From “Keating, The Musical” To “Scotty The Tone Deaf”!

First we had “Keating!” which was a musical about Paul Keating, but I actually felt inspired today to write my own piece of political theatre. I did think of calling it “ScoMo The Non-Musical” but I’d worry that nobody would come and see it because they’d think that it was just a few ukulele players strumming badly and then forgetting the words. Now I’ve decided on “Scotty The Tone Deaf” because that covers so much more than his musical ability or lack thereof.

As a point of clarification, I referred to “Keating the Musical” in the title which I realised wasn’t the name of the Keating thing. I suspect I was confusing it with “Shane Warne The Musical”, which reminds me: Did you hear Scotty FromNeverLetAChance Go By tell someone on radio that he recently spoke to Shane Warne about what a difficult summer it was and that Shane encouraged him to keep going… Well, it’s too late to ask Shane for clarification but I suspect that are a lot of people who would tell Morrison to just keep going if he were to ever speak to them. Certainly I’d say it and not only that, I’d give him directions as to where I wanted him to go to…

Yes, that’s right. Mr Morrison was suggesting that Warne was a close confidante… which would just be pathetic if it weren’t so typical.

Anyway, I have the concept for my musical, even if all I have in the way of music is a decision to leave ukuleles out.

It was going to open with a spectacular scene in a small boat with nineteen people hanging onto the sides and the people in the boat saying that according to the Bible we only need one male and one female of each species so the rest of you will have to drown because this is a once in a several thousand year flood. At this point, one of those hanging on, was meant to call out, “That’s Scott Morrison!” The people climb into the boat and toss him and his fellow-traveller into the raging torrent.

While this was a strong theatrical idea and the special effects would have rivalled “Miss Saigon” or “Phantom of the Opera” and therefore made the budget outside my reach, I rejected it because people don’t usually like musicals that end after a few minutes and only have one number… although in the case of the musical version of “King Kong” that would have been a blessing.

Instead I’ve decided to start it with someone asking Bridget McKenzie about the Emergency Relief Fund only to have her say that it’s for a rainy day. (Side note: apparently she actually said this, displaying a worse understanding of irony than Alannis Morrisette.) When someone points out that it’s raining, Bridget or someone with a different name for legal reasons, bursts into song about how the rain is only rain when the sun don’t shine and the sun don’t always shine but when it does, you can’t rely on it so coal is the only way to show your love.

A chorus of something like:

“Give me a lump of coal,

Black beautiful coal,

Shining, gleaming,

Burning, glowing flowing

Coal”

Which is nothing like the lyrics from the musical “Hair” so don’t even think about copyright. At this point, the minister starts handing out lumps of coal and telling people to take it back and use it to build civilisation again once the floods go down.

Scene two: After getting no satisfaction from the minister who – for legal reasons – isn’t the one I mentioned before but someone else entirely, they decide to follow the yellow brick Hume Highway to see the Prime Marketer of Oz,

On their way, they run into various people such as Roaring Barnaby, Cocky Cash and Proud Aussie Matt Canavan (That’s his name on Twitter in case you think I’m just being ridiculous..._),but none of these can put them off and so they continue all the way to Canberra.

Final scene: After several adventures they come face to face with a man hiding behind an enormous screen which he calls “Jen”. Calling him out as a fraud, and moving “Jen” to one side, they demand that he take money from the Emergency Relief Fund but he refuses explaining that this is for future disasters and the one they’re describing is in the present. When it’s pointed out that all disasters in the future will be in the present when they happen, the PM says:

“Exactly. That’s the sheer beauty of the Emergency Relief Fund. It’ll just keep accumulating money and the only costs will be to pay ex-Liberals to manage the fund and ensure that nobody ever accesses it. This just shows our superior skill at managing money. We can manage it all the way from the taxpayer into the pockets of our friends without any trouble at all.”

This builds to a moment when the PM produces a ukulele and is about to sing but before he can strum anything, he is hit by the lump of coal from the first scene, leading to the line from Proud Aussie Matt Canavan, “See I told you that coal was good!” and everyone laughs before a rousing chorus of “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead” is stopped when someone complains and the whole company walks offstage complaining that political correctness is destroying good theatre.

I’d think about starting a “GoFundMe” page to put this on at some theatre but Peter Dutton has already beaten me to the GoFundMe thing…

P.S. It’s been pointed out that Canberra isn’t on the Hume Highway, so there’s no way that the acventurers would get there unless they take a wrong turn, but isn’t that the way most people get to Canberra?

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