Tivoli Lovely
State Theatre Centre of Western Australia
Friday, November 14 2025
The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) brought the brand-new musical Tivoli Lovely to the Heath Ledger Theatre this month. With music, lyrics, and a script written by WAAPA alumni Eddie Perfect, this production easily felt as if it had been professionally touring for several years, rather than enacting an actual debut during its one-week run.
Part budding romance, part criminal conspiracy, part intergenerational connection across the years, with a generous portion of comedy, and definitively all musical, Tivoli was packed to the rafters so full of plot that the runtime of two hours and forty minutes flew by much faster than expected. However, the piece never felt overstuffed with content, the pacing was extremely well structured, and what occurred on stage was never too convoluted to follow.
A high-school project in the modern day brought together fifteen-year-old Charlotte (Zoe Davidson-Wall) and Gosnells pensioner Kitty (Caroline McKenzie), collecting the older woman’s life story, one packet of Arnott’s biscuits at a time. The story entwined these interviews with 1954, during Queen Elizabeth’s first visit to Australia as monarch, as the Tivoli theatre troupe toured the country before arriving in Sydney for the Royal Gala. Stephanie Graham performed as Kitty in the 1950s, the new girl in the chorus line unsure whether to blend in or stand out.
The staging of the production was exquisite. The evening started in the lounge of a retirement village unit, before the memories and characters of the past first filled this initial space and then exploded outward into the full theatrical experience, with a sense of deep immersion attained. Over the course of the evening, the stage was deconstructed and reconstructed over and over again, switching between the state capital venues, rehearsal rooms, offices, and even a fabulous tap-dancing routine on a train.
One effect especially noteworthy was the way the theatrical set rotated, akin to a Lazy Susan, between the front of the stage and the back, which meant that plot-relevant conversations at the rear in 1954 were played directly to the audience in 2025. This also meant that sometimes the artists of the past played to stages left, right, or up centre from the audience perspective, yet they all committed to these smaller roles with full main character energy.
A show about showgirls couldn’t help but have wonderful costuming, accented with a million rhinestones, sequins, and a plethora of superb headpieces, but the rest of the cast’s outfits were nearly as spectacular. Management was decked out in houndstooth, the MC was attired like a more colourful Norman Gunston, the clown was a Melburnian Pennywise, and the strikingly golden jackets the co-headliner Kevins wore were surely modelled by Richie Benaud at the MCG, whether as player or commentator.
There was also a seven-woman map of Australia, which brought to mind Lisa Simpson as Florida—but made good—or the Mount Rushmore of Drop Dead Gorgeous, and a salute to the agricultural wealth of the nation, living off the sheep’s back, in the form of woollen outfits being shorn off the showgirls. This latter performance especially gave distinct shades of burlesque and a surprising amount of raunch.
Another stand-out number was a rather odd cross between The Sullivans and It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. Troupe leader Kevin “Call Me Daddy” Watkins (Sebastian Cruse) retold his Damascene-style salvation on the Kokoda Track during the war, given a saintly vision of at-the-time Princess Elizabeth. The dance number was fully tongue-in-cheek. Her Royal Highness twirled around the stage, skirt firmly above her knees, the routine as ridiculously entertaining as it was joyful. It probably shouldn’t have worked, but it totally did.
Graham as Young Kitty and Cruse as Daddy Kevin both gave commanding performances and drew the audience’s eyes whenever they appeared. Equally, in the modern setting, Davidson-Wall and McKenzie started deliberately awkward, but as the evening progressed, the relationship and dynamic felt deserved, earned, and lived in.
Strong support was given to these four primary roles by Olivia Chatto, as tour manager and jazzy villain Harriet, and Brendan Matthews, as love interest Bubs. However, tonight, all the performers truly should have been proud of their roles, both on stage and off. The actual back-of-house crew, the orchestra, the sound, the lighting, the costumes and the make-up—these were all integral parts of a show that registered as fully professional rather than a graduation piece.
With most current touring musicals imported from Britain or the United States, and many local performers deliberately self-modulated to ranges mid-Atlantic, it was almost odd tonight to hear the Australian accent on stage so freely. But an important part of telling our stories is that we tell them in our own voice, to resist the imposter syndrome of cultural cringe, and especially not to weigh down our young graduating artists with such unwarranted baggage.
Tivoli Lovely was an absolute joy. Everyone associated with the production should take several bows, beyond the many they already have—the script was sharp, the songs were delightful, with wonderful choreography, and the acting was fabulous. As much as the fictional story told was of a nationwide theatrical tour, so should reality follow. There were several stars in the making here, with names to watch for in the near future.