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Thursday, 04 December 2008

Shane Warne: The Musical

16/07/2008 3:06:00 PM.  | AAP

With songs like "What an SMS I'm In", Shane Warne: The Musical is unlikely to win over the cricketing legend.

But Australian comedian Eddie Perfect, who wrote and stars in the show, hopes Warne appreciates his musical comedy, which opens later this year.

"There's some stuff in the there that might be pretty raw," Perfect told AAP.

"But there's nothing in there that is picking on him or showing him in a negative light, I don't think.

"It's just a really human story, I would like to think, that he would enjoy it for what it is."

Perfect came up for the idea about three years ago when he was looking through a newspaper and saw the cricket legend spruiking hair-loss treatment.

He made a joke to his manager that someone should make a musical out of it but the idea grew on him.

Perfect then went on to read every book he could find on Warne.

"What is a seemingly ridiculous joke of an idea, in researching it I found it has everything you need to turn into a large, full-scale kind of piece of music drama," Perfect said.

"Firstly you've got to have a subject that people give a shit about.

"And I found that universally across the board people have an opinion about Shane Warne - whether it's positive or negative.

"There's not many subjects that you can think of that people really have an opinion on."

In the production, the character Warne, played by Perfect, has decided to tell his story in a musical.

It starts with his days playing at St Kilda Football Club, through his cricket career to his retirement.

His off-field antics including extra marital affairs, infamous text messaging, relationship with former wife Simone, diet pill scandal, and Indian betting scandal are also explored.

It is directed by Neil Armfield, who's also behind the hit musical Keating, in which Perfect played Alexander Downer and John Hewson.

Other songs include a love song about Simone, "Dancing with the stars" and "Take the Pill".

Perfect said in writing the musical - he's come to "really like" Warne.

Unfortunately, he's never met him, he said.

"It'd be so weird, like Hi I'm Eddie - I've just written an entire musical about you, that'd be very odd," said Perfect.

Perfect hopes the musical gets people to understand Warne, and not see it in black and white.

"All judgments aside, I'd like to get to the end of my life and say it got a bit weird but it was a pretty amazing ride and I reckon Shane Warne would be able to do that," Perfect says.

Hoping to attract a much more diverse audience than most musicals would get, Perfect also wants to take it to the UK.

"I like the idea of exporting an idea about Australian cricket that's a musical to West End where they make their own musicals, and a bit of reverse colonialism," he said.

Shane Warne: The Musical will premiere in December in Melbourne. It moves to Sydney in May.

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