Adam Gardiner, Stephen Lovatt and Arlo MacDiarmid provide plenty of laughs in Rupert. Photo / Michael Smith
Talented cast brilliantly directed but comedy crammed with information rather than telling story of his life.
This Auckland Theatre Company romp through Rupert Murdoch's trials and tribulations is highly enjoyable but not entirely satisfying.
It's fun seeing a large cast of experienced talent being put through their comic paces by director Colin McColl as they quick-change between myriad characters. Particularly hilarious are Stephen Lovatt's rouge-cheeked marionette
Ronald Reagan, Hera Dunleavy's straight-laced seductress Margaret Thatcher, and Simon Prast relishing his homophobic lines about hellfire as a Fox News host. Also very funny are Adam Gardiner as a young ball-scratching Packer brat in yellow swimmers, and ATC newcomers JJ Fong and Arlo MacDiarmid.
Jennifer Ward-Lealand is an empathetic straight woman while Stuart Devenie plays ringmaster Murdoch as surprisingly subdued (he's sometimes hard to hear), perhaps in deliberate contrast to the excellent Damien Avery whose "young Murdoch" is all brash get-up-and-go. The Murdochs get to keep their dignity where their foes (such as fired Aussie Prime Minister Gough Whitlam) do not.
It's not really a cabaret but the brief dance numbers are well choreographed by Jeremy Birchall on John Verryt's runway - the Monopolies and Mergers Commission tango between young Murdoch and Thatcher is an abject delight. Tom Bogdanowicz's backdrop screens scream with historic headlines ("Mexican Killer Bees Swarm North") while costume designer Elizabeth Whiting accentuates her black palette with touches of Australian yellow.
