Review: A Nasty Piece of Work

The play begins in the foyer — and it is brilliant. A totally surprising and slightly naughty opening from Director Annie Bilton.

If John Gay were still around, he would love the setting: a Kings Cross bordello with a heart of gold Madam, Pearl (Barbara Hastings), and her daughter Josie (Brionny Fagan) — a private-school graduate and IT undergrad with a Ralph Lauren look, who is sidelining in pole dancing while developing a half-million-dollar business plan for a pornography and sex-toy website. Beat that for burlesque.

Enter the villain, Barsky (Sinisa Vrebac), a Russian who has come to Australia because ‘you got to love a land started by criminals’. He wants to take over,in a big way, by bringing in cheap labour — sex slaves from abroad that he can buy low and sell high. He is cool, smooth, and treacherous.

McNeil (Morgan David) on the other hand is cool, smooth, and lecherous. He is the current Big Man, a Don Juan and reputed murderer whispered to have removed legs and arms of victims without a care, yet in the farce that follows, he and Josie fall in love, sing romantic duos, and generally behave like infatuated lovebirds.

Front End (Lynden Jones) is the bent detective. His real surname is Loader (work it out yourself). He is also Pearl and Josie’s guardian angel, protecting them from the likes of McNeil and Barsky, though he really is the greatest villain of them all.

The play twists and turns and the songs thread through it all, taking on some big issues but never getting too far away from the fun and farce of the show. The writers Heinz Schweers and Nicholas Parsons should take much credit for this.

The pantomime interaction with the audience is carried off suavely and adds hugely to the enjoyment of the show. In fact its use in the last sequence of the play, where Dero (Emma Harris) invites the colosseum verdict from the audience — ‘thumbs up’, ‘thumbs down’— leading to the finale is the highlight of the evening.

Heinz Schweers is also the Musical Director and ‘leader of the band’. He provides energetic and adept leadership to his fellow musos who collectively contribute most significantly to the quality of the whole.

Unlike Gay’s formula for The Beggar’s Opera, the music does not borrow from well-known pop songs, but has been written especially by Schweers for the show. An extra comedy edge is lost because of it, but plenty of satire remains to entertain throughout.

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