Magpies used to make Justine Clarke nervous – then she put them in her new show

Like many Australians, actor and Play School presenter Justine Clarke is not the biggest fan of magpies – she is also prey to the fear that strikes during swooping season.

It’s a surprise then that her new musical show for children, Mimi’s Symphony, centres on a young magpie who has fallen from her nest as she comes across dogs, possums, insects and other magpies on her way home.

A fear of magpies inspired Justine Clarke’s new album and stage show Mimi’s Symphony.Credit: Nick Moir

“I wrote this over a couple of years spending a lot of time at King George Park in Rozelle and around magpies,” says Clarke. “I’ve never been swooped by one, but I knew they swoop and so I’ve always been very nervous around them. So I did a fair bit of research and discovered more about the way they behave, I think in part to overcome that fear.

“Now I’m not so scared of them because I know they only swoop at certain times and that they can recognise people’s faces. As I discovered more about them, I became less fearful of them – I think that’s probably a good lesson for life as well.”

Clarke joined forces with composer and conductor George Ellis to create the new children’s album and show Mimi’s Symphony after he appeared on The Justine Clarke Show. They fell into conversation about what was available to introduce youngsters to classical music: Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Saint-Saens’ The Carnival of the Animals being the two most popular works.

“I really felt that there was a gap for younger children to be introduced in a gentle way, not to every single instrument, but to the different sounds of each of the four sections of the orchestra. So each section of the orchestra represents a different animal group in the park, a familiar landscape to young kids.”

Justine Clarke in the children’s show Mimi’s Symphony, which is playing at the Sydney Opera House from April 11-13.Credit: Katelyn-Jane Dunn

The work is set to be performed live for kids aged three and up by Clarke, with Ellis leading an 18-piece orchestra. There will also be an animated Mimi created by Studio Gilay, but those with ornithophobia need not fear – Clarke says she is “very cute and sweet and not scary in any way”.

Clarke’s career began when she was just seven, when she auditioned for a Vegemite commercial. Her big-screen debut came in 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome where, as a 12-year-old, she was occasionally driven to and from set with star Mel Gibson, as they both lived in the eastern suburbs.

Now 53, Clarke is a familiar face to a wide variety of demographics as an ARIA-winning children’s entertainer who has also maintained a very successful acting career both in television and on stage.

Most recently she originated the title role in Joanna Murray-Smith’s Julia as Australia’s first female prime minister, complete with a verbatim performance of Gillard’s viral 2012 misogyny speech. Clarke will reprise it when Julia tours Melbourne, Brisbane and Wollongong this year.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard with Justine Clarke following a performance of Julia last year.

“It feels exhilarating to perform,” she says. “It is like an act of atonement or a recalibrating of a moment in time, a way for people to process it again anew. I feel like it’s doing something meaningful, it’s doing what good art should do.

“It’s visceral for me at the end of the show because people come out talking to the person next to them, and that’s what you want theatre to do. You want it to ignite passionate conversation.”

Clarke’s longest-running role is on Play School, which she has done since 1999. “I’ve always felt it was my civic duty to use my platform of being a Play School presenter as a conduit towards a love of music. And for the kids who have not necessarily grown up in musical families, maybe they know me from Play School so they’ll come and listen – and it just might be the beginning of a musical odyssey.”

Clarke attributes the diversity of her career to necessity. “That’s just how it’s been for me for my whole working life. It’s a small industry, so it’s good to diversify and I really enjoy it. When I was younger, there was a lot of emphasis on were you a television actor or a theatre actor or musical theatre or a pop star. You had to choose, and I could never do that. But now I feel really lucky. I’m just making things that I want to make and putting them out there.”

Clarke’s career has garnered her fans of all ages, but she admits to holding a special place in her heart for her smallest fans. “I’ll never tire of kneeling down and chatting to a three-year-old with that wonderful, confused look in their eye of ‘how did you get out of the television?’”

The album Mimi’s Symphony is out now. Justine Clarke performs Mimi’s Symphony at Sydney Opera House from April 11-13.

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