There’s been a fair bit of buzz surrounding you lately, celebrating the fact you’re an original Australian musical, with music by Mathew Frank, lyrics by Dean Bryant, and book by Bryant and Sheridan Harbridge. And yes, it’s a rare and remarkable feat that you’ve survived two red-hot seasons at Melbourne Theatre Company before embarking on this year’s successful Australian tour. All with your Australian accent delightfully in-tact.
We have to say though, seeing Kala Gare in full period costume on your poster has triggered flashbacks to the 1901 Miles Franklin novel of the same name we studied in school, and hazy visions of the 1979 VHS, featuring a frizzy-haired Judy Davis and Sam Neill in monochrome. Amidst a cost-of-living crises, is yours a story that the average Australian still cares about? Or is it possible we just want to be entertained by a good show, to heck with national pride?
If the answer is the latter, as we suspect it is, we’re happy to report that – actually – Australian or not you’re really a very good show. And we don’t need to read other reviews to know it isn’t just us – we can literally hear the audience turning to each other and whispering, in various sweeping, collective moments of realisation, ‘This is good’.
Though while we’re at it, you are very Australian. Not ‘Phar Lap the Musical’ – kind of Australian, or even ‘Raygun the Musical’ Australian. Just a non-glorified, Henry Lawson, ‘smoke and drought’ and ‘sunburnt country’ kind of Australian – both devastating and beautiful. You’ve adorned your stage with a massive shag-pile rug to represent a dried grass paddock, for crying out loud.
Just as in the classic novel and the movie, you tell the story of Sybylla Melvin, a headstrong young woman desperate to become a writer, in a world where ‘the only respectable career for a woman is as a wife and mother’.
But just when we’ve settled into the notion that you’re a musical about the trials of women in the late 1890s colonialism period, and generational angst in the outback, you evolve into so much more – as only a musical with a run time of two and half hours has the luxury of doing. In fact, there aren’t many shows that pace themselves as well as you do. Sure, you do so much scene-setting we can feel the hot, dry dust in the air. But by the time you amp it up, the surprise hits us head first.
Firstly, it’s because you’re funny. Really, genuinely funny. Your humour is minimal in action but big in audience reaction. Secondly, it’s because your music – which fits so seamlessly into the story rather than interrupting it – is on the one hand hauntingly beautiful, and on the other rock-pop catchy. And we want to hear it all again.
It helps that your company of singers/actors/dancers/musicians, who all play a variety of instruments onstage throughout, are phenomenal. Gare in the role of Sybylla is a force. She’s built a likeable three-dimensional character here, instead of just a spirited cliché. Her big number ‘In the Wrong Key’ hits a part of our soul that hasn’t been touched since Noah Mullins implored us to wait for him in Hadestown last year.
And her chemistry with Harry (Raj Labade) is glorious. These two have the entire audience sliding our beating hearts out onto our sleeves. Special mentions must also be given to Cameron Bajraktarevic-Hayward, who has us in stitches as flirty cousin Frank, Lincoln Elliott as horror-child Jimmy, Melanie Bird as Gertie (who also smashes her understudy turn as Sybylla), and Christina O’Neill as Mother/Helen.
Yes My Brilliant Career, you’re stirring, rebellious, and fierce. We love that you’ve got a strong, feminist, female lead. Other reviews have mentioned this sentiment first, but we’ve left it to last because we think it’s the final key ingredient that makes you damn near the perfect musical.
You see, any musical can feature a feisty female lead or two (or Six), but not every musical can balance that with exactly the right amount of humour, emotion, pace, intrigue, inspiration, romance, and of course, great original music. Nicely played.
With love,
My Brilliant Career is showing at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until 3 May 2026. Photos by Pia Johnson.