Australian cricket legend Shane Warne yesterday threw his support behind a musical stage show that presents a warts-and-all account of his controversy-laced career.
The bowler lashed out at the show’s producers when they announced plans for Shane Warne — The Musical earlier this year, believing they should have sought his permission before proceeding.
But Warne said he decided to see the musical for himself before it opened in his hometown of Melbourne this week and was pleasantly surprised at the tenor of the production starring comedian Eddie Perfect as the wayward spinner.
LARRIKIN SIDE
“I think Eddie and his team have written the musical in a respectful and sympathetic way, and that they have captured my fun, larrikin [lovable rogue] side,” Warne wrote in the Herald Sun newspaper yesterday.
The show has been promoted as “a new breed of Aussie music theater that smokes, drinks, carries a few extra kilos and still brings home the Ashes.”
With songs such as What an SMS I’m In, it does not shy away from the sex, betting, drug and mobile phone scandals that plagued Warne during a stellar career that saw him take 708 Test wickets, the second-highest tally in history.
A FEW BEERS
His management arranged for him to attended a preview and, true to form, Warne said he steeled himself with a few beers before watching the performance from the back row of the theater.
“I am suddenly very nervous. More edgy, even, than facing Pakistani quickie Shoaib Akhtar on a green, seaming deck, I reckon,” Warne said of his feelings at seeing his life depicted on stage.
The 39-year-old said the show’s opening sequences were funny, even though it was “weird” watching actors recreate his early career.
“My life in two hours has just flashed before my eyes. Again I felt weird but, in a strange way, proud of what I’d just witnessed,” he added, declaring himself happy with the depiction of his ex-wife and mother.
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