Laugh until your belly aches at Looking for Albanese

REVIEW: The only real antidote to modern politics is taking the mickey out of it, and The Wharf Revue’s latest show doesn’t miss, writes Phil Brown.

Bishop and Drew Forsythe in The Wharf Revue. Picture: Vishal Pandey

Who knew Pauline Hanson was so funny? Please explain! Well it’s actually The Wharf Revue’s Drew Forsythe pretending to be Pauline Hanson in their new show Looking for Albanese which opened Tuesday night in the Playhouse at QPAC.

He certainly sounded like Pauline because he made no sense and mangled the English language with the same aplomb as Sir Joh, by goodness gracious me. But don’t you worry about that Pauline, because in Looking for Albanese they satirise all sides of politics without being nasty. How can that be? Well let me tell you, it be.

Hobbit Jim Chalmers with Anthony Albo Baggins in Looking for Albanese.

And while Forsythe’s Pauline is witheringly funny it’s also a tad poignant and he doesn’t try to tear her down as a human being. Nice.

The same goes for everyone who gets lampooned in this show. The very clever team behind The Wharf Revue aren’t malicious or vindictive but they are very clever indeed and they kind of let the characters speak for themselves. And they all manage to hoist themselves on their own petards.

Queensland gets a big touch up, as it should with Pauline, Bob Katter, Clive Palmer and Kevin Rudd. Forsythe, who may have the genes for this stuff coming from Atherton, gets to play not only Pauline but also Bob Katter. In a segment entitled Albo in Wonderland the man with the ten gallon hat turns up as the Mad Katter. Forsythe has him down to a tee and I laughed my head off. So did everyone around me.

Former Australian PM’s console each other with a song in The Wharf Revue’s new show.

I was up for a laugh which is why I went to this show and there aren’t that many occasions when I find yourself laughing out loud at QPAC.

In years gone by the show has played elsewhere in Brisbane, kind of off-Broadway … but it has now been upgraded to QPAC which is as it should be. The team behind it is Jonathan Biggins, Phillip Scott, Drew Forsythe and Mandy Bishop and this show has been around for while. But it’s a new dawn, a new day and a new political landscape and they have a hell of a lot of fun with that. Everyone seems to have a crack at being Albo in various incarnations.

Craig Kelly and Clive Palmer played by Phillip Scott and Jonathan Biggins

I loved the Albo and His Mountain of Debt sketch where Albo is Albo Baggins and Jim Chalmers as his faithful Hobbit offsider. Biggins has repeatedly apologised for making the Federal Treasurer’s ’ears so big but explains that these were the only ones they had in their props department. Well that’s their story anyway and they are sticking to it.

The talent of this team is amazing and here we have a show with just four people, some basic audio visuals, a grand piano and a few other instruments and that’s about it. Oh and multiple costume changes to morph into the various political personages they are pillorying.

Mandy Bishop as Jacqui Lambie in The Wharf Revue’s Looking for Albanese

One of the funniest sketches is with Mandy Bishop playing Jacqui Lambie with appropriate cussing.

She nails her plain speaking manner and sings a song which is a version of the 1976 country hit Convoy but it’s about her humble political network rather than a bunch of truckers. I know that begs for a rhyme but I’m leaving that alone.

The Greens get The Wiggles treatment.

There’s also a hilarious takedown of the The Greens, who are presented as The Wiggles. Some Greens supporters have apparently not appreciated this but everyone else does.

There’s a wonderful scene in which three former PMs run into each other at a Labor conference and none of them particularly like each other. Biggins is Paul Keating (he has form in this regard), Bishop is Julia Gillard who is still waiting or an apology from Kevin Rudd and Rudd is played by Phillip Scott, the show’s talented piano man. Very funny and a bit sad at times.

There are these poignant moments and none more poignant than the only sombre segment of the show which is about the futility of the war in Afghanistan done as a song, a rewriting of the classic western tune Ghost Riders in the Sky. Makes you think.

Biggins’ foray as King Charles III is utterly brilliant but listen, I won’t go on and bore you with too much more detail because I want you to be surprised. This is political satire of the highest calibre and we need it to help us make sense of the insanity of our world. And it is hilarious.

Gosh I laughed. How much? For some reason I thought of a quote from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. “We had not laughed so much since Grandma died.”

The Wharf Revue: Looking for Albanese is on in the Playhouse, QPAC until Saturday

qpac.com.au