Tony Sheldon remembers Peter Allen
| Tony Sheldon remembers Peter Allen |
| Written by Garrett Bithell |
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It is rather fitting that musical theatre legend and Priscilla: The Musical star Tony Sheldon will take to the stage for Sydney’s first ever World AIDS Day concert – a tribute to entertainer Peter Allen. “I was thrilled because I knew Peter,” Sheldon tells SX. “My Mum (Toni Lamond) and Dad were responsible for the Allen Brothers getting their first booking on a tonight show – the Graham Kennedy Show. They’d only played Bandstand and kids TV shows up to that point, so Peter always acknowledged my Dad, who was a TV producer, for giving him his first grown-up gig.” In later years, Sheldon’s relationship with Allen took a hilarious turn. “He was away while I was growing up,” Sheldon remembers. “But when he came back he was the support act for my aunt, Helen Reddy, and so I met up with him again and we had a very strange night together. “I don’t think he remembered who I was. He hadn’t seen me since I was a tiny boy and now I was a teenager – and he tried to pick me up at the end of the night. It was very strange because I was meeting my Mum later in the evening, and he came with me, and there was the biggest double take you’ve ever seen in your life when he finally put two and two together and realised the guy he’d been flirting with all night he’d know since he was a baby! It was very funny.” Sheldon will join his Priscilla co-star Todd McKenny on the night, as well as an all-star lineup including Rhonda Burchmore, Maria Venuti, Emma Pask, Nancye Hayes and Bob Downe. He will sing a lesser-known Allen song, ‘Just Ask Me I’ve Been There’ – “at my lofty age, the sentiment rings pretty true”. The concert will help raise money for ACON and will sit alongside the organisation’s other big World AIDS Day fundraiser, the Red Ribbon Appeal. “It’s a great thing – just reminding people that millions are still effected by AIDS every year, and that there is no cure,” Sheldon says. “And people forget because it’s not in the headlines – the mainstream thinks it’s gone away. Also, when there aren’t campaigns out there reminding young gay men and women that it is still something they need to be aware of, you need to jog people’s memories.” Even after over 700 performances, Sheldon is still relishing playing ‘Bernadette’ in Priscilla: The Musical. “It’s extraordinary,” he raves. “The time does fly by, and I don’t tire of it – I really don’t. When it’s gone it will become a memory very quickly and it’s a time that probably won’t be recaptured – that sort of joy of performing something like this. So I’m savouring it.” Indeed Sheldon is also savouring working with Todd McKenny, who is playing Tick (Mitzi) in the second Sydney season, on at the moment. “Part of the thing about being in show business all your life, which I have been, is you know these people from the time they’re starting out,” he says. “So I’ve know Todd since he was 18, and I’ve watched him rise out of the chorus and become this mega star that he is. But he’s still the same bloke I’ve known all this time. “I’ve worked with Todd before, but this is the first time we’re up there on equal footing as co-stars. And it’s an absolute joy – to work with someone of that calibre, of that talent. It’s just so easy.” Next year the Priscilla production will move to London, and Sheldon is the only member of the Australian cast going along for the ride. How will London audiences respond? “I can only hope that if we don’t muck around with the piece and don’t panic and do what what happened with The Boy From Oz, which was ‘oh we’ve got to rewrite it because they won’t understand it’. I always say that is Australians can cope with Billy Elliot and not have a problem, then the Poms can deal with Priscilla. It’s not that hard to understand, and we are a global village, the film has been out there for 14 years, and Home and Away is their favourite show. If they don’t understand how Australians talk well then they’re stupid!” Sydney’s World AIDS Day Concert, Star Theatre, Star City Casino on Sunday, November 30 at 7.30pm. Tickets are $70 A Reserve, $60 B Reserve, from ticketmaster.com.au or call 1300 795 267. For more information visit acon.org.au/worldaidsdayconcert
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Tony Sheldon, one of the stars taking part in Sydney’s first-ever World AIDS Day Concert, has been frank with Garrett Bithell about his role in Priscilla: The Musical and the importance of raising HIV awareness. But his confession on Australian icon Peter Allen leaves him speechless.
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