‘A really stupid and fun idea’: There’s a Phar Lap musical, and it’s not horsing around

“Welcome To The Races” reads the paper sign tacked up at the entryway to the inner-city studio space. It’s the first week of rehearsals for the intriguingly named new Aussie show Phar Lap: The Electro-Swing Musical. Inside the cast are hard at work tap dancing, singing and balling their hands into hooves as they learn the choreography.

The production is the debut musical from 33-year-old Sydney Theatre Award-winning music director and composer Steven Kramer, who lovingly calls it his “COVID baby”. He had been going stir-crazy in his Ashfield apartment while searching for something to write about for Showlab, Hayes Theatre Co’s development program for early to mid-career writers, composers and performers. Kramer had been combing through stories of Australian icons hoping for inspiration to strike when he noticed something.

“I kept seeing this horse pop up on these lists of famous Australians. I found it so funny and bizarre that you had this horse next to Gough Whitlam and Ned Kelly and Cathy Freeman. I was like, why are we obsessed with this horse? I started looking into his story and it was murder plots and poisonings and gambling scandals and all of this drama, and it sounded so theatrical. Then I had the idea of what about a singing, talking, tap-dancing horse? And I thought that just sounded like a really stupid and fun idea.”

Five years on and the upcoming production at Hayes Theatre Co is set to be a cheeky take on the 1930 Melbourne Cup winner’s life, with more than a few creative liberties taken for comedic effect. Phar Lap picks up a bit of a sugar addiction while partying at Hoof Doof, while his jockey Jim Pike, in real life known for his gentle handling of horses, has been reimagined as a “sexy dominatrix-style leather daddy” complete with an Ariana Grande-esque R&B number titled Ride You.

While nobody should turn up to the musical expecting a documentary, Kramer does say the story is drawn from a solid foundation of what actually happened. “It’s all based in truth, but blown up to the nth degree. There are these kernels of truth in everything, in all the characters and all the plot lines, just exaggerated to the extreme.”

Is Kramer at all nervous about how his mischievous spin on national icon Phar Lap might be received? “I would be lying if I said I’m not a little scared, because I know he is so beloved. But I also think part of Australian culture is lovingly poking fun at our heroes, that’s what we do. America takes this very nationalistic, treat-everything-with-reverence approach to their heroes and I think Australians call bullshit on that. So it is an irreverent take, but it is a loving take on Phar Lap’s life. You get to hear the story straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.”

One enthusiastic early supporter of the kooky concept was Joel Granger, who leads the cast of seven as the equine star Phar Lap. The 2015 WAAPA graduate and Helpmann Award, Sydney Theatre Award and Green Room Award-nominated performer was invited by Kramer to take part in a 2023 workshop of the show. Granger was struck by the similarities between himself and the horse: both New Zealand-born before taking up residence in Australia, both tall and lean, both boasting red hair.

“[Kramer] mentioned that I’d be playing the character of Phar Lap, a gangly ginger horse from New Zealand, and I thought, wow, you’ve really written my life story,” jokes Granger. “I was like, if I don’t get this [role], do I have to quit the business? If I can’t get this, I can’t get anything.”

‘We haven’t got the budget for a horse prop. I’ve seen War Horse, I know how expensive that stuff is!’

Director and composer Steven Kramer

Watching Granger in rehearsals, it does seem a perfect piece of casting. He performs pony pirouettes with aplomb, mane whipping in the breeze during the bouncy and brassy training montage number Horse Power. For the musical, the horse races are tap dances, a perfect fit for Granger’s skill set as he has been tap dancing since he was 15, further cementing his skills professionally during a stint as Elder McKinley in The Book of Mormon.

Granger also has an unusual secret weapon when it comes to getting into character. “My apartment balcony overlooks Randwick Racecourse. Again, another reason I’m like, I have to play this role. Literally every day, I look out on my balcony and watch horses go back and forth. Since I’ve got the role, I have been monitoring them a lot more closely than I was before.”

To transform Granger into Phar Lap there will be no rubber horse head or whiz-bang puppetry. “It’s an 111-seat theatre,” explains Kramer. “We haven’t got the budget for a horse prop. I’ve seen War Horse, I know how expensive that stuff is!”

Instead, a more subtle approach was decided upon, with the costume sketches lining the wall depicting Granger sporting a jockey’s cap with horse ears and a thick red mane streaming down the back. “The tone of the whole show is 1920s inspired, but with almost a high fashion, decadent spin on it,” Granger says. “It all looks very aesthetically pleasing.”

When writing the songs for the musical, Kramer, who studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a composer, felt that electro swing was the perfect genre to soundtrack Phar Lap’s life. He wanted jazz and swing sounds as it made sense with the era the racehorse came to fame in, and he also deeply admires the music of masters such as Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and the Gershwins. But at the same time he wanted the tracks to sound fresh, which is where the electro beats come in.

“The electro swing thing brings that jazz and swing music [into the modern day] and makes it feel like a musical for now,” Kramer says. “What we found over the course of writing it is that the electro side of it has become the sound of the greed and the corruption and the down and dirty of horse racing, this sexy, glamorous sound. And then Phar Lap’s innocent, bright-eyed world has a bit more of that traditional jazz swing sound.”

For anyone who might be aghast at his absurdist history of Phar Lap, Kramer has made his own personal peace with the only one who really matters. While touring last year as associate musical director on Disney’s Beauty and the Beast musical, he took time out to visit Phar Lap’s mounted hide at Melbourne Museum.

“I was getting towards the end of my time in Melbourne, and I was like, oh my god, I still haven’t seen Phar Lap. So in one of my last weeks there, I visited him and got to see all the memorabilia and the old video reels of him racing and see him in his little glass case there. He’s very striking. It was quite lovely. I did feel like I needed to apologise when I saw him, because I feel like I’m about to…” Kramer pauses and laughs. “Not make a mockery of, but I don’t know if it’s the most respectful telling of his story. But I think he would understand!”

Phar Lap: The Electro-Swing Musical is at Hayes Theatre Co from October 17 to November 22.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.