Musical Theatre / The Grandparents Club. At The Playhouse, season closed. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Written by Wendy Harmer with a specific audience in mind, this delightful all-Australian musical revue is an entertaining celebration of the world of grandparenthood.

It incorporates just about every grandparent joke in the stand-up joke book, but refreshingly without needing to resort to coarse language or smut.

Led by the irrepressible Wayne Scott-Kermond as Jimmy Bigelow, the jovial President of The Grandparents Club, whose performance alone is worth the price of admission, with Lynne McGranger and Andrew James as regular club attendees, Liz and Jeff, and Meredith O’Rielly as Maria, an Italian nonna who’s also an eligible widow. The show features 17 catchy original songs by John Fields of The Wiggles fame.

Essentially a series of set-pieces strung together by a slim storyline, the show follows four friends on a night out in their favourite club who comment on the trials and rewards of grandparenthood through songs, jokes, comedy and dance routines cleverly staged by director Luke Josling and choreographer Leanne Halloran, and skilfully performed by this quartet of senior actors who know exactly how to perform them so that they feel fresh, relevant and right on target.

Mo Award Musical Theatre Performer of the Year recipient, Wayne Scott Kermond is a master of vaudevillian shtick. Fresh from playing Doc in this year’s acclaimed production of West Side Story on Sydney Harbour, with long experience starring in a succession of major musicals. Among these are Barnum, Oliver, Guys & Dolls, The Producers, A Chorus Line, Chicago, Singin’ In The Rain and Wicked. Kermond pulls out every trick of the trade as the all-singing and dancing Jimmy Bigelow, a dab hand at conducting sit-down yoga and hilarious Zumba classes.

Probably better known as the irascible Irene Roberts in the long-running television serial Home & Away, Lynne McGranger had written, choreographed and performed in numerous productions, from comedy and drama to cabaret and musicals. 

She brings all these skills to the fore as the bragging granny who wants to live life to the full, providing a memorable highlight, singing up a storm with I’m Too Young To Be A Grandma flanked by Kermond and James, hilarious as her ageing chorus boys. 

Nominated for Helpmann and Green Room Awards for her roles in a string of major musicals, including Les Miserables, Love Never Dies, Hello Dolly, Gypsy, and the Julie Andrews directed My Fair Lady, Meredith O’Rielly, as the Italian nonna, gets to sing the best song in the show, the poignant Child of My Child.

Andrew James has performed numerous roles for Bell Shakespeare, Sydney Theatre Company, Nimrod Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company. In this show he plays Liz’s good natured, long-suffering husband, and Bigelow’s best friend and accomplice, Jeff, delighting particularly when nonchalantly flaunting his song-and-dance skills in numbers such as There’s No App For That. 

Performed on an attractive setting representing the foyer of any favourite community club, by a quartet of accomplished performers, The Grandparents Club was right on target providing quality entertainment for its target audience.