Starry eyed
A big song and dance … the cast of Smash, a well-made drama following the staging of a Broadway musical about the life of Marilyn Monroe.
What was it the man said to Ruby Keeler in 1933? ''You're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star.'' 42nd Street's most famous line has grown into a genre that has spawned several industries. Overnight stardom might not have existed before Broadway, or until Hollywood made myths about Broadway. There's the chorus girl whose life changes when the star flails over the footlights on opening night. And the bad girl who trips on the casting couch and never gets up again. Mostly, we love the waitress who just needs that one break - a chance to show the world and become rich, famous and hot before our eyes.
Susan Boyle settled for two out of three, but she's proof the dream lives on. Talent contests have dominated prime-time ratings seasons for the past decade. The package becomes more elaborate and far-fetched with varying degrees of success.
No point in mentioning Everybody Dance Now when So You Think You Can Dance, Uruguay's Got Talent and the juggernaut Idol franchise make stars and millions for networks every season. The best dream on offer this ratings season is a well-made drama about the casting and staging of a Broadway musical about Marilyn Monroe. Smash (Seven, Tuesday, 9.30pm) has everything: singing, dancing, sex, Anjelica Huston, a chorus girl with a dream, a sleazy director with a well-worn casting couch and an emerging star who got her break on, you guessed it, American Idol. And it looks expensive and shiny. Busby Berkeley would be proud.
There's so much to love about Smash - unless you hate musicals. A terrific cast, led by Debra Messing, Jack Davenport and strong newcomers Katharine McPhee and Megan Hilty, mixes catfights with tap routines to great effect. In spite of every imaginable cliche, we're never entirely sure if the show will go on.
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If only Smash were preceded by the equally delightful, camp-but-not-cheesy I Will Survive (Ten, Wednesday, 7.30pm), which I fear might be floundering on the wrong network. My teenage son keeps mistaking this road trip full of drag queens for a similarly named series about people who come back from the brink of death at the hands of an axe murderer. There's much more at stake in I Will Survive, and a better class of nutter. All the contestants, mentors, judges and town residents are larger than life and thoroughly entertaining.
The writer and director of the previous incarnations of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Stephan Elliott, could nearly take this on the road as a one-man show, he's such flash talent.
This format is lifted from a successful British show where unknowns competed to land the role of Maria in a West End production of The Sound of Music. But this is a thousand times better. Very few of these contestants have experience in drag, so the Mrs Doubtfire factor makes for plenty of laughs among the show tunes. The elimination rounds that take place in a different Australian country town each week remind us why the original Priscilla concept had such sexy (albeit hairy) legs. A few blocks either side of Oxford Street, mums and dads don't see so much drag. Can they take it at face value or will bigotry prevail?
And, finally, the camaraderie beneath the falsies is something a bit beautiful to watch. This is an unlikely team of blokes, with shared passions and skills, just like other teams, and then again, not. These men couldn't be more different from one another, and yet they are united by that singular dream - to walk into an outback RSL unknown and walk out a star, with all their teeth intact.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/starry-eyed-20120830-251jh.html#ixzz25Al9Symv
