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February 23, 2023 11 mins

Ahead of the 'Moulin Rouge! The Musical' opening in Perth, the incredible Simon Burke joins Clairsy & Lisa for a chat about the stage show "It's the movie, on steroids", how Play School was key for his acting skills and why things got HEATED between two elderly theatre-goers during, of all times, a Wednesday matinee.

 

 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mulan Rouge, the musical is on at Crown Theater from
this Sunday until April the twenty first. You can get
tickets through Ticketmaster and the multi talented and faceted Simon
Burke is with us.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello, Hello, good morning. Are you I'm pretty good? Thank you?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
So you play Harold Ziddler fun?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Sorry, they have fun, so much fun?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
You love it?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Look, I've done a lot of musicals in my time,
but I think you probably, without doubt, hands down the
most exciting. It's I mean, the role is great. Harold
is the owner of the Mulan Rouge in the movie,
is played by Jim Broadbent. In the stage music, it's
been beefed up, so I'm sort of like the host
of the whole show for the audience. When you walk

(00:43):
into the Muhlan Rouge walk into the Crown Theater, you're
actually walking to the Mulan Rouge, and and I'm kind
of a host.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
And it's so much fun.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Perhaps one of the most physical roles at Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah, I bounce aroughout that stage in a way that
I haven't for some time.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Just in a boat exactly. It's amazing, Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Simon Burke a, it's great to see you.

Speaker 5 (01:09):
We have chatted before, We've various things across the years, mate,
but the people are still celebrating in perthin across the land.
You get the feeling that excitement about seeing live performances
from really talented people.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
They're still still in that vibe.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
I think that's what we found with we've done the
show in Melbourne and Sydney and as we've been coming
out of lockdown and stuff, there's something about this show
of people being locked away for eighteen months. It's almost
like because this is like the movie. People remember the
movie and how kind of fun and beautiful and magnificent
and broad it is, but the show is kind of
the movie on steroids, and so you get like eighteen

(01:45):
months of entertainment in one night.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's nice.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
All the songs you know from the movie, like you
know your song and Roxanne and Diamonds girls that were saying,
but there's twenty two years of music since the movie happens,
so yeah, that's been put into our musical. So we
got beyond saying Pink and Adele and Rihanna.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
You know, there's one thing to watch all that color
and amazingness that is bass on the screen, but to
feel like you're virtually immersed in it in the in
the theater. And you've been on some amazing sets. I mean,
I will never forget the first time that chandelier crashes
down above my head in the Phantom. But what is
the set like for this one?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Again?

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Really stunning? I think what you're saying. Let the whole
idea of putting a bas film onto stage, and our
director for a Broadway director, Alex Timbers, has totally nailed
it because it has that kind of mash up feel
that you think, how are you going to do that?
That mash up stuff that you have on screen, but
just the set and the costumes and stuff, it's just

(02:47):
it's just a kind of visual assault.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
It just kind of a.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
It's fun in the best possible word, fantastic visual assault.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
You're up there, you know, you're practicing a craft on
stage and there, but you must see sometimes things in
the crowd, even though you're focusing on what you're doing,
you must see some unusual things at times.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
You can get the odd phone, ringing mobile.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of singing along because yeah, yeah,
we've got to get people that come come see the show.
That have been obsessed with this film since they were
teenagers or whatever, and it holds a very special place
in so many people's hearts, this film. And I think
the excitement of seeing it on stage, you know, if

(03:32):
you've got to see something, you know when you're on
your first date or something as a teenager and you're
watching it like twenty years later. Yeah, there's a lot
of excitement there. And so yeah, we have We actually
had a we had a punch up in the audience
in Sydney. I should probably say this, but in Sydney
it was it was. It was a Wednesday matinee. Yeah,
and so generally and generally an older audience and a Wednesday,

(03:55):
and there's a there's a couple there and another elderly
couple and one guy said.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Tell your wife to stop seeing. How do you say that?

Speaker 5 (04:05):
I had to be a separated added entertainment, we had
a Dave Chappelle comedy show.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
There was a punch up here in person a couple
of weeks ago, which.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Was bizarre enough. Wednesday musical that is insane exactly right now.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
I want to put you off a little bit up there.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
There was something for everyone that day. Your resume is spectacular.
You've done a lot of the biggies, you know, I
mentioned the Phantom of the Opera, done SOT music, You've
done my all time favorite Lamber is Chicago, Mary Poppin's Hairspray.
Is there a musical theater theater production that you haven't
done that you think I want to do that one day?
I don't think this meany you haven't done.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
There's not money I haven't done.

Speaker 3 (04:49):
I mean there are some really interesting.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Of it and the oldest, oldest elder. Look.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
I just as well as doing big musicals, I love
working on new Australian stuff, which I've done and so like,
I guess there's a music all out there that hasn't
been written yet that yeah, you know, Yeah, I think
that's That's another exciting thing, is, you know, is to
be able to combine you know, the great big shows
that are so well loved with with new work.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
What about TV and film and so on? Is anything
much coming up in the pipeline?

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Yeah, I'm I'm preoccupied with this show quiet at the time.
But yeah, I have really been wanting to get back
into film and television.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
So how many more options now. I mean I've seen
some great stuff on Netflix and stand and particularly Stan
doing some good Australian look stuff.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I think the screen industry in Australia is really really
busy again.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
It is great, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
The streamers as we know starting to do stuff and
there's been some great I mean Colin from Accounts, Yes, yes,
the Foxtel the Jury, the twelve thing.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
That was that was fantastic, more than the European ones, Yeah,
wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
What's my favorite show of that year? Is my favorite show?
Such a great yeah? I mean Kitty Floding it amazing.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
Who seemed surprised when she won the award? She wasn't
she got someone else to pick up and that.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
The guy who's the receptionist, Eric, I really he recognized.
It's just how funny she is.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
In a way, I love it that that show is.

Speaker 3 (06:22):
There's so many little kind of cameos and stuff.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
You see I know that person from someone.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Famous, friends rocking up.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
It's really cool.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
It's a great show.

Speaker 5 (06:30):
Gold and it's all going on. I was talking about
people in the crowd. I did hear someone told me
a story about a woman who was an actress who
was in a show. She had very long monologues throughout
this performance, and she obviously knew she was good at
her craft. But a mobile phone ringing absolutely through her
one day, and because she was so experienced, she managed
to get back on track. Have you ever been put
off by something whilst the shows on?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Like that?

Speaker 4 (06:52):
I can understand a punch up being slightly amusing.

Speaker 3 (06:55):
Yeah, look, I guess it happens occasionally. But you know,
I think that's the other great thing about live entertainment,
you know, like you know, if something crazy happens, an
audience is going to love it even more. I mean
I've had the odd sort of slip up in a
line or something. Actually, I do remember once I was
in London. I was playing Captain von Trapp in the
Sound of Music at Palladium Theater and I just arrived

(07:19):
from Australia and I was I must have been homesick,
because there was a matin day one day and the
Nazis come in and whatever, and Maria runs around.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
She turns to me and she says, what are we
going to do? Gayor? And I said, We'll have to
go out of Austria right away. And this matinee you did.
She turned to me and said, what you do gay,
I said, We'll have to get out of London right away.
The whole audience just she.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
Looked at me, I looked at her, The audience looked
at each other. There was just like great raw and
then everyone applauded, and then you just get on with it.
I mean, of course, I think the other moments that
people live.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
For, and that's history of the film flipped on its head.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Exactly while we do it, you know, because something happens
every night, and sometimes the audience knows what's going on.
Sometimes that like sometimes you know, in any show, there
might be a show stop something and then the audience
sort of stops for it doesn't happen, happens once in
a blue moon, but an audience goes and then you
come back on they give you a little round.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
And that's it's kind of weird as well not.

Speaker 5 (08:20):
Be live otherwise, said the late great Peak Posselway. In
a one man played his magic and he was trying
to do something as simple as light a candle, and
the bloody thing wouldn't lie.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
It had four cracks. Eventually it did, but he was
so calm up there, you know, yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
It's why we do it.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Speaking of Shenanigan's you were, of course, of course a
lot of people know from play School because we've all
grown up with Play School. What sort of tom foolery
went on behind the scenes of that.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Well, I was fortunate enough that when I started play School,
my goodness me, it was in the late eighties. Yeah,
and the eighties and nineties, I guess, were when play
School was still filmed as if it was live, so
you didn't do it in sections, and so basically you
had to learn the entire script plus all the camera
stuff and just it was like being in top Gun.

Speaker 2 (09:12):
You just got in and did it and song here exactly.
And you were not you know, you were very frowned
upon if you stopped at all. The only way you
could stop if the magic word dropped you goodness, And so.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
You were very much encouraged to like if something went wrong,
you just had to you had to put up with it.
Like you know, if you're making a little a little
clay doll and I remember this one time was with
NONI and we were making this clay doll and the
little doll and she the girl decides to go for
a walk in the forest, and there's a close up
and the leg falls.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Off, and so she kept hopping.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
But that's that's the great and that training of play
school and those things has really and there's certain moments
in this show when I'm mucking around on stage. I think,
if it wasn't a play school, I would not have
the comfort and the joy of doing that, because you know,
it's it's that whole thing of I mean, what we
do acting is playing.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Really.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yeah, There's been a few moments in the show that
I've been able to channel. So I've got this thing
at the very end where I sing who needs a
Heart when a Heart could be broken? It's just my
solo line in the encore, and for some reason, who
needs a Heart when a Heart makes You crazy? And

(10:46):
the whole oh, that's right, it's call and response. So
I'm singing this and then the whole cast has to
sing along with me, who needs a harp when a
Heart makes You crazy? And they went, who needs a
But I've done it full time over four hundred fifty shows.
I've just got I come up to this moment. I go, please,
what is the line Oh, it's who needs a hurt

(11:07):
one heart.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Make sure.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
The more you tell yourself to say the lines there,
the more you say the other one.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
Well you could always do what the veteran rock stars
are doing and having some They're looking at the screen.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
No, I like it better.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
How you doing it well?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Mulin Rouge. The musical is on a Crown Theater until
April twenty. First tickets are through Ticketmaster. Lovely to have
you in town. Lovely to have you on stay for
the Crown, and thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
For joining us. It's great to see you guys. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (11:38):
Excuse my friend, like you got beep
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