Cirrus@Austlit

Reg Livermore's official website comprises sections such as: 'Reg Shows,' 'Musicals,' 'Sights and Sounds,' 'About Reg,' and 'Reg Stuff.'

'Reg Livermore has received three lifetime achievement awards in the last three years – he hopes they aren’t trying to tell him something. Now on the eve of his eightieth birthday, one of Australia’s most acclaimed stage actors looks back on some of the relationships, triumphs and tragedies that have defined both the person and performer he has become.

'Reg revolutionised the Australian theatre industry in a pair of high-heels in the original Rocky Horror Show production; he’s sung with Julie Andrews, watched the curtain call from backstage at the Covent Garden opera, and starred in Wicked and The Producers. But he’s lived a full and fascinating life bigger than any stage. He grew up in conservative 1950s Sydney, when boys who danced or acted were 'not like other boys'. He's had a restaurant – and relationship – with a volatile French chef in rural New South Wales, experienced an epiphany on an Italian mountainside, and felt the unrivalled heartbreak of watching a parent decline. 

'You’re forgiven if the name of actor, comedian and raconteur Arthur Kwick doesn’t exactly ring any bells. Despite an unexpectedly notable performance at the Tivoli Theatre in 1969, his career ever since has seen him take any role that has come his way…

'…even if that’s meant hosting off-the-wall stag nights or working as an all-weather clown at children’s parties. Now he has another job, a job that’ll test his mettle, question his core beliefs and could well be the most challenging of his life.'

Source: Emsemble Theatre 2018 season.

'The plot involves the pantomime star Marjory Joy ... who is on her last legs (or is she?)

'As she remembers a romantic and exciting life spent in show business (or was it?) her son Alistair ... struggles to understand the woman, all women - and the one in particular he must come to terms with. Turns is well worth your attention, a broad reflection on matters of identity, family and dependency, show business, and completely losing your marbles!

'You'll be intrigued by its elements of mystery, entertained by some outrageous fun and games, the slapstick echoes of the keystone kops, 1940's film noir gets a nod, and the overtones of music-hall, burlesque, vaudeville, above all traditional pantomime. This kaleidoscopic rainbow of theatrical styles makes for an evening in the theatre we believe is widely appealing, one we hope is ultimately quite moving.'

Source: Turns website, http://turnstheshow.com.au/
Sighted: 24/02/2011

Revue.

The last of Reg Livermore's Livermore's large-scale one-man shows, Firing Squad explores the confusion of values, the lack of ideals, the pessimism, and the fear of Australians of the early 1980s, a time when the country was deep in recession. As he notes in his website, the show was an attempt to 'reflect the nature of those difficult times, but I think the audience found it too much like the real thing.'

Rock opera.

Based on the life of Ned Kelly, combining rock opera, vaudeville, and burlesque. A concept album was released in 1974, prior to the production of the rock opera itself, featuring Jon English, Trevor White, John Paul Young, Reg Livermore, and Janice Slater.

A film record of Reg Livermore's successful one-man stage show, featuring characters and sketches centred around Betty Blokk Buster, a bare-bummed German maid who entertains troops during the war. Livemore's other characters include Vaseline Amylnitrite, a football star who joins the Australia Ballet, and an old man who recalls his youth as a trendy male model.

The film, which is almost an hour shorter than the live show includes the following sketches:

Act One:

• Before The Show
• Tiller Girls - Meet Betty Blokk Buster
• Family Of Man
• Money
• Voice Of Experience
• Hello In There
• Captain Jack
• Heavy Breather
• Matrimony
• Is That All There Is
• Ricotta, The Fabulous
• What Makes A Man A Man?
• Long Tall Glasses
• S.O.L.O.

Act Two:

• Tara, The Incredible
• Walk On The Wild Side
• Ticking
• Vaseline Amalnitrate
• Celluloid Heroes / Silverbird
• The Show Must Go On
• Applause and Final Bows
• Train

Most of the songs are cover versions, and include those by Billy Joel, Leo Sayer, Elton Jon and Bernie Taupin, Lou Reed, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and Ray Davies.

Eric Dare, owner of the Balmain Bijou Cinema, offered Reg Livermore the opportunity of mounting his own show following his success as Dr Frank 'N' Furter in The Rocky Horror Show. Three months later the cinema was converted into a live venue and on went the Betty Blokk Buster Follies. 'It was the ultimate freedom,' say Livermore in an interview with Karl Levett. 'I was given open slather by Eric - it was like flying blind. Betty's success wasn't immediate… some newspapers even refused to review it saying that they didn't cover 'that sort of show.' It took about four months before it was really bringing in money… It was only that Eric had faith and believed that there was an audience out there, that the show survived. We did eight months followed by a seven months' tour' (p.19).

The characters include the bare bottomed Betty Blokk Buster, a German parlour maid who entertained troops during the war; an old man who recalls his youth as a male model; and Vaseline Amalnitrate, a football star who joins the Australian ballet (complete with footy socks and tutu).

Songs performed in the show included: two original compositions by Reg Livermore, 'Voice Of Experience' and 'Festival of Light,' several Billy Joel numbers, including 'Captain Jack' and 'The Entertainer, Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side,' Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Matrimony' and at least six Leo Sayer songs, notably 'Long Tall Glasses,' 'Train' and 'The Show Must Go On.'

Responding to a question by Mary Dagmar Davies as to why there so little original music is incorporated into his shows, Livermore says: 'I suppose the ultimate is a show with original compositions. But I respond to the music I hear and if the feeling in a song is right there is no point in me writing a song that is going to say the same thing. My response to music is a part of the context of the show and the show is about my response to events and feelings' (p.33).

Musical

Lasseter follows the spiritual journey of a disillusioned group of young people who leave the city and temptations of consumer society in search of a Utopia in the Australian desert. The title of the musical was inspired by the explorer Harold Bell Lasseter.

This second attempt by Livermore to write a musical saw him spoof the western genre. The programme noted that this production was 'a child’s game of cowboys for adults,' and was described by G. C. Power in the Canberra Times as 'Australia’s reply to Oklahoma, High Noon and Little Red Riding Hood' (p.19). Set in the fictional Australian frontier town of Witchety Grub the usual stock of Western characters act with quite un-Western-like behaviour.

Three young Australian girls who have decided to head to London in order to gain 'secretarial experience' stowaway aboard the good ship Walter Raleigh. There is a mutiny aboard, and into the plot comes Josephine, the Commander's daughter, who has herself been hidden from the rough but amiable crew, as well as a ruthless, though at heart sentimental, Lady Buccaneer.