The Chaser Report - Musical Wankers Deserve Representation

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

For the final episode from the first week of Chaser Report LIVE at the Pub comes Gabbi Bolt! Gabbi flexes her musical theatre knowledge by spilling the tea on Andrew Lloyd Webber, and then flexes her musical talent with a touching ode to everyone's least favourite type of musicians. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report live at the pub for Tuesday the 21st of June, and we are back at the Harold Park Hotel tonight, Dom, aren't we? Yes, this isn't the bit from the pub. This is a bit in the studio where we kind of package it up to make it sound like a real podcast. But tonight we will be unleashed once again, and I think Unleashed is not an exaggeration given last Tuesday. There are probably still a few tickets available if you go to chaser.com.com.A.u slash podcast. there is a link to buy tickets and also to subscribe to enjoy the premium ad-free version

with the bonus content, the drunk Q&A. We're really going to do that again after last week's debacle? Of course we are! A very special episode today. Gabby Bolt is going to talk Lloyd Weber, all things Lloyd Webber. So stick around for that. But then after that, she's going to actually sing a song from her show that she did the Adelaide Fringe and the Melbourne Comedy Festival.

And the Sydney Comedy Festival, which sold out and, Didn't she get some sort of award? Yeah, best newcomer. Best newcomer. Yeah, she's awesome. Let's get into it. The Chaser Report, news a few days after it happens. What are we doing next?

Oh, is it, Gabby? Bad time to get the second grade. I mean, I guess. Mine is not a quiz, sadly. Sadly, oh, so sad. That is good news. No, that is very good news. It's not a quiz.

Well, I thought I would discuss everyone. favourite and very well known about general knowledge subject musical theatre don't cheer yet it just gets better it's been a big big week for musical theatres it's been a huge week over the weekend

the Tonys haven't which was you know the Logies of American award shows and yeah loads of real amazing who won who won the Tony who won the Tony's you want me to list off every winner of the Tony to summarise to the one Yeah, best musical.

Oh, I'll never know. All the videos online said, not available in your country. But I'm really happy for that show. Yeah. The level of research on this is pretty deep. Yeah, definitely didn't write it before getting here in the car.

But anyway, it wasn't just the Tonys that were bringing the noise, bringing the fucked. That's a great musical theatre reference to the theatre this weekend. A big scandal also happened in musical theatre over the weekend. Huge. Actually, same night as the Tony's.

I'm not really sure how familiar with the musical theatre world you guys all are, but there's an up-and-com and composer at the moment. I'm really not sure if you guys have heard of him. His name is Andy, Andy, Andrew, Andrew Lloyd Webber. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, he's pretty neat.

Sounds exciting. He's pretty niche. He's written some really indie underground shows like Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and Paws or something. Oh, cats, cats. Yeah, no, obviously Andrew. They should make that into a movie. That would make a really good movie.

I reckon it would be really, really well. Yeah. It would be very good. It would be very good. It definitely wasn't the last movie I saw before the lockdown, that's for sure. That was the cause of the coronavirus. It really, really was. Yeah, fuck pangolins.

It was Taylor Twift as a cat. It wasn't China. It was whoever made cats going, we're not people to see this. I'll never work again. And frankly, James Corden is a super spreader. I mean, we've all seen what a carpool karaoke. Oh.

Be nice. to James. Don, you've gone too far. James Corbyn. He could be listening and I need the work. Anyway, no, obviously Andrew Leatherweber is a huge composer

in the musical theatre world. He's a cash cow. And at the moment, he has a new show. Is he still alive? Yeah. Oh, okay. He feeds on the blood of the younger. Yeah, he's got an innovative new show

never-before-told story, one that's definitely not been staged as a musical ever before. It's called Cinderella. Oh. Oh, I feel like I might have heard that before. You really? I thought it was really niche.

Do you reckon? Yeah. I thought I was really cool for knowing that that was... Fuck, is there something I don't know? Look, I don't know. I thought I'd heard of Cinderella before, but it sounds like a totally new story that Andrew Lloyd Weber has really come up with

in the middle of the night. Well done, Andrew. Yeah. No, to be quite honest with you, I can't believe that the Cinderella movie where Pierce Brosnan sang awkwardly atop a horse didn't drive home that we probably shouldn't actually bring up

Cinderella ever again format. But anyway, with this production of Cinderella, it's been running on the West End. And while many shows during 2020 had faced devastation due to COVID and lockdowns, it was ultimately doing pretty well to the point where it was getting a slew of five-star reviews and a Broadway debut date for 2023. And it had also booked a new cast to take over from the West End original cast. This is important. It will come up later. And so, all was going well. Everything was looking good, except in early May, the show announced via social media

that the West End production was to close on June 12th before the new cast could even take over from the show. So they've booked the show for July and then the show announced in May that it would be closing June 12th. And is that because no one wanted to go to it? Well, no, because to Andrew Leweber, that's because of the government.

Oh, yeah. It's because of COVID and the government and not because he's a shit composer. Yeah, right, okay. He like wrote one good show and then just rehashed all of those musical motives. Which was a good one? Jesus Christ Superstar.

I mean, am I wrong? It's a rock-up. No. It's edgy. Joseph in his amazing technical dream coat. Oh my God. This is true. Actually, you're not going to know this,

Gabby. Yeah. I actually... If Charles would get drunk as a 20-year-old, he would sing Joseph's technical colour drink coat and take his shirt off. That's so sad. It was my dream coat.

Yeah. A dream coat of many colours. And that's what he said in court. Now that I'm... And pink and brown and all the... And now that I'm glad you is. I look handsome. I look smart.

Put him in it. I am a walking work of arts. Keep going. Refunders. I was a lot of many colors. I love my coat of many colors. The music. This is Charles trying to get rid of us at the end of the night.

Genius. Why do we even advertise the drunk Q&A? We've got it. here. None of you are allowed to ask Charles, please perform Joseph in the drunk Q&A, that's off-limits. So anyway, so then we cut to June 12th

which was this past weekend. We're too drunk to remember that right now. And then after all of that, so after the cast found out that they were losing their jobs and the crew via social media, after all that, he didn't even show up to the closing night

of Cinderella in the West End. Like this man is the Scott Morrison of musical theatre. He was... He instead... He was probably... watching cats is the movies the one viewer that's

kept that thing on streaming services yeah no he instead very class act he sent a letter for the director of the show to read out loud in front of the entire audience and the cast like picture this the cast have done that all of their bows for their final show that is not their willing final show

and they've lined up across the stage and this dude in glasses in a casual outfit just walks out and he's like I'm the director Andrew couldn't be here I've got a letter from him though which at that point you kind of go oh well that's nice like that's nice he's got some words to say

he's better than a text yeah and it wasn't quite that Lockland play the clip my huge thanks to everyone we kept the government's feet to the flame and led the charge to the West End opening again it might have been a cost of mistake but I am proud of what we did

and will forever be grateful to everyone who supported me Cinderella got some of the best reviews of my career and I am immensely proud of it and it's hugely due to you all. All my love and for two. Wow. I think you should

have brought it back to himself a little bit more so he essentially he got up on this letter and this letter was basically like fuck COVID, fuck the government and this was a costly mistake the entire cast on stage. Just like... It's funny you say that because I've just got

a letter from Charles. We'll read that later. Yeah, when you've made up what it says. Yeah, sure. But anyway, it got me wondering. Like, I was just sitting here, you know, watching one of my childhood favorites composers become an asshole as you inevitably do with any white man in the industry.

And, you know, it's another one off the list. But it did get me wondering whether this was, like, the first instance of Andrew Lloyd Webber, like, sort of mistreating his cast and crew of his shows. And it turns out there's some juicy, juicy shit with Andrew Lloyd Webber. And the best story that I found was that in 1994, Andrew Lloyd Webber had a new musical at the time called Sunset Boulevard, in which Patty Lepone, and if you don't know who Patty Lepone is,

she's like the Beyonce of Broadway. Like, she's just the most incredible legend. Like, she's kind of like, actually, she's probably more like the Oprah of Broadway. Like, she's just completely untouchable, one of the greats. Anyway, Patty Lepone. Can't sing, but it sells a lot of books. Yeah. Yeah.

But anyway, she was basically the biggest thing in Broadway at the time. she'd just come off playing the lead in Evita, which is another Andrew Lloyd-Weber musical at the time. And she had the main role in this new show. But she sort of wanted to stipulate that she wanted to be the lead in all of the versions of the show. And the way that Andrew Lloyd-Weber does his productions is he starts them in London,

and then he takes them to L.A., and then he finalizes them in New York. So it's like he's so wealthy that he uses the West End as like a test show. So that's who he is. Anyway, so she was like, I want to be the lead in Sunset Boulevard. in London and L.A. and New York in her contract.

But the problem was, the London and the L.A. shows overlapped. So she had to just agree to London and New York. But she got this put in a contract that was signed by all of the parties, including the producers, the directors, and Andrew Lloyd Webber of Sunset Boulevard. Cut to doing the show. She gets some amazing reviews in London. She's doing the, like, people could not stop talking about Patti Lepone in this show, except for one reviewer from the New York Times,

who I've just decided to not learn his name and call. him in a massive cunt because the words he wrote about this show was basically three pages just dedicated to saying how shit Paddy Lepone specifically was in the entire show. Anyway, this review came out in The Times because Andrew Lloyd Webber had also gotten bad reviews from this guy before and still decided, I reckon this one will win him over. So he invited him to the West End show and of course it didn't win him over. So when this review came out, they've gone to L.A. to do the show. and Paddy Lepone is preparing for New York.

And Andrew Lloyd Webber let this one review of like 400 amazing reviews get to him so much. The lead in L.A. was Glenn Close. And this same reviewer went to the L.A. show and reviewed that show and was like, she's a star. She's amazing. The best thing they did was get rid of Patti Lepone. So he fired Patti Lepone from the New York show without telling her. I'm sensing a pattern.

And she found out through the front page of the newspaper that said Glencoast to originate this role on Broadway. Her manager called Andrew Lloyd Weber and was like, um, what the fuck? Anyway, it was all true. And then the manager had to call Patty Lepone. She was like, right, right. I'm going to sit on this. Glenn Close goes on to win the Tony for that role.

She goes, this is my moment. She sues Andrew Lloyd Weber because she signed a contract that he forgot about. and she signed it so that if she wasn't allowed to play the role for all of her performances she was being paid at the time I mean it's a bit hard to feel empathy for somebody who's being paid this much but I do she was being paid $30,000 a week to play this role and by losing the New York performances she lost about $1.5 million in job payment so she sued Andrew Lloyd-Weber for $1.5 million and she won and she used the money to pay for a pool that she got a plaque engraved in her backyard

that says this is the Andrew Lloyd-Weber Memorial Swimming Pool. Anyway, so Andrew Lloyd-Weber is a cunt is what I've learnt. It wasn't that funny, it was just a story I read in the Uber on the way over. That was a very, very entertaining story and also a much better plot for a musical

than Cinderella. It needs to be a show, get set. He should do his own story. Oh, no, no, no, no. No, the ultimate thing. He should not write it. Stephen Schwartz should do that story. It'd be amazing.

He'd get so mad. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. That's Andrew Lloyd Webber. Oh yeah, I have to do a song, don't I? Speaking of musical theatre, I've brought a bit of musical theatre of my own. Yay.

So, I don't know how many of you know this, but before I was a comedian, I was a musician. And I spent about six years doing. covers in pubs just like this one and the best thing about that job aside from the occasional Frisch Nitzel and the fuel money was the people that you met in those gigs that you'd do in pubs, particularly country pubs, I'm from Bathist.

And the best kind of character I ever, ever met in the gig scene I'm trying to think of a way to put this delicately, was white acoustic bro dudes who played acoustic guitar and had unimaginable god complexes. Yeah, they're

fascinating because to you and me, this is a Dude playing covers in the back of a pub, whatever. But to him, in here, he is playing like the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, which is like the Wembley to him. And so I thought there's not enough representation for someone like him. So I've prepared a little something. Problem is I've been dabbling in my artistic process a lot more lately

and I've realized something about myself and that's that I'm a method actress. And there's a bit of prep that goes into this. so just please bear with me while I artistically prepare. This is like my joker moment. Who the fuck am I, Waukeen, Phoenix? Great. This is a story about my life.

Try not to cry. How many renditions of Matt Corby's brother will make you want to fuck me? How many times well I have to say that this next song is for you or you or yeah you I guess what are the chances that we'd be together in the one place that this town employs well-dressed Calvin Klein cover boys to play for you you don't know my name but that's okay because if you ask I'll give you a fake I don't know your name because I don't want to. You're in love with me because I truly same to be.

The embodiment of culture, but here is the real gotcha. If you strip me of my man bun, my stump box and my suede hat, I'm just the same as the next lad. Lads, lights, lads. So please don't take away my six-string wingman. Here's a little something for the ladies. Ooh, oh, yeah. I will spend half of this evening playing strictly Ed Sheeran's repertoire.

I'm in love with the shape of you. Because if nothing else, white people requests are really all I need. Yeah, the world tours going sick. I've got a wedding in Brunswick, a wedding in Fitzroy, a wedding in Melbourne. I will tell you that I learnt guitar purely from a waste of songs in snorting coke. You don't have to know how I went broke paying for a teacher. Ten years and I still can't play a fucking barcord. I will seem real chill until you spill your five buck beer on the espadrills.

You're lucky they weren't my R.M. Williams. I would have fucking cracked it. I have nailed the art of making easy songs sound hard. playing Rip Tide Delilah and Hohe, but somehow I'll still draw the line at Braithwaite. If you ask me for that song, I swear to God, I will throw up in my mouth. I could maybe swing a sad version of Jason, but no fucking horses from this six-string wingman. Harmonica solo, because of course there is. I'm like fucking up.

I'm like fucking Bob Dylan up here. Why does no one see that I could be the next big thing since Jeff Buckley? Now there's a man who truly appreciated depth. I'm gonna be super famous and then you'll have to know what my name is. No more restaurant gigs where my art is background noise. You'll all be sorry when I audition for the voice. Four chairs, no refunds. Thank you very much.

The Chaser Report. Now with extra whispers. So if you want more of that and why wouldn't you come along tonight, go to chaser.com. You click on live from the pub. It's 10 bucks to join us at the Harrell Park Hotel for now anyway. Yeah. And if you want to get ad-free version and also get our exclusive Friday episode of the drunk Q&A,

go to chaser.com. com to aU slash podcast and click on the link and subscribe. Our gears from ride microphones are part of the ACAST Creator Network, and we're here every day.