THE ART - Canberra 100

PRIME TIME
BY JOHN SHORTIS AND MOYA SIMPSON—TO BE PERFORMED IN 2013
THE STORY OF THIS ART WORK AND ITS ACQUISITION
Music and singing are loved and
appreciated art forms. Songs express
the widest range of human emotions
and experiences, including the painful,
the hilarious, the lovely and the
critical. Satire has frequently found
a home in song and John Shortis and
Moya Simpson are expert and highly
talented musical performers and
satirists. Shortis writes the songs
and scripts, gaining his inspiration
from newspapers, biographies and
stories accessed through libraries
and archives. Simpson sings, acts and
can mimic a wide range of accents.
Together they write, produce and
perform shows that reflect Australian
history and politics.
In 2008, Shortis gained a fellowship
that entitled him to a residency at
the Prime Ministers’ Centre at the
Museum of Australian Democracy
at Old Parliament House and which
provided financial support of
approximately $16,000. The residency
enabled him to research eight
Australian prime ministers and write
two songs about each-one about the
politics and one about the person.
Shortis then launched into writing
two songs about every prime minister
and received funding from artsACT
to work with a writer, director and
actors to explore the possibility of
developing a show from some of
these songs. Robyn Archer AO, the
Centenary of Canberra creative
director, attended a showing of that
development stage and expressed
an interest in supporting the work
through further creative development
and a possible performance outcome
in 2013. From this came a definite
commission of the work, called
Prime Time, for Canberra’s centenary
celebrations.
Prime Time is a full-length musical
theatre production about Australia
since Federation, told through
the personal and political lives
of Australia’s 27 prime ministers.
It explores the drama and humour
surrounding them and their eras,
telling of a people and a democracy
evolving, adapting and responding
to dramatic events, social and
technological changes, big issues, as
well as the day-to-day tasks involved
in daily living. Prime Time looks at
power, the urge to win, and how
politics plays out its drama. Canberra
is very much at the heart of this story.
Prime Time has been conceived
by John Shortis, and it is funded
primarily by the Centenary of
Canberra. Shortis is joined by Moya
Simpson and two other actor-singers,
and a chorus, (from the Worldly
Goods Choir) that will also provide
vocal backing as well as being used
to form tableaux scenes of crowds,
parliamentarians and other needed
groups. The show is being written/
dramaturged by John Romeril and
directed by Catherine Langman.
The show combines musical cabaret
with theatre and multi-media
elements. Resources from the
National Film and Sound Archive
will add drama to the production.
While the prime ministers and the
populace occupy the foreground of
the show, through the cast and the
choir, the sites where they worked
and the speeches they made will
be projected all around the theatre.
There will be intimate glimpses of the
lives of the prime ministers and the
irony of some situations. An example
is that of our Australia’s first prime
minister, Edmund Barton, a brilliant,
scholarly man, who lived in Sydney
with his family. When in Melbourne,
where parliament met, he was
accommodated in a small, cheap
attic, where he is known to have,
on occasions, cooked a chop over an
open fire for his dinner. Barton was
also pragmatic and humble. No doubt
his English peers would have been
astonished at such circumstances,
let alone politicians of today.
Creating such a show requires much
research, sifting through enormous
amounts of material to find the ‘gem’
that then becomes the focus of the
scene or the song. Sometimes there
are stories attached to the making
of the song itself, as in the case of
George Reid (prime minister for 10
months, eighteen days, 18 August
1904 – 5 July 1905). His Scottish
grandmother was a subject of a poem
of Robert Burns. John Shortis, having
discovered this interesting fact about
Reid’s family, has used the poem in the
song about George Reid.
Writing about the production,
John Shortis says: ‘Australia’s PMs are
a fascinating bunch. We’ve had a Latin
speaker, a Mandarin speaker, one born
on a ship off Chile. There have been
spiritualists, atheists, republicans,
monarchists, graziers and bodgies.
One governed for 16 years, another
for 40 days and 40 nights. Some have
had universities named after them,
others swimming pools and pubs.
While a few of their houses have been
preserved as museums, one of their
houses became a fast food outlet.
Many are Rhodes Scholars, others
self-educated, and they’ve been called
everything from affable to merciless.
They’ve given us an array of eyebrows,
hairdos, pipes and spectacles, and
between them they’ve had the
unenviable task of leading our country
through eleven turbulent decades.’
In advertising the production the
following accurately describes this
show—funny, moving, informative,
entertaining—Prime Ministers at their
best and worst. Don’t miss ‘Prime
Time’ at The Q, Queanbeyan,
May 22 – June 1, 2013.
14 THE ART OF BRINGING THE ARTS TO CANBERRA