Author: joycemorganauthor

Joyce Morgan is the author of three biographies, two about cultural figures and one, an object biography, about the world's oldest printed book.

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Theatre Review

The Book of Mormon

Photo: Daniel Boud

Capitol Theatre, July 24
Until December 31

Assume the missionary position – it’s the Mormons’ second coming.
Holey-moley, the return of this all-singing, all-dancing musical about naive young Mormon missionaries attempting to save souls in Africa is puerile and potty-mouthed, offensive, witty and satirical. And yet it’s surprisingly joyful.

It is easy to make fun of this conservative all-American religion, replete with golden plates and sacred underwear. But the tone of the musical is more affectionate than sneering.

Created by South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Avenue Q’s Robert Lopez, this is a slightly tweaked version of the production that debuted in the US in 2011 and in Australia in 2017.

The musical, which faced criticism that its depiction of Africans was racist, was revised after calls from black cast members following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. The changes were designed to give more agency to the Ugandan characters.

From its cracking opening number, Hello!, the show sets a high musical and choreographic bar as the ensemble of fresh-faced missionaries – all crisp white shirts and matching teeth – sing, dance and doorknock their way around the stage.

Among them are narcissistic Elder Price, who dreams of a mission to Orlando, and gormless sidekick Elder Cunningham, who simply wants to fit in. The pair is swiftly dispatched to Uganda.

There, amid an AIDS epidemic, gun-toting warlords and genital mutilation, they quickly realise they’re not in Salt Lake City any more, Toto.

This is essentially a fish-out-of-water tale, but one replete with a blond Jesus, a General Butt F—ing Naked and an overworked gag about maggots in the scrotum.

The production is musically strong, and the choreography by Casey Nicholaw (who also co-directs with Parker) is tight and extremely funny.
Highlights include Man Up; Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, Joseph Smith American Moses – as the Ugandans perform their version of the Mormon story – and the stirring I Am Africa.

This revival is finely cast, including in the two leads. Nick Cox as Elder Cunningham has a Rowan Atkinson-like awkwardness and superb comic timing as he converts the villagers with his wildly idiosyncratic version of his faith. Sean Johnston as cocksure Elder Price gets the smugness knocked out of him.

Paris Leveque made a strong professional debut as villager Nabulungi, whose character is stronger after the rewrite. Leveque demonstrated a mix of vocal sweetness and strength, as well as the fury to dispatch the warlord.
Tom Struik was hilarious as the closeted Elder McKinley, especially in the song of sexual repression Turn It Off.

Augie Tchantcho brought blustery menace to the gun-toting warlord who terrorises the village.

The Book of Mormon is the third big-budget musical to return to Sydney in as many months. It is certainly the funniest, even if, inevitably, it doesn’t have the shock value of first time around.

It pays homage to the Broadway musical, with nods to such works as The Sound of Music and The King and I among others. It does so with hand on heart and tongue in cheek.

This review first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Theatre Review

Cats: The Musical

Cats is a series of party pieces. Credit: Daniel Boud

Theatre Royal, June 20, 2025

Until September 6, 2025

This show has had more lives than the proverbial cat. Since first pouncing onto the stage in 1981, it has become one of the longest running musicals on the West End and Broadway.

Performed around the world since, it’s barely taken a catnap. Now those cats with the amber eyes are back in Sydney for the start of a national tour, 40 years after the musical was first staged here.

There’s been little attempt to update this production by the show’s originators – composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, director Trevor Nunn, choreographer Gillian Lynne and designer John Napier.

The musical is based on TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a collection of light-hearted verses the poet wrote for his godchildren.

The show is strong on movement and physicality, from the moment the junkyard cats emerge from the moonlit shadows.

But the plot is thinner than a starving stray. A cat tribe assembles once a year to celebrate and decide who will journey to Heaviside Layer, a kind of moggy heaven.

With minimal plot, character development or conflict, the show is a series of party pieces in which various cat characters get a chance to shine.

Some shine brightly. Todd McKenney was terrific as fatcat Bustopher Jones in a costume redolent of Aunty Jack.

McKenney’s dual role as Gus, the ageing performing cat, provided one of the night’s rare affecting interludes as he recalled his glory days in a moving duet with Lucy Maunder (Jellylorum). This lifted the second act opening after a first act that became bogged down with the overlong Jellicle Ball dance section.

A sexy Rum Tum Tugger (Des Flanagan) rose to his rock star moment. Mark Vincent as Old Deuteronomy brought sonorous gravitas to the role of the tribal elder – no mean feat given he looked like a Womble.

Gabriyel Thomas was a strong presence in the key role of Grizabella, the former glamour puss, now more grizzled than bella, who has been rejected by the tribe. With her rich, powerful voice, Thomas invests with pathos the showstopper Memories.

Jemima (Ella Fitzpatrick) delivered a couple of teasers of the show’s best-known song earlier in the piece, but a lack of vocal strength and brittle tone did not serve well the sweeping melody.

The energetic ensemble worked hard as they danced and pranced on and occasionally off the stage and into the auditorium. Yet much of the choreography and movement feels dated.

Whether it was sound balance or delivery, the lyrics to the ensemble vocal numbers were difficult to determine.

The off-stage orchestra, under musical director Paul White, was well paced and versatile in numbers that ranged across jazz, blues and pop to anthemic and operatic.

Cats was ground-breaking when it premiered, an immersive spectacle that helped usher in an era of mega-musicals.

Since then, the big-budget musicals it helped spawn have become increasingly sophisticated.

There may be nostalgic appeal in revisiting a work that feels rooted in an ’80s era and aesthetic. So thanks for the Memories. But today these frolicking felines feel whiskery.

This review first appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Martin Sharp

Martin Sharp, with a little help from his friends

Yellow House photo

Martin Sharp posed with a group of friends for a newspaper photo on the eve of a landmark Yellow House exhibition opening in Sydney on April Fool’s Day 1971.

At the time, those gathered around him were described only as Sharp’s friends. When I used the image in my biography, I could identify only the extraordinary David Litvinoff, muscle-bound and bare-chested, standing on the ladder above Martin.

Now Martin’s cousin Andrew Sharp, a Yellow House habitué, has filled in most of the blanks. Pictured from left are: Colette St John, Martin Sharp, David Litvinoff, Dick Weight & Victoria Cobden. The young woman on the right remains a mystery.

The Australian’s article related how the Yellow House, in Macleay Street, had been inspired by Van Gogh’s failed attempt to establish a community of artists in the south of France.

‘It didn’t work, but it might now,’ Martin said. 

The photo was taken ahead of the opening of The Incredible Shrinking Exhibition in which Martin shrank a collection of his collages and other works to a fraction of their original size.

Martin met David Litvinoff in London. He was a raconteur and an East End rogue who moved between London’s art, pop and criminal worlds. Keith Richards described Litvinoff as: ‘On the borders of art and villainy.’ Litvinoff fuelled the myth that he was the inspiration for The Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash.

Colette St John’s lawyer father, Edward St John, appeared in the Sydney Oz magazine obscenity appeal in the mid-sixties in which Martin and others had their jail sentences overturned.

Dick Weight was among the artists who transformed the rooms of the Yellow House into enchanting spaces. His brother Greg Weight photographed the interiors.

Victoria Cobden appeared in the original Sydney production of the musical Hair, directed by Jim Sharman.

The opening kicked off with a tap dance by Little Nell – who later shot to screen stardom as Columbia in The Rocky Horror Show.

After 40 years, it’s good to remember some of the friends who made the extraordinary exhibition happen.

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Elizabeth von Arnim

Hello, book clubs

Elizabeth von Arnim crossed paths – and sometimes swords – with the leading artists, writers and thinkers of her era.

E.M. Forster tutored her children, and never forgave her for tormenting him as a young man.

She had a tempestuous relationship with writer H.G. Wells, who later wrote a kiss-and-tell account of their affair.

Elizabeth visited Bertrand Russell when he was imprisoned for pacifism during World War I, sometimes with society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell. Elizabeth remained friends with Bertrand Russell long after her disastrous marriage to his brother ended.

Virginia Woolf admired Elizabeth’s writing, some of which she considered as good as Dickens.

Elizabeth became close to her New Zealand-born cousin Katherine Mansfield when they lived in Switzerland in the 1920s. Yet theirs was a prickly friendship.

Elizabeth’s final novel, Mr Skeffington, became a Hollywood movie. Bette Davis was nominated for an Oscar for her role as the aging beauty Fanny Skeffington.

If you would like to hear more about Elizabeth’s remarkable literary life, biographer Joyce Morgan, author of The Countess from Kirribilli, would be happy to speak to your book group.

Contact her here

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Elizabeth von Arnim

Writer’s corner

My work habits have featured in the weekly books newsletter of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Each week we ask an author about their writing rituals. This week: Joyce Morgan, author of The Countess from Kirribilli

If I’m at my desk by the crack of 10am, I’m happy. I have never been an early riser. What I grandly call my study is the spare bedroom, which I share with my bicycle. I follow a similar working day writing non-fiction as I did as a daily journalist. I love a deadline. So, I set myself a word count each day.

I write in silence and edit to music. But only to instrumental or orchestral music, otherwise I’m distracted by the lyrics. I am also inclined to procrastinate.

I’ve written my latest book amid pandemic lockdowns that I’ve barely noticed. Every day feels like a self-isolation day when I’m writing a book. On a good day, I lose track of time. But my Border Collie never does. Lochy pushes his wet nose around my study door on the dot of 5.30pm.