Productions 1988 Melbourne | ||
Music Martin Armiger and George Dreyfus with David King Lyrics Tim Robertson and Don Watson with John Romeril Book Tim Robertson and Don Watson with John Romeril Premiere 16 January 1988: Princess Theatre, Melbourne Playwrights Don Watson, Tim Robertson, John Romeril | ||
Manning Clark's History of Australia - The Musical is an Australian musical written by Tim Robertson and Don Watson with John Romeril with music by Martin Armiger and George Dreyfus with David King. The musical interweaves the life of historian Manning Clark from 1915 to 1988 with Australian history from 1788 to 1915, utilising drama, melodrama, music, song, comedy and circus.
Contents
Development
Watson, Robertson and Romeril began working on a stage adaptation of Clark's (then) five volume A History of Australia in 1983.
Production history
The original production opened at Melbourne's Princess Theatre on 16 January 1988, produced by John Timlin with investors including the Hoyts Corporation and Qantas, as part of Australian Bicentenary celebrations. It was directed by John Bell with choreography by Mark Daly and musical direction by David King. The cast included Ivar Kants, Michele Fawdon, John McTernan, Jonathan Biggins, Greg Stone, Linda Nagle, Kate Turner, Helen Noonan, Tina Bursill, Jenny Vuletic, Bob Hornery, Carmen Tanti, Ross Williams, Terry Brady, Darryl Emmerson, Geoffrey Jenkins and Ingrid Silveus.
Negative initial reviews and poor ticket sales resulted in the musical facing closure after three weeks. In an effort to continue, the cast agreed to forgo wages, the theatre owner waived the rent and Hoyts provided free publicity. History of Australia finally closed in late February 1988, well short of initial expectations and without proceeding to a national tour.
A cast recording was released by Polydor in 1988.
Critical reception
The musical received a mixed critical reaction. In Melbourne newspaper The Age, theatre critic Leonard Radic said the musical gave an overall impression of "patchiness and a failure of imagination". Playwright Jack Hibberd called Radic's review "disrespectful, captious and harsh" and "choken with terrible misjudgements".
Musical numbers
Musical numbers taken from the cast recording.