Batting for Britney

Far from taking the piss, Britney Spears: The Cabaret seeks to humanise the embattled pop diva, writes Garrett Bithell. 

Britney Spears is one of the ugliest and most dramatic indictments of modern popular culture. The Mickey Mouse Club childhood, the meteoric rise to extraordinary fame and success, the marriage to dancer Kevin Federline, the children, the shaved head, the incident where she attacked paparazzi with an umbrella, the breakdown – and through it all, the relentless media onslaught that built her up and tore her down over and over again in a vicious cycle. The title of her 2008 album, Circus, couldn’t have been more apt.

According to Christie Whelan, who plays the title role in Britney Spears: The Cabaret – which sees the pop starlet’s hits transformed into jazzy cabaret numbers – the initial instinct to simply take the piss was quickly abandoned.

“The premise is that Britney is coming to Australia to do a cabaret to win back some credibility,” Whelan tells SX. “She tells her life story, and gives her point of view on the tabloid stories we’ve all heard.”

Written by Dean Bryant, the show actually goes into bat for Britney. “It makes her human again to people,” Whelan says.

“From what we keep reading about her, and the photos we see from the paparazzi, she’s just become this thing. Even if people just stop for one second to think: she’s a 30-year-old girl and this has been happening in her life for so long, and behind it she’s a young Mum and dealing with life the way everyone else is. If we can get that across, our job is done.”

Whelan was a “hardcore fan” of Britney before this show, but her syrupy drawl and Southern/LA fusion accent were still tough to nail. “It still has patches of Southern in it, but it’s very LA,” Whelan says. “I especially watched the interviews she did when she was younger to get a glimpse of what she’s like when she just speaks candidly – back in the days when she felt comfortable to do that I guess.

“It’s been a real eye-opener for me. She’s a beautiful, funny girl who used to love taking the piss out of herself, and God, it just got stamped out of her, all that life.”

Whelan, who is accompanied only by a pianist on stage, say she often wonders what the real Britney would think of the show. “The show was written by someone who respects her, and it’s performed by someone who respects her. So I hope that would come across.”

[Pictured] Christie Whelan as Britney Spears.

Britney Spears: The Cabaret, Reginald Theatre, Seymour Centre from February 15 – 25. Bookings www.seymourcentre.com.