IN the uncertain and sometimes treacherous world of theatre, comedian Max Gillies has proved himself to be a genuine star, and probably the most versatile actor in this country.

In a recent “shot-in-the-arm” moment when he was at the chemist wearing a mask, even the young shop assistant at the cash register recognised him.

Gillies will be at The Playhouse soon in a covid-era production, “Mono”, featuring him, his old mate John Wood and Noeline Brown, famous for “The Naked Vicar Show”. 

Celebrated for his 1984-85 show, “The Gillies Report” on ABC TV, he became known everywhere for his rubbery-faced portrayals of major Australian figures and – no respecter of either gender or eminence – caricatured everyone from Margaret Thatcher and Germaine Greer to Gough Whitlam, Rupert Murdoch, Mikhail Gorbachev and, an Australian favourite, Bob Hawke.

He is especially beloved of left-wing Canberrans, who rejoiced in his 2001’s “Your Dreaming: The Prime Minister’s Cultural Convention”, staged during the “Children Overboard” affair in the lead-up to the 2001 federal election, when scriptwriter Guy Rundle and director Aubrey Mellor laboured behind the scenes at The Playhouse to update the text as the dismal election results were coming in.

I have never forgotten his avuncular representation of PM John Howard reading from the Methodist joke book but, as Gillies tells me, their efforts at satire backfired as audiences – and the electorate – warmed to Howard. 

“That was also Federation year,” Gillies says. “I remember it well, but audiences’ perceptions of political matters were not what I expected… I remember ringing Don Watson to share this insight.” 

“Your Dreaming” was followed in 2005 by an unofficial sequel, “The Big Con,” where Gillies was joined by Eddie Perfect where, impersonating Amanda Vanstone, Gillies scoffed down a whole KFC meal on stage.

“Mono” is not a play but a series of monologues, three each for three actors, scripted by Angus FitzSimons, in whose show “Senior Moments” Gillies and Wood have also performed. 

FitzSimons describes himself as “producer and dictator”. 

Aimed at people of a certain age, “Mono” is determinedly apolitical, more of a gentle satire in the manner of the famous British revue “Beyond the Fringe” where Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore and their university mates poked fun at human foibles. 

Gillies is pensive as he reflects that the monologue, “a British tradition” he thinks, is well suited to self-isolation.

After two successful national tours of “Senior Moments”, FitzSimons came up with the idea of doing a theatre show for the time of an epidemic, cheap to mount and easy to rehearse online. He even introduced an onstage lectern so that if time was a constraint, something could be thrown together quickly.

The end result was three actors doing three monologues each, but not together.

In fact, when we spoke, Gillies still hadn’t physically met Brown, who replaced Jean Kitson after a 2021 try-out tour.

“Angus [FitzSimons] is a young fogey,” Gillies says. “He knows so much about the productions of an era well before he was born… I remember this kind of thing through BBC radio in ‘Take It From Here’ and Tony Hancock.” 

In the show, Gillies first plays a clergyman delivering a sermon, not unlike Alan Bennett’s brilliant spoof sermon, “My Brother Esau is an hairy man but I am a smooth man”.

His second character is a female conductor conducting an orchestra – we, the audience, are the orchestra.

The third piece is the one he considers most interesting.

“It’s a non-verbal piece, a mime with a previously-recorded voiceover… The character goes to an exhibition of 20th century painting in a gallery and what he is looking at takes him back to a relationship he had with someone who is no longer alive.”

“It’s remarkably poignant, there’s a little bit more in the show than a series of jokes,” Gillies says.

“Mono”, The Playhouse, 2pm and 8pm, February 12. Book at  canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

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