Australian cricket legend Shane Warne on Wednesday threw his support behind a musical stage show that presents a warts-and-all account of his controversy-laced career.
The bowler lashed out at the show’s producers when they announced plans for Shane Warne — The Musical earlier this year, believing they should have sought his permission before proceeding.
But Warne said he decided to see the musical for himself before it opened in his hometown of Melbourne this week and was pleasantly surprised at the tenor of the production starring comedian Eddie Perfect as the wayward spinner.
“I think Eddie and his team have written the musical in a respectful and sympathetic way, and that they have captured my fun, larrikin [lovable rogue] side,” Warne wrote in the Herald Sun newspaper on Wednesday.
The show has been promoted as “a new breed of Aussie music theatre that smokes, drinks, carries a few extra kilos and still brings home the Ashes”.
With songs such as What an SMS I’m In, it does not shy away from the sex, betting, drug and cellphone scandals that plagued Warne during a stellar career that saw him take 708 Test wickets, the second highest tally in history.
Comedian Perfect said this week that the show was in many ways a tribute to a larger-than-life cricketer whose career had all the elements of an opera.
Warne said his initial misgivings centred on a fear that it would be peppered with “cheap gags” and he was particularly concerned about the way his ex-wife Simone and mother Brigitte would be portrayed.
The spinner, who retired from international cricket in January last year, said his friends and management persuaded him that the only way to make an informed decision about the musical was to see it himself.
His management arranged for him to attended a preview and, true to form, Warne said he steeled himself with a few beers before watching the performance from the back row of the theatre.
“I am suddenly very nervous. More edgy, even, than facing Pakistani quickie Shoaib Akhtar on a green, seaming deck, I reckon,” Warne said of his feelings at seeing his life depicted on stage.
The 39-year-old said the show’s opening sequences were funny, even though it was “weird” watching actors recreate his early career.
He admitted his apprehension mounted as the show approached its second half, which deals with the scandals that faced Warne at the height of his on-field prowess.
“There are a few more chuckles and the odd cringe — but not too many, I must admit. Then, it’s over,” he said.
“My life in two hours has just flashed before my eyes. Again I felt weird but, in a strange way, proud of what I’d just witnessed,” he added, declaring himself happy with the depiction of his ex-wife and mother.
While pointing out that the production exercises a degree of poetic licence, Warne said it had “a nice, warm feel [and] it also has passion and lots of emotion.” – AFP