Acclaimed singer Anthony Warlow has taken quick action after some abrupt comments appeared on a social media post in his name attacking Opera Australia.
Warlow has had a rich career, famously playing the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera, and is about to star in Annie as Daddy Warbucks. He has also played Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls. Hang onto that fact for a moment.
Singer Anthony Warlow. Credit: Chris Hopkins
The intemperate comments in the singer’s name, which he denies posting, appeared on an Opera Australia post detailing a Today Show visit to Guys and Dolls, the company’s new Handa Opera production. A reporter interviewed star Cody Simpson (playing Masterson) and Annie Aitken, calling her “Australia’s musical theatre royalty”.
It sent someone’s kettle, somewhere, boiling dry.
“There will come a time when Opera Australia realises it should stick to Opera,” read the post in Warlow’s name, which Warlow says he did not send.
“And with all due respect, the term ‘theatre royalty’ should only be used for members of the industry who DESERVE the term and they are few and far between.” The post quickly disappeared in a theatrical puff of smoke.
Performers Amanda Lea Lavergne (left), Beatrix Alder and Anthony Warlow during a rehearsal for Annie.Credit: Kate Geraghty
When we inquired, Warlow told us: “After I was informed on Saturday evening that a post was made on Opera Australia’s Instagram in my name that I didn’t write, I unfollowed OA as a precaution and I have changed my passwords. I had been hacked once before as well.”
Annie (not produced by Opera Australia) opens at the Princess Theatre in July. And it turns out the real-life Warlow is pretty salty himself, telling The Australian Weekend Magazine, “Well, I’ve never seen Hamilton. Rap doesn’t interest me.”
And this: “I walked out of a play on Broadway recently – Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, directed by Sam Mendes. I thought it was rubbish. I don’t know how the thing finished, and I don’t care.”
End of the road
The anti-Grand Prix insurgency Save Albert Park has fallen at the final hurdle after the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal set aside a decision granting it access to the Australian Grand Prix Corporation’s books.
Group members include the 100-year-old Peter Goad and Joan and Peter Logan, who have for years argued that the corporation inflates the numbers attending the event. This year the corporation estimated a record 465,498 fans attended across four days.
As CBD reported last year: “Save Albert Park has maintained for decades that the race organisers use every trick in the book to wildly inflate the number of paying punters at the race to exaggerate the economic benefits of the event.”
In 2023 the community group had a major win when the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner ordered the corporation to surrender internal documents showing how it calculates raceday crowds.
Save Albert Park’s Peter Goad. Credit: Wayne Taylor
The AGPC appealed to VCAT, worried that opening the books would reveal too much confidential information to rivals. Now VCAT has overturned the information commissioner’s decision.
“The David and Goliath battle is over: VCAT has not accepted Victoria’s information commissioner’s ruling that Australian Grand Prix Corporation must disclose how it estimates its attendance figures in the public interest,” Peter Logan told CBD.
“The AGPC won the argument because it would ‘result in the agency being exposed unreasonably to disadvantage’ if the public knew their secret methodology.
“This argument is nothing new as The Age reported on the 26th of February 2008: “Truth on crowds would hurt us, admits GP chief”. Technology moves fast in the 21st century but not at the AGPC.”
Supermarket political essentials
Days into the federal election campaign and this column is waiting for our leaders to be asked the killer question … how much is a loaf of bread?
We can still summon up an image in our mind’s eye of Ray Martin (or was it Mike Willesee, or was it Terry Willesee, or was it Jana Wendt, or was it Mike Munro?) skewering a hapless politician for having the temerity to not know this (or the cost of a litre of milk) thus proving they are OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE COMMON VOTER.
Given we live in the age of endless choice from olive sourdough to lactose-free lite white, any pollie worth their salt ($2 for a Woolies’ own brand 500-gram sea salt refill, if you are asking) would sensibly respond, “it depends”.
Who can forget former prime minister Scott Morrison’s 2022 federal election car crash when he couldn’t tell the National Press Club the cost of bread and petrol. (In a sign of the times, he was also asked the cost of a rapid antigen test).
“I’m not going to pretend to you that I go out each day and I buy a loaf of bread and I buy a litre of milk. I’m not going to pretend to you that I do that. I’ll leave those sort of things to you, mate,” Morrison flippantly replied.
James Newbury, the Victorian state MP for Brighton, as newish shadow treasurer, asked the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office to provide data on selected budget, economic, demographic and other indicators.
It looks like Newbury is keen to avoid a repeat, recently sending colleagues an email attaching the PBO factsheet.
He even made a point of including a few items that the PBO took out, namely: milk, two litres (Coles brand) $3, white loaf $2.80 and dozen eggs $6.10.
It raised eyebrows with some Liberals, who asked: “Shouldn’t the PBO be costing economic policy instead, like how he plans to scrap land tax?”
Newbury was unfazed, telling us: “As the dad who does the shopping on Sunday mornings at 7am at Woolworths at Church Street, my view is frankly that everyone should know these things.
“That the PBO doesn’t want to include those things … that is up to them.”
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