Captain Moonlite, by Jye Roberts, directed by Ruhama Rowe at Melville Theatre

I am a shameless old folkie, and to walk into the auditorium at Melville Theatre and see and hear a full folk band playing - fiddle, accordion, flute, keyboards, percussion and double-bass - was a real pleasure. The band remain on stage throughout the performance, providing a joyful backing to the action and the songs. Following on from the full brass band that accompanied the recent Brassed Off, this kind of live musical accompaniment has become quite a feature of Melville’s performances.

The play, by Jye Bryant, tells the story of ‘Captain Moonlite’, George Scott, soldier turned lay-preacher turned alleged bank-robber turned barrack-room-lawyer turned convict turned prison-reform-activist turned vagrant turned bushranger, focussing on his romantic relationship with his young colleague James Nesbitt. The book and lyrics nicely catch the linguistic mannerisms of the era and the show is peppered with rousing songs that are a mixture of folk and Broadway.

Jamie Lea plays the main role with full-bearded charisma and full-throated delivery. He is on stage for the whole play and is rarely in the background. He powerfully establishes Moonlite’s extravagant, self-mythologising character, delivering speech after self-justifying speech in a fine Northern Irish brogue - one gets the impression that he is not an entirely reliable narrator of his own adventures, that his constant protestations of innocence may be a little forced, but the point is really the legend, not the man. He may have been a man forced to take on his own legend, but he seems to have done so with relish.

The play opens with Moonlite in his prison cell, railing against 'fake news' in the colonial press. The role of newspapers and crowds is an ongoing theme, as it was with the contemporary career of Ned Kelly. (Apparently Moonlite offered to join Kelly's gang, but was rudely rebuffed.) Moonlite's work as an activist for prison-reform seems to have been one of his most admirable actions in a life made up of many regrettable decisions.

Moonlite's relationship with James Nesbitt, which is the emotional centre of the story, is not explored in depth, in the sense of how such a relationship might have actually played out at the time, but it is a poignant interlude. Perhaps the more poignant for the fact that its 'transgressive' nature is not foregrounded. Corban Featon plays James with unassuming gentleness.

The rest of the cast assume a wide range of characters. Craig Menner has a number of amusing roles, including a judge who sings a cleverly pastiched Victorian patter-song with Gilbertian panache.

Ruhama Rowe’s fluid staging, using projections and a scrim, keeps the action moving, focussing on broad comedy in the earlier stages but rising to a degree of seriousness at the climax. In the end this is a popular musical, a crowd pleaser, with comic turns and catchy songs, splendidly accompanied by the band, and a main character whose extravagance is of the essence. 

Australian bushrangers of this era certainly were a loquacious bunch...

Photos by Alan Gill, Curtain Call Creatives