All good things come to an end: 2024 will mark The End of the Wharf as we Know It.
This final edition of The Wharf Revue sees all three original creators - Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott - return, along with Mandy Bishop and David Whitney, both of whom have appeared in previous revues.
While the material is all new, there will be plenty of familiar names returning as well as some of the current mob including Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton.
Forsythe, who co-wrote the review with Biggins and Scott and co-directed with Biggins (Scott is music director), said ending the revue was a decision reached together, "because we're getting old.
"I'll be 76 by the time we finish and for me it's probably time to kick off my boots and settle down.
"A lot of people have said to me, get everything done you want to do in your 70s because your 80s aren't much fun. We'll see..."
The rigours of writing one show hot on the heels of the previous one finishing its tour and then going on the road again for a long time began catching up with them. Scott and Biggins will continue to perform elsewhere but the Wharf Revue will be no more.
Still, they're all committed to making the finale a good one.
A new "character" will be British-born, more recently Australian, actress Miriam Margolyes, coming across other Britons Down Under including Martin Clunes and Griff Rhys-Jones.
"King Charles pops along."
Biggins said the revue's audience was quite diverse, attracting people from across the political spectrum and it didn't just appeal to an older demographic; younger people have been finding it funny too.
One feature will be a "documentary" titled Hindsight, based on the ABC series Nemesis, with commentary on the last 25 years about leadership, the environment, foreign affairs and the economy from the facetious five's portrayals of various figures, Australian and international. These filmed segments will be interspersed between skits and songs to give the performers opportunities to change.
This is the fourth time the Revue has been produced by its creators. John Bell, founder of Bell Shakespeare, had advised them to many years ago. The increasing demand for tickets finally convinced them to make the break.
"We should have done it far earlier," Forsythe said, "to make money out of it and to be able to tour it more."
Cigar lovers Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann will reunite to reminisce about how well time has treated them since they left office and the deep-pocketed duo Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer will be paired as bandits Bonnie and Clyde.
"Jonathan will be doing a brief Keating to keep the fans happy," Forsythe said.
Speaking of Biggins, he will also be playing "Angus Taylor Swift", two personalities in one performing their take on Swift's Shake It Off.
And he will, as so often, be forced to ponder an enduring question.
"How do I look like Peter Costello, Tony Abbott and Paul Keating?"
But, somehow, resemble them all Biggins does - with the aid of wigs, costumes, expressions, voices and stances - and they'll all be back.
Age wasn't the issue for Biggins in retiring the revue.
"I'm much younger than the other guys - six nights a week is tiring," he said.
"One of the reasons I'm quite happy to end is I'm sick of the subject matter."
Biggins said he was fed up with the low standards of current political debate, which he partly blames on the 24-hour news cycle and social media, both of which were in their infancy when the revue began.
And regardless of who wins the US election, Biggins said, "I never want to see Donald Trump's face ever again."
Having played the ex-president a few times, "I think I've exhausted every possibility. I don't want to give him the oxygen."
Biggins is also not a fan of identity politics and culture wars.
"Anybody will complain about everything - someone's going to have a whinge."
At one performance, he said, a couple of aggrieved Greens booed.
"Greens without a sense of humour - how could that possibly be?" he asked, rhetorically.
"We need the ability to laugh at ourselves and each other."
A Simpsons parody will feature "Homer" Dutton and "Sideshow Bob" Brown and the young Anthony Albanese, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd will attend the 1984 Labor conference, getting advice from another Bob, Hawke, on how to become prime minister.
Show business veterans all, Forsythe, Biggins and Scott had worked together in various groupings - on stage, on TV - including a long-running cabaret show, Three Men and a Baby Grand.
On the strength of that show, Sydney Theatre Company director Robyn Nevin, in 2000, invited them to devise a revue that would take place each night after a regular STC performance. The time slot didn't work but the show did - it was rescheduled at 8pm in the Wharf Theatre (hence the name) and things got bigger from there.
The trio are generous with each other in giving things a go on stage, Forsythe said: "We give it a chance; if it resonates, it stays."
Several years after it began, the revue would come to what Forsythe calls its "spiritual home", the Playhouse in Canberra. This year the season will be shorter but the venue larger: it will be in the Canberra Theatre.
Despite the lampooning they receive, politicians haven't complained, Forsythe said - indeed, as with editorial cartoons, most who see it consider it an honour to be in the revue.
"We're not malicious in the shows we do, the sketches we do - it's generally fairly lighthearted."
The only people who have complained about being in it were two journalists.
And after the final performance of the revue, what will Forsyth and Biggins do next year?
Forsythe was thinking of retiring to the Blue Mountains while Biggins was going to perform another season of his one-man Keating show in Perth.
Biggins was also writing on a new musical, The Golddiggers, or True Love Unearthed, inspired by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. He said he was using Sullivan's music but a new script and lyrics.
And while trying to get that up, he said: "I'll put myself out there as a jobbing actor. We'll see what happens."
- The End of the Wharf As We Know It is on at the Canberra Theatre from October 25 to November 2. See: canberratheatrecentre.com.au or (02) 6275 2700.
