Barristers just love an audience. It’s why some of the finest members of the NSW Bar have been toiling away at an inaugural sketch comedy revue that, according to the ad copy, promises to be a “thoroughly baffling and riotous affair” when it’s performed later this month.
About 14 barristers have surrendered themselves to rehearsing lines and dance numbers for the 90-minute production, to be held at Marrickville’s Factory Theatre. Is the stage a pressure-release after the melodrama of the courtroom, or just another opportunity for the lawyers to wear a wig and upstage each other?
Surely there was no better example of that this week than Nicholas Owens’ coup de grace against Arthur Moses. Yes, it’s often said that no one remembers who came in second place, but Moses could prove a hardy exception.
Neither silks are mentioned in the Revue, nor is soldier-villain Ben Roberts-Smith, but there’s comedy to be found everywhere, apparently, and it’s another rather grim matter shaping as the headline act.
Margin Call understands the barristers’ marquee performance is a musical parody of the Melissa Caddick story … set to the tune of the Kenny Loggins’ track Footloose. No need to explain the joke, we all know what happened.
The skit is said to chronicle the timeline of Caddick’s crimes, the police raids, her suspected death, except it’s told from her perspective. A casting call published last year on the NSW Bar Association website sought expressions of interest from anyone “itching to unleash that uncanny Albo impression on an adoring crowd”.
Former NSW Liberal sports minister Alister Henskens – a senior counsel – was one of a number who expressed interest but didn’t ultimately commit to the schedule. That was before the script had been written.
Nevertheless, we understand the NSW Bar Association isn’t in any way associated with the Revue. It saw no need to comment on Friday given that the show is being privately funded, the costs most likely to be recouped through the door sales.
Costly construction
Sydney Swans chair Andrew Pridham has flogged off a million shares in MA Financial, the company of which he is vice-chairman, selling them this week to a bunch of institutional investors at $5 apiece. Don’t let us stop you doing the maths.
The shares are a mere sliver of the 18.5 million that Pridham still owns in the firm that he co-founded in 2009, back when it was known as Moelis Australia. “I have been, and remain, a committed long-term investor in our company,” he said, presumably to cool skittish investors. No drastic change to the $4.94 share price since.
Officially, the reason for selling was to provide Pridham with “additional investment diversification” and to increase Pridham’s liquidity, part of which has already been sunk into a portfolio of properties in Sydney’s Palm Beach, a record-breaking purchase at Mosman, and the family farm close to Bowral.
Unofficially, however, Margin Call has confirmed that Pridham really just needed more dosh to move along a house construction that’s taking ages to complete. We asked if he wanted to make any remarks but he declined to go into it.
It’s the same Mosman block that Pridham and wife Carolyn have been tinkering with since 2019, when a DA was first submitted to demolish the waterfront pad they purchased from Chinese businessman Wai Kong Lo for $25m.
Lots of neighbourly pushback to the knockdown ambitions at the time, including from the children of deceased billionaire Bob Oatley, from former IDP Education CEO Andrew Barkla (once the highest-paid chief executive in the country) and ferrari enthusiast Guido Belgiorno-Nettis, whose concerns were for the “excessive” scale of the build.
That included a full-scale demolition of the house that was already there, plus work on a swimming pool, cabana, plant room, gym and landscaping. No changes to the old boatshed out the back, however.
The latest design amendments – to relocate a chimney and make adjustments to an elevator and a skylight – appear to be in the realm of $8m.
Dark arts
An intriguing job movement in the world of corporate strategy, with former Liberal staffer Pete McConnell accepting an executive role with London-based Hakluyt, a corporate intelligence specialist set up by former MI6 spooks.
McConnell joined the firm’s Sydney office this year following stints at Snowy Hydro Limited and as a partner at SEC Newgate. He previously worked as chief of staff to NSW Liberal premier Barry O’Farrell before a senior role at Woolworths.
Presumably it was former Hawker Britton managing director Justin Di Lollo who hired McConnell.
He’s been a Sydney-based partner at Hakluyt since 2016. Margin Call’s fossicking wasn’t able to locate the company or its people on the lobbyists’ register, nor on the foreign influence transparency register – not in itself a big deal, yet.
Interesting work they do at Hakluyt. There’s the bog-standard advice and strategy, the stakeholder management. But like others in the dark arts, there’s also some dabbling in corporate espionage and, from what we hear, running networks of informants. Some are apparently even paid to spill the tea on their organisations.
If only Margin Call had a budget to do the same.
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