Sweet Fanny Adams

Forty years ago Australian composers Peter Pinne and Don Battye created the musical Sweet Fanny Adams, an unashamedly simple tale of two Sydney brothel madams, Fanny Adams and Kitty Lang, filled with lots of toe-tapping songs. Billed as a musical romp through the seedier side of Sydney in the 1930s, the two lead characters are loosely on the infamous underworld Sydney madams Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh (recently profiled in Channel Nine’s Underbelly: Razor).

Director Errol Morrison has cast a mix of experienced and less experienced actors, which he is able to get away with given the style of the piece. But his direction needed to be much tighter. As Fanny Adams, actor Anne Grant stood out as the no nonsense title character Mrs Fanny Adams, who stands up to everyone – the police, the judge and her downtrodden husband. David Frank relished his role as the crooked judge whose character made frequent salacious comments to the audience as the quasi-narrator come Music Hall chairman.

Also worth mentioning were the confused young lovers, sweet little Nellie the pride of the Mallee (the not so innocent and big money earner for the rival brothels) played by Mandi Hardcastle and Charlie the well-meaning cab driver/bagman played by the affable Jacob Shannon. Whilst the cast were mostly actors, not singers, at most times they still managed to give a respectable ‘Rex Harrison’ style vocal delivery.

Full marks to the costume and make-up department who managed to create truly authentic period costumes and hairstyles, which well and truly set the scene and decade, with the set department providing a simple but effective backdrop sketch of the notorious Palmer Street. Movable set pieces created the various scenes through the production, from the two brothels, the police station, the courthouse and back alleyways of old Sydney.

Although firmly rooted in the typical Australian format and style of the 1970s, this show still has great appeal and the time is right for a full scale professional revival – a perfect vehicle for one of the state theatre companies to include in their next season.

Paul Dellit