The Witches in a new musical are just itching to fly, writes Alison Barclay

OOH, ooh, witchy woman, see how high they fly. Marina Prior, Angela Toohey and Pippa Grandison may seem firmly grounded now, but come the Australian premiere of The Witches of Eastwick, concrete stilettos won't keep them down.

"This fantastic cast will literally fly to new heights." says producer Cameron Mackintosh.

Based on the John Updike novel and inspired by the 1987 film, Witches is a musical of martinis, socery and the strange powers of the feminine pysche - hence the airborne pleasures awaiting this trio of stars.

It doesn't open until August, but Toohey's knuckles are already white with excitement.

"it is on of the reasons why I jumped at this role," says the singer, best known for playing Liza Minelli in The Boy from Oz.

"A friend of mine who saw the show in London said they sing this song, then they fly! I said, 'They get to fly? Unreal! What, just floating around the stage a little bit? and he said, 'No, you go right up to the first balcony - you can touch the people in the balcony'."

It should help alleviate Toohey's sense of herself as a thwarted Peter Pan. "I don't care about anything else. Just the fact that I get to do that, it means so much to me."

Grandison is more realistic, having made TV Commercials in which she was hoiked up in a harness. Prior is quietly keen. "It was a major incentive," she says.

Indeed, Witches will grant Prior her greates wish - to show everyone how funny she is. The tender heroine of Showboat, West Side Story and Phantom of the Opera can't wait to chew into some hectic comedy as Jane, the divorcee who, with her two friends, conjures up her - and their - perfect man.

"The last theatre project I did was Guys and Dolls and that was a chace to break out of the mould, I guess," says Prior, for whom motherhood has been the major gig of late.

"I'm really excited about doing this for the same sorts of reasons. The journey this character goes on is fantastic. She has an extreme change throughout the show, from a meek, rather repressed classical music teacher to a vamp."

The catalyst for the uproar in Eastwick is Darryl Van Horne, played by multi-talenetd comedian Paul McDermott. For him, the three friends are united in lust. The friendship survives the discovery that all three are romping with the same man.

"It's 'How dare you, this is mine!'," says Toohey, who plays straight-talking sculpto Alexandra.

"But they all realise he is only really fulfilling sexual needs. And he is good at it, they don't care.

John Dempsey and Dana P Rowe must have porked up immensely while writing the show, which opened in London in July 2000. "But they all realise he is only really fulfilling sexual needs. And he is good at it, they don't care. "For The Witches of Eastwick , that ritual was a combination of lattes and blueberry muffins, every morning six days a week for two years," the pair say in their production notes.

Herald Sun - 14 may 2002

Some time ago, Paul McDermott set himself two rules for a contented life.

"One was that I would never get up and do breakfast radio - which I did. And the other was that I would never do a musical - which I'm doing."

So what made McDermott, best known for his work with anarcjic trio the Doug Anthony Allstars and the ABC's Good News Week, change his mind and agree to star in the latest blockbuster musical to arrive in Australia, The Witches of Eastwick?

"Because I thought this one was interesting," McDermott said. "It was still forming, still shaping. It's more challenging than doing a musical that's already in place."

The Witches of Eastwick will premiere in Melbourne on August 17, with Marina Prior, Pippa Grandison and Angela Toohey in the title roles.

The $12 million Cameron Mackintosh production, based on the John Updike novel and the 1987 Warner Bros film, had its debut in London's West End and closed in October last year after a 15-month run.

Following its Melbourne season, the musical will tour Brisbane, Adelaide and Sydney.

In pursing McDermott for the role of the devilish Darryl Van Horne, played by Jack Nicholson in the movie, the producers are casting to type.

A review of his recent cabaret show descrived him variously as a man with "smooth moves and a lovely voice", a "lord of darkness" and a "venomous little beast".

So the part of a wicked dream male, conjured up by three bored housewives, who wreaks havoc in a small American town, seems to tap precisely into McDermott's talents.

"It's like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in a way," he joked of his characer.

"Loveable and evil.....and backfiring."

Diehard McDermott fans might find it hard to grasp the idea that the man who once led hundreds of people through the streets of Montreal chanting "F..k the police" is now starring in a show with Prior, the darling of musical theatre.

But the years of comic improvising will not be entirely wasted.

While his co-stars plan to follow the script, McDermott is expecting a bit of "leeway".

"I've been told to have a bit of fun," he said.

"I suppose over the rehearsal period we'll find out how much fun I can actually have.

The Australian - 14 May 2002

The Witches of Eastwick, the 1987 film based on the John Updike novel of the same name, starred a wicked Jack Nicholson alongside Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. The musical comedy version of Witches first opened at London's Royal Theatre in July 2000 and ended up playing almost 600 shows. Its Australian cast may prove just as bewitching. Paul McDermott is an inspired choice for Darryl Van Horne. And starring as the witches will be, Marina Prior, Pippa Grandison and Angela Toohey. The show, presented by Jacobsen Entertainment, opens at the Princess Theatre on August 17.

The Age - 14 May 2002

The Good News Week team is heading to town to revive the spirit of Hollywood's hell raisers.

Rat Pack comedian turned crooner Paul McDermott must hve been predetined for fame - even his birth was front-page news. Paul and his twin sister, Sharon, were the first children born in Adelaide on Mother's Day, 1962, and were printed with their parents on Page 1 of The Advertiser the following day.

Department store John Martin's had offered a giant teddy bear and a layette - valued at 55 pounds ($110) - to the first Mother's Day baby born, but doubled the prize when the winners turned out to be twins. "My mother had a caesarian section one minute past the hour of 12," jokes McDermott, who actually followed his sister into the limelight by one minute at 12:55am on May 13. "I reckon she was ready for about five hours beforehand."

The McDermott family left Adelaide for Canberra when the twins were three but returned each year to spend Christmas and Easter with their extended clan, which included Paul's cousin, former Crows football captain Chris McDermott.

McDermott remained a regular Fringe visitor, first as a member of hit comedy trio Doug Anthony Allstars and later with his own dance/music/comedy creation, Mosh.. Now he is fronting the sellout hit of this month's Adelaide Caberat Festival, The Rat Pack with his former cohorts from television's Good News Week, Mikey Robins and Sandman.

The show evokes the spirit of the legendary shows - and after-hours revelry - performed by Hollywood hell raisers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. It was born out of the audience warm-up sessions before tapings of Good News Week.

"Then when we started doing Good News Week Night Lite with Steve (Abbott, alias Sandman) and the brilliant Mr Paul Livingston (Flacco), it just got to epic proportions," McDermott says. "People were coming along to see shows, but they were essentially coming to see the warm-up and the gabble in between."

The comics mused how it would be great to dispense with GNW and just improvise with the audience.

"The idea was to look at the Vegas years of Sinatra and Co, do a few songs, a bit of banter....and ostensively just get us in really good tuxedos," McDermott says.

"That was an incredible period of American entertainment, where the entertainer became more important than the entertainment."

The show includes a mix of such old standards as Fly Me to the Moon and The Lady is a Tramp, some original songs and "bastardisations of old forms".

Robins gets the ball rolling by mixing drinks on stage and serving them to the audience. "Mikey's martinis, they're just shocking. If you're anywhere near the front row, bring your own mixer." McDermott warns.

The first Rat Pack show was held in Wollongong last year, followed by Surfers Paradise and Toowoomba. Abbott believes the whole feel of the Rat Pack era is back in vogue with the resurgence of cabaret clubs, late-night cocktail bars and the essence of being cool.

"I think there is a kind of lounge aesthetic, for sure," Abbott says.

"We saw video footage of Dean Martin and all those guys doing their stuff and they looked to be having such a great time, pushing the boundaries of indulgence."

McDermott is set to return to Adelaide next year in the musical adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick, In "the Jack Nicholson role" of Darryl Van Horne, opposite Marina Prior, Pippa Grandison and Angela Toohey. He is also writing and illustrating a second children's book, The Girl who Swallowed Bees, following the success of his first, The Scree, which is also being made into a short film.

Robins is working full-time on Sydney's Triple M radio. Abbott, meanwhile, is preparing to go with his mother and his second cousin to Siberia, where his grandmother was born, to film a documentary. It will form part of an occassional series on SBS in which comedians revisit their ancestral homeland.

McDermott says, fringe, comedy and caberat festivals double as opportunities for performers to join forces and raise merry hell.

"I'd finish at midnight then go down to the bar and catch up with all my mates, people that I hadn't seen for five years, who were on the circuit in Britain when we were there with the All Satrs." he says.

The Rat Pack performs two shows at the Festival Theatre next Saturday 8 June at 7pm (sold out) and 9.30pm. Adelaide Advertiser 1 June 2002

Perhaps Australia's modern-day answer to Frank, Sammy and Dino, Paul, Mikey and Sandy got up on stage and did what they do best: make us laugh. A lot. Actually a whole lot.

But following the show's name and program write-up - and judging by the cross-section of society represented in the audience - there may have been a few disappointing oldies leaving the theatre. This Rat Pack's similarities to the original stopped at the on-stage bar and McDermott's rendition of Fly Me To The Moon. But that's not a bad thing; this show was hilarous.

When you see this team live, you see a whole other side to their routing, a side which can't be shown on television.

From Mikey's "musical bit" to Sandman's costume changes to Paul's, well, to Paul, the Rat Pack was fantastic. Some of the best moments came from the impromptu and the unrehearsed - ask those present about Japanese anal flower arranging. But the best was saved for last when the "Session musicians", led by Cameron Bruce, returned for a scorching I Am Woman, followed by the Rat Pack's musical tribute to Osama bin Laden which had to be seen to be believed.

Lauren McMenemy - Adelaide Advertiser Page 86 Monday, 10 June 2002

For this years comedy festival Paul McDermott is doing full seasons of two shows- Comedyoscopy and GUD. The title of his solo show examining the art of comedy- Comedyoscopy- is self explanatory, but what does Gud mean? "It's what Americans say when they're at awards ceremonies. When they thank someone they thank Gud," Mcdermott explains, "so i thought there should be a group around that took all the fucking praise."

GUD's full title is Gud - Hard Core Cabaret, which McDermott says is something of a misnomer. "It's not really cabaret at all," he admits, "I just like using that word because it's such a horrible fucking word. Every time people see it their skins crawl," he notes, adding that it conjures the image of "that sort of stereotypical, leotard wearing, speckly hat, fucking shitty cabaret."

Gud features musicians Mick Moriarty (The Gadfly's) and Cameron Bruce (Club Luna Band). "They've both got great musical experience and they're good men to perform with and i suppose we're developing the show as we go. It's a very big show, I suppose, just because of the musical aspect of it, it's great harmonies and that sort of rubish." McDermott says audiences can expect the show to be reminiscent of his earlier work with the Doug Anthony Allstars. "(This) one is, I suppose, more of an Allsars sort of thing with three people on stage singing and it will probably be slightly more grotesque. Well it's a lot more grotesque than Comedyoscopy. It's a bit nasty, we're getting down and dirty."

However McDermott has no intention of being sweetness and light in Comedyoscopy. Far from it. His intention with this show is to "tear away the gauze that's been put in front of their eyes so they won't find anything funny anymore and that way i can get on with my life," he laughs, "and do something fucking practical," he hisses. "Have a family," he sniffs, through mock emotion. "Not be dragged to these bloody shows all over the world," he whimpers. So in revealing the tricks of the trade and deconstructing the art of comedy, you're trying to wreck it for everybody? "Yeah, i want to wreck it for everybody, then we can all go and do something decent for society," he's laughing as he speaks, "rather than waste our nights in hour long shows and then go drinking ourselves into oblivion and misery, with bars crowded with mates we haven't seen for a year who all feel the same. It's just like rats on a treadmill and i just want to tear it apart! Put nothing in it's place, I just want a void, a hollow where comedy used to be," he declares.

Does this mean after seeing your show we won't need or want to see any others? "No! i think you'll want to go and see every other show after this one because you'll be so depressed," he chuckles micheviously, 'is that what it's about? oh my god!.' And also you'll want to test your new found knowledge about the structure of a gag and also the heckle lines I intend to give people..." are you ging to be evil are you? "But I am. What do you mean 'going to be'? I am evil! Ask anyone I've ever been out with," he pauses, "selfish, as well, apparently". Are you happy to be described as the selfish and evil Paul McDermott? Down the phone line it sounds like he could be rocking back and forward as he whispers, mantra like, "I'm a bad man, a bad man.

Joanne Brookfield. Beat Magazine 3rd April 2002 (typed by Sarah)

Class, be seated. This evening's lesson is Comedyoscopy. For the next 50 minutes, comedy is the subject, not the object, instructs our viper-tongued comedic sensei, Paul McDermott.

What makes us laugh? In this deconstruction of the laff, we are taken through some of the basics: parody, deadpan, satire, puns, improvisation and - every schoolyard favourite - anal humour. And what's funny and what's, well, laughable? Don't laugh at nothing, urges McDermott. Be discerning. No, not that discerning, he asks a little later.

How do we laugh? You'd never have guessed there are so many ways. McDermott takes us through some of the common techniques, inviting us to try one or two as a group. Some of them, we realise belatedly, we'd rather not be heard doing in public ever again. The Snort; the Jeanette Howard; the Mr Pervy (aka, the Anglican archbishop). Euuuuww.

Towards the end, the lessons are momentarily forgotten as McDermott meanders off into a dissertation about sex. But in truth, we're probably laughing at his familiar devilish-imp ways more than the show's content anyway. He's such a natural performer, he could probably discuss his kitchen sink for an hour and make it just as entertaining.

And Comedyoscopy is definitely that; not side-splitting, but entertaining. But as a final lesson to any of you contemplating taking Comedyoscopy, a word of advice: Mr McDermott is none too pleased by latecomers. Please be punctual, lest you wind up under the microscope in his pitiless Petri dish.

The Age - 8 April 2002

John Mangan 18/06/2002 The Age

London impresario Cameron Mackintosh is on a mission - he wants to turn a new and younger audience on to musicals. John Mangan reports.

Let's get one thing clear: any rumours you may have heard that squillionaire London impresario Cameron Mackintosh gets sickeningly nervous before the opening of a new show are ``a load of old hooey".

In fact, tonight, the night of the Sydney opening of Oliver!, he's had a great time, taking in the detail of the individual performances and the audience's response. And he's particularly excited about one of the differences between the Australian production and its London predecessor - that the stage has been extended around the orchestra into the audience.

``We've had to do that to make the show work at the Regent (in Melbourne)," he says. ``I do feel now very confident that this show will reach the parts of the theatre that other shows don't!" he laughs. ``You could hear the cheers in the circle and upstairs and often they were cheering before the stalls were, you knew the cheering was going all the way up - it was an amazing dynamic!"

Mackintosh's life in musicals goes back decades - he's been involved with Oliver! since it first opened in London in the 1960s, and brims with anecdotes about the show's writer Lionel Bart and early cast members such as Barry Humphries.

Since then Mackintosh has made his name producing a string of monster musicals from Cats to Les Miserables to The Phantom of the Opera. He's done alright - among other things he owns half-a-dozen theatres in London's West End.

Success doesn't seem to have dulled his enthusiasm for the stage, though. He's out here for a week or so to oversee the opening of Oliver!, a co-production with IMG that will come to Melbourne in October, and to keep a judicious eye on The Witches of Eastwick, which he and Kevin Jacobsen are launching in Melbourne at the Princess Theatre in August.

Oliver! earned rave reviews in Sydney, but Witches is the better example of Mackintosh's current musical philosophy. After the spectacular success of The Phantom and Cats, Mackintosh sees the future of musicals in revivals and adaptations. The other crucial element to his vision is roping in a new, younger audience that didn't regard The Phantom or Cats as up their alley.

Mackintosh himself is 55 - at the recent opening night party he is effervescent, and the morning after over a quiet coffee in his harbourside hotel he is still fizzing away. Earlier in the week he crashed into a plate glass door. Apart from cancelling a few interviews in Melbourne he has powered through regardless.

One of his enthusiasms this morning is Paul McDermott, who will star in Witches and is the key to turning a new generation on to musicals.

``His character, Darryl Van Horne, is a sort of demonic Pied Piper," Mackintosh says. ``It's one of those castings that when you see the person you can't imagine anyone else doing it." McDermott's razor-sharp, snide sense of humour is well-known from his days with the Doug Anthony All Stars and fronting Good News Week, both gigs involving the occasional bursting into song, but musicals - well they're a whole new thing. ``After we auditioned Paul, I wanted to see how he would interact with the ladies," Mackintosh says.

``He hadn't seen the show, he'd only heard it. So I said, `You're going to be standing on stage, these women have got fantastic material, some of the best voices in show business, and you're going to stand there, and you're going to play second banana - but what you do, which isn't about singing, is going to make the scene'.

``Of course, he was absolutely brilliant, because he realised he could do a wonderful Marcel Marceau routine, which in no way upstages them but actually tells the story - it was wonderful to watch!"

McDermott's casting, alongside Marina Prior, Pippa Grandison (Muriel's Wedding) and Geraldine Turner, aims to indicate this is not your typical musical.

``I'm thrilled with our cast and basically I'm encouraging everybody to be off the wall, because it's a different kind of show. Australia, never mind Melbourne, has not had this kind of new musical before. It's one of my productions so I trust they'll know it will be done very well, and it's a wonderful, stylish production by Bob Crowley, who is one of the world's great designers.

``There's no point trying to sell it like The Sound of Music. To be honest, I hope the Sound of Music audience comes along and has a riotous time, but I want other people who've never been to the theatre, or don't think it's cool to go to a musical, to say `This sounds like something I might like'."

Changing Australians' musical theatre diet is just one of the things on Mackintosh's plate right now. Witches is opening in Moscow in November and the British minister for culture has been encouraging taking Les Mis to Shanghai. I've never had one of my musicals done in Russia apart from Cats, which was done as a three-week cultural exchange from Austria; probably three weeks of Cats in Moscow was swapped for 10 tonnes of grain, or something like that!" he laughs. ``The Moscow Arts Theatre are doing Witches with fabulous different designs to us, which are very witty. They've got a choreographer from the Bolshoi, they've got one of the biggest pop stars in Russia playing Darryl Van Horne. I can't wait to go and see it!"

These are exciting times, Mackintosh concludes, and the future looks particularly bright for musical theatre. ``There are shows in London bringing in a completely new audience," he says. ``It's nonsense to say that people won't go into the West End because it's establishment. They'll go anywhere they want if they think it's something for them."

The Witches of Eastwick opens at the Princess Theatre on August 7. Oliver! opens on October 31.

Musicals, it seems are back in vogue.

The latest is The Witches of Eastwick, which features tricky little devil Paul McDermott as horny little devil Darryl Van Horne.

"He has all the best songs and he has all the fun and gets three great Aussie girls (Angela Toohey, Marina Prior, Pippa Grandison)," McDermott said at the launch this week. Jack Nicholoson eat your heart out.

Moneyman Kevin Jacobsen said: "Wait 'til you see those girls fly out - right over the audience's heads, then around the theatre. Peter Pan, eat your heart out"

Herald Sun 6 July 2002 page 115

The charismatic and oft-devilish Paul McDermott is perfectly cast as the charismatic devil himself in the musical The Witches of Eastwick, beginning on August 23 at the Princess Theatre.

Even Paul believes he's typecast as the charming Darryl Van Horne, who bewitches three women in a conservative town.

"The point has been made that I have the voice of an angel but the mind of the devil, so I seem to be tailor-made for this role."

Has he dabbled in witchcraft himself? "I've witnessed exorcisms; I was once thought to be the manifestation of a monkey by a Christian group; I watched a girl once who spoke in voices."

One gets the distinct feeling he's better at pulling your leg than casting a spell.

What he loves about the role is "you can go completely over the top with it".

As for his devilish past, Paul admits he was the kind of kid who had "an insidious, creeping evil...I didn't get into trouble, because no one could ever catch me. And I always managed to put the blame on someone else. I could talk myself out of a lot of pain."

And though he's confident Darryl is a skillful talker, he's not about to let his character loose offstage.

"I don't know if I'd want to impose Darryl's evil persona in public. That would be worng. That would be using my powers for bad, instead of for good." Herald Sun 6 July 2002 page 116 (picture on scanned2 page)