Shrek The Musical charms even with the burping and farting

After a COVID lockdown delay, Shrek The Musical is up and running with a fifty per cent capacity, but they were treated to a hell of a night at the theatre, writes Phil Brown.

Who starts a show by farting? Well Shrek does, doesn’t he. But as he says later in Shrek The Musical ... “Better out than in.” Classy huh? Funny too. Shrek The Musical is hilarious but it’s also warm-hearted, a moral fable of sorts and a hell of a night in the theatre.

We waited for this show for so long and the performers waited too. They were ready to go last weekend when the three day lockdown hit and that must have crushed them. It crushed us! They last did the show in Melbourne in March. So when they finally got on stage in the Lyric Theatre at QPAC last night they were so, so ready and they gave us a fantastic show, as expected.

Knowing how much time leading man Ben Mingay spends in make-up - two hours each night - and knowing how physically demanding it is for him to become the swamp dwelling ogre Shrek I was keen to see how he did it. And he wears it well. You can see elements of Fat Bastard , the hideous Mike Myers creation in this Caledonian Shrek, particularly with the farting and all. There’s burping too.

Lucy Durack as Princess Fiona, Ben Mingay as Shrek and Nat Jobe as Donkey in Shrek The Musical. (AAP Image/David Crosling)

The scene where Princess Fiona (Lucy Durack) and Shrek have a burp and fart off is hilarious and when I spoke to Lucy Durack she said she never thought she’d end up farting on stage although we presume the flatulence was all sound effects. Hell, we hope so!

To recap on the storyline Shrek lives alone in a swamp until the stunted dictator of Duloc Lord Farquaad (Todd McKenney) banishes all fairytale creatures to live in the swamp with the green ogre Shrek. Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, The Ugly Duckling, they are all there, designated freaks to be banished. Analogies can be drawn with many regimes here of course.

Farquaad wants to marry a princess and Shrek, seeing an opportunity to help free the swamp dwellers agrees to do his bidding and fetch the princess for him from a dragon guarded tower (Marcia Hines voices the dragon which is a huge and impressive puppet) and bring her back to marry Farquaad.

Lucy Durack as Princess Fiona, Ben Mingay as Shrek and Nat Jobe as Donkey. (AAP Image/David Crosling)

If Shrek is Don Quixote then his companion along that journey, Donkey (Nat Jobe) is Sancho Panza.

When Shrek frees the princess the two fall in love although they don‘t both know it at first. But Fiona has a secret and that’s revealed at the end. It’s wittily written and this is the Australian version of a Broadway production based on the animated DreamWorks movie and it’s pretty true to the film which is good.

The sets are amazing, the singing and dancing is world class and everyone is terrific. McKenney is masterful as Lord Farquaad a role which brings him to his knees, literally, and having someone of his calibre in the show adds depth. Mingay and Durack are wonderful leads and Mingay creates a very sympathetic Shrek and boy can he sing. Durack’s Fiona is lively to say the least and she is one of our great musical theatre stars.

There’s a rather hot live orchestra under the musical direction of Dave Skelton.

Todd McKenney is masterful as the stunted Lord Farquaad in Shrek The Musical. (AAP Image/David Crosling)

As silly as it all is (it reminded me of Blackadder and Monty Python at times) it has some important messages about how people should treat each other. There are a few tweaks for Brisbane ... a mention of The Gabba for example ... and while I understand Lord Farquaad’s steed was known as Frosty in a previous production (a nod to producer John Frost) in this show the horse is referred to as ScoMo. Read into that what you will.

This subversion of fairytales is, in the end, a wonderful fairytale in itself with - SPOILER ALERT! - a happy ending.

The finale becomes a party on stage and off when former Queen of Pop, Marcia Hines, comes out from behind her dragon and rocks the house something fierce leading the cast in singing The Monkees hit I’m A Believer, the same song that closed out the film. Why that song? Well remember how it starts? “I thought love was only true in fairy tales ... ”

We had to wear masks due to COVID restrictions but we all did so happily because it meant we could see a show despite the pandemic. The audience capacity is, at the moment, 50 per cent but that’s enough to make things lively.

As a final word may I pay tribute to the staff at QPAC who are dealing with the pressures of the pandemic and restrictions with so much grace and good humour. Respect.

Shrek The Musical is on in the Lyric Theatre at QPAC until February 7; qpac.com.au