By Helen Pitt
MARY POPPINS is coming to town, but it seems not everyone thinks this is so Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
The City of Sydney this week announced it will provide in-kind support of $100,000 to help bring the musical produced by the Walt Disney Company Australia Pty Ltd and Cameron Mackintosh to the Capitol Theatre in April. This includes waiving fees for the use of city venues and sites for opening celebrations and performances, as well as support for marketing and promotion, namely banner space throughout the city, according to a spokeswoman for the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore.
Quite atrocious ... Andrew Woodhouse, below right, is concerned over Clover Moore's council promoting the Mary Poppins musical.
The exact details of parts of the deal are confidential, a fact that has upset Andrew Woodhouse, the president of the Potts Point and Kings Cross Heritage Conservation Society, who has lodged an appeal to the Administrative Decisions Tribunal, in what he calls "a test case to unmask council's policy of secrecy". Woodhouse, like any of us loves a show tune, but suspects just like Mary Poppins' spoonful of sugar which helps the medicine go down, there may be some "sweeteners" in the "confidential other details" in this deal.
A spokeswoman for Moore said: "The other details of the package are commercial in confidence as is standard business practice when cities are competing for large-scale events."
John Olsen and friend.
The residents' action group is also irked by the free use of banner space for Disney, which Woodhouse feels with an "annual revenue of $US35 billion" should stick its banners up its chim chiminee or else pay for them. Councillor Meredith Burgmann told PS she too was disappointed that Disney would get the use of the highly sought-after Martin Place banners, which not even the march to celebrate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day next month could secure.
"Sydney Council's Mary Po-ppins scandal is not just about council's flagism," says Woodhouse, who insists the banners are meant to be set aside for non-profits and community groups to publicise events such as Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and Chinese New Year.
"It's about the money trail."
We wonder if perhaps Woodhouse had a bad experience with an umbrella-flying nanny in his youth.
Dilemma delivers
SYDNEY socialites got their strands of pearls (Paspaley, of course) all in a knot on Thursday night with a quandary about which of two A-list functions to attend. Pearl baron Nick Paspaley sponsored both high-profile charity events. The clash on the social calendar was a dilemma also for the celebrity chefs asked to cater for both functions; one a fund-raiser for Queensland flood relief, the other the Silver Party, in its 11th year raising funds for the Sydney Children’s Hospital.
Matt Moran from ARIA, who also has a Brisbane restaurant, double-booked himself and needed to hop on his motorbike to pop between venues.
Catalina’s Michael and Judy McMahon organised the flood relief dinner which saw the Rose Bay Promenade decked out for the first time like a five-star restaurant. The event not only brought together some of the biggest names in Sydney dining — Moran, Robert Marchetti (Icebergs), Neil Perry (Rockpool Group), Guillaume Brahimi (Guillaume at Bennelong), and Catalina’s Andrew Cotton and Mark Axisa — but as socialite Glen-Marie Frost quipped, ‘‘so many of my old boyfriends’’.
It was the big end of town that graced the $1000-a-head tables for this sit-down dinner, including king of the airwaves Alan Jones, media boss David Leckie and wife Skye (who like Moran attended both events), property tycoon Lang Walker and wife Sue, cupcake queen Simmone Logue and the irrepressible Harry M. Miller. They dined under a full moon serenaded by Jessica Mauboy, raising $850,000.
At Otto Ristorante in Woolloomooloo, it was standing room only for champagne and finger food among a much younger, blonde, blinged and botoxed crowd. They paid $250 a head to mingle and munch on food from Moran, Peter Gilmore from Quay, Michael Moore from Summit, Otto’s own Richard Ptacnik, Darren Simpson from La Scala on Jersey and Warren Turnbull from Assiette. Guests included actor Xavier Samuel from Eclipse in the Twilight series, Australian Idol winner Wes Carr, Shari-Lea Hitchcock and Clare Paspaley. The event raised a record $325,000.
Artists get their heads around animal instincts
ROAR AND SNORE sleepover with the animals this week for the Taronga Zoo artists-in-residence was perhaps more accurately a ‘‘draw and pour’’ (alcohol, of course).
A who’s who of 20 artists, including John Olsen, Wendy Sharpe, Jenny Sages and Rew Hanks, were invited to spend the night ‘‘glamping’’ in luxury zoo tents which look out to the city’s best views and the late 1800s Curlew camp colony used by artists including Arthur Streeton and Tom Roberts.
A dinner for the artists was also attended by some of Sydney’s leading gallery owners, including Campbell Robertson-Swann of Defiance Gallery in Paddington and Newtown, Robert and Randi Linnegar of King Street Gallery in Kings Cross, the Woollahra art man Richard Martin and Paddington’s perennially red-shod Stuart Purves, of Australian Galleries (representing Tim Storrier who is working in Antarctica.) The artists were treated to a night safari through the animal enclosures (for an up-close view of mating habits, among other things) and to morning feeding, where animal keepers regaled them with tales from other celebrity zoo tours, notably one for Michael Jackson, who was so paranoid about catching something from the giraffes’ saliva he wouldn’t touch them (perhaps he should have worn a white glove). Jackson had no such phobia about munching on unwashed carrots meant for the giraffes.
This week’s assemblage proved a tame lot, though Sharpe did get kicked out of the seal enclosure for outstaying her welcome. Concerns that the taxidermist and artist Rod McRae might be a danger to the animals proved unfounded (though he did put in a request for any unwanted carcasses.) All works created during the residency will be auctioned.
Olsen had to skip the sleepover. He spent most of this week in St Vincent’s Hospital for attention to what his son, Tim, called ‘‘male plumbing problems’’. The 82-year-old will have heart surgery before a trip to Hong Kong.
Rudd wangles solution to Weaver woe
IF POLITICS is – as has oft been said – celebrity for ugly people, there was a host of A-list uglies gracing the red carpet at last night’s opening of Don Parties On at the Sydney Theatre Company. Among the politerati at the sequel to David Williamson’s Don’s Party were former PM Bob Hawke, Howard immigration minister Phillip Ruddock, beehive queen Bronwyn Bishop, senators Bob Brown, Helen Coonan, and Nick Minchin, and independent Rob Oakeshott. Some were still sporting the attire they probably wore to see the original play back in 1971.
Oscar nominee and celebrity of the moment Jacki Weaver raised the tone somewhat, making an appearance in honour of her old mate Williamson before jetting off to Los Angeles on Tuesday for next week’s Academy Awards.
Her actor husband, Sean Taylor, can thank the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, and actor Rhys Muldoon for getting him to the Oscars. Weaver sent an urgent email asking friends for help to get her South African passport-holding hubby an interview for a US visa, or he’d be ‘‘watching the Oscars in a pub in Redfern in his new tuxedo’’.
Muldoon explained to PS: ‘‘I forwarded Rudd the email with a note, then he rang me the next day.’’ Rudd arranged an interview with US officials before the ceremony, not two days after, as had been scheduled. ‘‘Otherwise Jacki may have got hopelessly drunk at the Oscars party and been forced to sleep with George Clooney,’’ Muldoon mused.
IN THE SWIM
There was a notable absence of Australian designers on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week this week. But one Australian fashion outfit, Seafolly, did hit the cossie jackpot, making the cover of the highly coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. It featured throughout the Body Paint section, with Seafolly’s swimmers painstakingly painted on the body of the model Kate Upton, flower for flower, dot for dot. Locally, the Sydney fashion pack were also out in force this week at the unveiling of the 2011 Chanel collection, about to hit stores. Gail Elliott modelled and opened the show at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had a makeover in the fashion of the Grand Palais, where it is held in Paris.
BAD WEATHER
While Steven Soderbergh is fighting a paternity case in a New York court brought by Sydney woman Frances Anderson over whether he is father of her daughter Pearl Button, a subject of one of his films flew in and out of Sydney unnoticed. Erin Brokovich visited the Hamilton Island resort Qualia for only one night – the night before cyclone Yasi hit – and was evacuated the next day. Soderbergh, who directed the 2000 movie about a single mother who almost single-handedly brought down a Californian power company, may find the movie’s message a little too close to home.
JUDGMENT DAY
Tomorrow night’s Tropfest will have its first cyber judge, which the Tropfest supremo John Polson has revealed to PS will be Joseph Fiennes, better behaved brother of Ralph, and Shakespeare in Love star. We wonder if Tropfest organisers were a little nervous about putting him on a Qantas flight from his home in Majorca given his brother’s antics in the first-class toilets with a flight attendant. Fiennes will join the other judges – the Twilight star Xavier Samuel and the producer of Animal Kingdom, Liz Watts, and six mystery judges.
WARNED
The less said about the departure of Liz Hurley (newly branded Shiz Wurley) the better. Though P.S. wonders if the International Cricket Council could extend the ban on tweeting during World Cup matches to the former player Shane Warne, after his recent lovestruck musings in the Twittersphere.
Andrew Hornery is on leave.