‘It was electric’: The show reuniting a couple of original Australian Idol mates
Ever since Casey Donovan and Rob Mills appeared on Australian Idol – Donovan as the 16-year-old winner in 2004, and Mills as a 21-year-old finalist in 2003 – they’ve been fixtures in Australian entertainment, their careers spanning musical theatre, drama and reality television.
Now, after a year in which they performed together in the Shakespeare-inspired musical & Juliet, and in which Donovan toured with Marcia Hines, and Mills and his fiancee, broadcaster Georgie Tunny, came second in The Amazing Race: Celebrity Edition, they have joined forces again for A (Very) Musical Christmas.
Rob Mills gets into the spirit in A Very (Musical) Christmas.
“It was electric,” says Donovan of the atmosphere inside Melbourne’s Her Majesty’s Theatre, where the concert was recorded in November. “There are a lot of nerves. A lot of the musical theatre community don’t really do much television, so it’s a learning curve. But to watch people’s faces light up in the audience, it’s such a beautiful thing to be involved in.”
Hosted by the ABC’s Zan Rowe, the bill includes theatre veteran Caroline O’Connor, the cast of Beetlejuice the Musical, and of the production currently on that stage, MJ the Musical.
Mills, a lifelong fan of Jackson’s music, was in the audience on MJ’s opening night. “I was so curious to see how they would do the show,” he says. “I’ve got to say, I loved it. As we do so often in this country, we match, if not surpass, the talent on the West End and Broadway.”
For A (Very) Musical Christmas, Donovan and Mills chose songs that represent how they feel about the season. Mills, who grew up navigating the occasion across his parents’ separate households, sings Darren Criss’ All Those Christmas Cliches.
Casey Donovan in A Very (Musical) Christmas.
“Georgie was the one that got me into Christmas,” he says, as the couple prepares to move from Melbourne to Sydney for Tunny’s new role as host of the 10 News Weekend Bulletin in 2026.
“This year, there’s no tree. Georgie’s going to New York while I’ll be Christmassing all around Australia. I’ve got carols in Logan, in Parramatta, and [Nine’s] Carols by Candlelight in Melbourne. And then concerts with Casey and [fellow Idol alumnus] Paulini, with John Foreman’s Australian Pops Orchestra. So it’s a full-on month.”
Donovan, who is chief caterer for a gathering of her family and that of her fiancee, paramedicine lecturer Renee Sharples, does a stirring rendition of the Eagles’ Please Come Home For Christmas.
“I’m always travelling,” says Donovan, who is preparing for her 2026 national solo tour, This is Me. “We’ve all either been on one end of wanting to see someone, or being the person that’s usually away, which is always me. So it’s this beautiful song about coming home for Christmas and, if not by Christmas, by New Year’s Eve, and they’re two massive things that I do in my life.”
Donovan is also again headlining the ABC’s New Year’s Eve concert at the Sydney Opera House.
“She’s an absolute powerhouse,” says Mills. “Last year, she broke my heart singing [Leonard Cohen’s] Hallelujah.”
At the suggestion that Donovan ought to have her own Christmas show, she says: “Look, I’d absolutely love to do a ‘Casey and Friends’. But for the moment, it’s great to be a part of A (Very) Musical Christmas.”
She’s enjoying another chance to work with her old Idol mate.
Zan Rowe hosts A Very (Musical) Christmas.
“[Mills] is such a down-to-earth, honest, funny human with a lot of love to give,” she says. “We catch up about certain little things, and laugh and compare war stories.”
The final, full-cast number is loaded with meaning for the end of 2025.
Says Donovan: “When the world is in turmoil, music cuts through and allows people time to reflect and go, ‘How do we move forward?’ It’s a song of people coming together and extending that olive branch to someone that needs a hand.”
A (Very) Musical Christmas Concert premieres at 7.30pm on Friday, December 19, on the ABC.
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