Mike’s “Light On The Hill”

About to open with his brand new show Message to My Girls as part of the Melbourne Cabaret Festival, Mike McLeish talks to Coral Drouyn.

When Mike McLiesh was still in his teens he thought he would be famous by his twenties. When he reached his twenties he would tell himself, “This year I’ll be on the covers of all the magazines.” Mike had a privileged upbringing as a cello playing Melbourne Grammar boy, and along with that went a certain sense of entitlement. “It really never crossed my mind that I needed to do something to earn that. It was just a goal, a destination without any path,” he says. It didn’t happen until 2006, when Keating – The Musical rocketed Mike to stardom playing former Prime Minister Paul Keating.

“I met Casey Benetto at a party one night,” Mike explains, “and we started playing some songs together. We found we laughed at the same things and we played in some bands together. That must have been the late nineties and we were very young. And then, when the 2004 election happened, everything changed. Suddenly there were important things to say. He was playing around with this idea for a musical. I wasn’t really a big musical fan, but we knew this would be something different – more of long musical comedy routine than a full on show. I did like satire, which no-one was really doing at the time. Before I knew it I was contributing lyrics and working with Casey on Keating’s character. But still, we were doing it just for the Comedy Festival in 2005”

Working as “The Drowsy Drivers” with Enio Pozzebon as the third member of the team, the three weren’t thinking any further than the MICF. “I’d been acting and playing in bands for years by then. Even though we thought this was pretty good, it was just another gig at first. Then we started winning all these awards at the festival and it just seemed too good to let go of.” It wasn’t until Neil Armfield came on board in 2006 that the show became 2 acts, with six more songs, and the structure of a proper show. “I think everyone was a bit afraid to actually commit to it being a full-on show. We knew we’d be under more scrutiny and what was fun, though we gave a lot to it, would become hard work and too mainstream. And maybe we were afraid of it just getting away from us.” Mike says. They needn’t have worried – Armfield just polished and made the project reach its full potential. It was a smash hit and Mike got his magazine cover, and stardom ….for a little while.

Mike chuckles, “It’s naïve, in this business, to think you can hang your hat on one peg. Was I swamped with work, with exciting offers? Not on your life. In fact I spent a year working as one of the ensemble cast at Dracula’s Theatre Restaurant. I was so tainted going in, in all honesty maybe a bit full of myself. I thought, how have I come down to this? But I left with absolute respect for those performers, and I learned how to handle an aggro audience; how to adlib; and how to really just be one of the team. It was an exciting learning curve.”

Married (to actress and writer Fiona Harris) and with two young daughters, the couple created a two hander for the 2012 Comedy Festival, after Mike finished working with Eddie Perfect in Shane Warne – The Musical which received excellent reviews. “  love writing,” he says. “I’ve never wanted to be on television, or even films, but I would love to WRITE them, and become a really good writer. But for performing, stage wins every time. I love the immediate response.”

Mike’s new show is called Message to My Girls and the title is self-explanatory. “I have two daughters, and they’re becoming aware of the world around them. I take being a father seriously and so I need to have answers for all their questions; and I need to know how to help them be good people, because the world is getting VERY screwed up.” I suggest that the show sounds very serious, and Mike laughs. “It’s a comedy show, and I want people to laugh. I hope they will because it’s essentially observational comedy about the funny, and sometimes appalling, way that people behave. I’m not going to beat up politicians or name names….. these are things I will have to tell my daughters in ten years or less, so it’s much more global, and so I’ve taken a broader view. I’ve written a heap of new songs too, and they may have a little darkness or edge, but other than that I am having a comic dig at narrow mindedness, greed, selfishness, and I hope it will be fresh and raw, rather than slick and over-rehearsed. I want it to be funny, but I also want to vent about all those things in life that we could fix if we really wanted to. I guess that’s my message to my girls ….and everyone else who sees the show.”

Message to My Girls plays at Chapel off Chapel on Saturday and Sunday this week.

Coral’s review will be available on Sunday.