(Van Badham’s article appeared in the Guardian, 11/24.)
Hugh Jackman’s Broadway to Oz show is an all-singing, all-dancing arena cabaret variety revue. In silver pants and lots of glitter, the action movie star belts out the showtunes, tap-dances, projects the family photo album and soars across the audience on a flying fox – last night, at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena, above the heads of a packed, ovating, rapturous crowd.
If the juxtaposition of the star of the X-Men blockbusters reeling off a tender number from Carousel amuses, it’s a joke that Jackman enjoys. He began his career both playing a crim on a TV crime show as well as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast at the Princess Theatre, and much mirth is made in the show by Jackman of his recruitment as Wolverine between the matinee and evening shows of his West End run as Curly in Oklahoma!