Meg Washington spills the gravy on screen adaptation of Paul Kelly classic

Excitement from fans about the film adaptation of Paul Kelly’s Christmas anthem How To Make Gravy reached fever pitch with the release of a 40-second teaser in December.

“None more so than in our household,” says Australian musician Meg Washington, who co-wrote the screenplay with husband Nick Waterman. The film, which Waterman also directed, will be released this year (no doubt in time for December 21).

Meg Washington returns to the stage this month, having wrapped up filming How To Make Gravy.

Kelly’s popular song about a prisoner who is writing to his brother on December 21, and lamenting he won’t be home for Christmas was nominated for ARIA’s song of the year award in 1997. December 21 has since been dubbed “Gravy Day” by fans.

“The process of adapting the song was pretty interesting, the script had to work like a reversible jacket,” Washington says.

“It had to make sense for the legions of fans ... people who are going to forensically look for the song inside the movie, but it also had to work for people who never heard the song before, people who are just sitting down to watch a film and don’t have all that prior knowledge of the song.”

Starring Hugo Weaving, Daniel Henshall, Kate Mulvany and Brenton Thwaites, How To Make Gravy wrapped up its filming at the start of summer. “The feelings the song conjures are so vivid”, Washington says, and that’s ultimately why it “resonates so deeply with fans”.

‘It’s a great opportunity to spend time with my own music, which I haven’t done for a long time.’

Meg Washington

“It was a pretty unique challenge we faced, and we made the conscious decision to treat the lyrics like the text, like Shakespeare, and do our absolute best to extract every detail in the film’s plot and narrative from what’s either said or unsaid in Paul’s lyrics.”

With the film in post-production, Washington will return to the stage this month with the Tasmanian, Melbourne and Sydney symphony orchestras. When she last performed with the SSO in 2017, the three-time ARIA Award winner was pregnant; this time she will be able to “slink around in the music”.

“I feel like I’ll be able to really inhabit my body more, and reimagine my old catalogue in a way that allows me to stretch out,” she says. “It’s a great opportunity to spend time with my own music, which I haven’t done for a long time.”

Washington’s live recording with the SSO of Catherine Wheel, a song that later appeared on her 2020 album Batflowers, was released late last year.

As many as half a dozen newer songs, including tracks from Batflowers, will feature in the coming shows. Each show is arranged with the orchestras under conductor Vanessa Scammell. The arrangements began taking shape while Washington worked on the set of How To Make Gravy.

”I started moving into film and TV seven or eight years ago, and we had the idea for How To Make Gravy around Christmas in 2019, so we had a lot of uninterrupted time to work on it, after what happened [with COVID-19 lockdowns],” she says.

There was also another recent single, Eastercoaster, and its country-tinged mood may be a sign of what’s to come from Washington, who released her debut album, I Believe You Liar, in 2010.

“Musically, things are moving into a more organic space,” she says. “I’ve been working with my friend, Ben Edgar, who is a master musician and beautiful guitarist.

“We’ve been working on some songs for an album that’s coming next year. It’s moving into a new space, but it’s hard to sum up. It is more country, it’s more tropical, and a bit more heavenly than it’s been before.”

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra executive producer Mark Sutcliffe worked with Washington in 2017, and again when she was cast in the SSO’s stage production, Funny Girl – The Musical.

“Meg’s music is really well suited to the orchestral world,” Sutcliffe says. “And this is a great opportunity to present artists, like Meg, in a new way.

“This year we’ve worked with Kate Ceberano, Moju, Ngaiire, Ali McGregor, Birds Of Tokyo. And we’ve seen about 100,000 people come to the MSO in 2023 alone.

“Our musicians are very dedicated to their core programming, but this is an opportunity to work with Australian artists, and provide programming that caters to different tastes.”

Washington, who also voices school teacher Calypso in Bluey, is relishing a return to the stage.

“It’s exciting because the orchestras, especially the MSO, are doing a really good job, trying to overlap the circles with their contemporary programming,” she says.

“I hope people find the orchestra this way, and I hope some orchestra people find me. Maybe I can turn a few classical heads.”

Meg Washington will perform at Wrest Point Entertainment Centre in Sandy Bay, with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra on January 30; Sydney Town Hall with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra on February 3; and Hamer Hall at the Arts Centre Melbourne, with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on February 9.

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