don’t think I can quite unsee Brisbane’s pollies headed by Adam Bandt portrayed as a Wiggles band, but that’s how great the level of comedy is in the show - adapting well known songs with a dark twist. The Grim Reaper makes an appearance in aged care for senile politicians, so does Alice in Wonderland aka Albo in Wonderland and Albo Baggins climbing the mountain of debt. Jacqui Lambie even makes a notable appearance as a bootie shaking bogan Tassie cowgirl who says it like it is.

I mentioned earlier that you can’t take this show to heart, well Pauline Hanson’s character did. “Off with her hijab” is her mantra. Queen of Heartland Queensland, Pauline examines where her voice to parliament is and asks you to consider her statement from the heart. “When I speak in the Senate I make the rest sound sane”. The spaced-out Hemp party member almost took Pauline’s seat and had no idea!

Other highlights include the scene for Allegra Spender with an ode to stealing liberal votes from the vantage point of a dangerously successful teal. “Hey Allegra Spender! Send your liberal seat my way!” The sinister Peter Credlin’s rhetoric was the war against the woke as a Sky News mouthpiece and Katy Gallagher gave a salty rhymed diatribe as the frugal Minister for Women in the shadows of Jim ‘Charming’ Chalmers.

All images: Darren Thomas

The Wharf Revue is an irreverent adventure combining popular culture, cabaret and politics cleverly executed just as much as Scomo ruled the nation singlehandedly and got away with it till he didn’t. This show is just as ambitious as Clive Palmer spending $123 million to win one seat to open another iron ore mine. With such a huge field of contenders to choose from, this show delivers one punch line after the other, meticulously crafted to squeeze out every climate denying, debt defying, corrupted and lying gag possible.

Go see this show for a fulfilling belly laugh. The audience lapped it up and so did I. It’s an easily relatable non-stop 90 mins filled with equally superb acting, wit, staging, music and script. It’s that good!