In 2009, Christie Whelan Browne premiered Britney Spears: The Cabaret, written and directed by Dean Bryant with musical direction by Mathew Frank. It was a stunning, surprising production that brilliantly satirised the price of fame. There were laughs, as you’d expect, but there was also a great deal of humanity, compassion and pathos.

Barry Humphries was so impressed that he commissioned Bryant and Frank to create a new cabaret show for Whelan Browne for the 2015 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, of which he was Artistic Director. The show that finally eventuated was called Show People, which, after a short season at Chapel Off Chapel in Melbourne, is now about to play in the Sydney Festival.

Christie Whelan Browne

Christie Whelan-Browne. Photo supplied

Described by The Guardian as “an exciting and deftly balanced work that is as much a celebration of the Australian musical theatre industry as it is an indictment of it,” Show People features six monologues by male and female characters at various stages of a musical theatre career.

Bryant says that he wrote Show People “as an homage to two of the greatest loves in my life – musical theatre and...