Todd McKenney’s advice for the next Aussie biopic star
As auditions for a performer to take on the character of singer John Farnham in a new biographic musical, Whispering Jack, get under way, Sydney Theatre Company (STC) artistic director Mitchell Butel admits the pressure to get it right “is immense … but it’s a good pressure”. By March, Butel is hoping to have filled the lead role, along with other key characters, such as Farnham’s wife, Jill, his former manager, the late Glenn Wheatley, and Wheatley’s wife, Gaynor. “We’re not looking for a mimic,” Butel says, adding that the musical will focus on a chapter in Farnham’s life when he was in his mid-30s. “They’ll need to have a few runs on the board, but when performer and character align, the result is electric.”
John Farnham in 1987.Credit: Gentle Look via Getty Images
Not only are reputations at stake: so, too, is a multimillion-dollar investment. Whispering Jack is being bankrolled by Gaynor Wheatley’s Talentworks, the STC – it’s already started selling tickets for the show’s spring 2026 debut – and theatrical producers Michael Cassel Group, which produced the STC’s internationally acclaimed The Picture of Dorian Gray (featuring Eryn Jean Norvill in the title role in Sydney and Sarah Snook in London and New York). “A producer’s job is to mitigate the risks by getting the best people involved,” Michael Cassel assures me. “We’re incubating something that I’m confident will pay off.”
Written by former children’s TV host-turned-director Jack Yabsley, Whispering Jack will make its debut at Sydney’s Ros Packer Theatre in Walsh Bay next November, retelling the story of one of the greatest comebacks in Australian pop history. It famously culminated in Farnham’s 1986 chart-topping single, You’re the Voice.
Seasoned musical-theatre performer Todd McKenney understands the pressure of taking on a national treasure. He played the late Peter Allen in a staggering 1076 performances of The Boy from Oz in the late ’90s. (From 2003, Hugh Jackman was Allen in the smash-hit Broadway version.)
“Peter Allen was a flamboyant performer who appealed to middle Australia during a very conservative time,” says McKenney, who auditioned for the part wearing Peter Allen’s own shirts, a good luck charm he’d been gifted by the late singer’s mother. “Like Peter, John is the real deal and that resonates with audiences. The last thing I wanted to do was impersonate Peter, and I think that’ll be the same with John; audiences will see through that quickly.”
Despite Australia’s rich history of producing global superstars, relatively few “bio musicals” have made it to the stage. From Kylie Minogue to INXS, similar projects have languished in “development hell”. “Hopefully that’s all about to change,” says Cassel.
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