Keating!

It's super to think that someone has made a musical about a former Prime Minister, especially one who was only around as PM a decade or so ago. Last night I went and saw Keating!, my sister having given me a ticket as a birthday present. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was really super. The whole production looked really simple and there was basically no set, but sneaky use of lighting, and also of band members, made it all seem much more elaborate than it actually was. The songs were great, really funny and wordy and really varying a lot in style, and much mean-spirited fun was made of John Howard (current PM, and the one who defeated Keating at elections in 1996, for those of you too foreign or ill-informed or poor of memory to know), which it is always good to see.

Obviously when the memory of someone is enshrined in musical theatre form, they will come off looking shiny and excellent and fun, but I think to quite an extent Paul Keating actually was shiny (with his fancy suits) and fun (with his fondness for entertainingly mean insults). It's been a drab and largely mean-spirited 11 years since he left, and sadly those 11 years have also coincided with my life as a member of the voting public. Happily there is to be an election later this year, but even if we get rid of Howard, shininess will not be the outcome. Still, it would be better than nothing.