The story behind Elvis’ musical revolution makes it global debut in Australia

Inside a North Melbourne dance studio, an actor playing a young Elvis Presley enters a record store owned by Miss Betty, a woman of colour. She regards the boy warily, wondering why he is browsing what was then called “race music”. But he keeps returning to spend his meagre savings on singles by rock ’n roll pioneers such as Roy Brown and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, impressing her with his enthusiasm.

One day, a white man observes Miss Betty and Presley discussing their shared love of popular black artists. “A mighty fine establishment,” he says, tossing a crumpled greenback at her chest. “It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”

When Presley signed to Memphis-based Sun Records in 1954, racial segregation was enforced by law, television was in its infancy and rock ’n roll – once a slang term for sex – sparked a moral panic.

“Our director asked us to imagine how it must have felt to see an artist like Elvis for the first time,” says 32-year-old Rob Mallett, who plays the adult Presley in the new stage show Elvis: A Musical Revolution.

“We live in a landscape that is saturated with content, where algorithms decide what you’ll see based on your tastes, but back then you really did discuss last night’s television around the water cooler. To see Elvis must have been both strange and exciting; he was the punk rock artist of his time in the sense that he was a rule-breaker who busted out of this conservative culture.”

A Musical Revolution is the first production of its type authorised by Elvis Presley Enterprises, which manages the late singer’s licensing deals and assets including his Graceland estate. The show makes its global debut in Sydney on Saturday night and will move to Melbourne in October.

“Australia was picked to bring this brand-new production to life because there is such a strong love for Elvis and his music,” says producer David Venn. “We have an incredible line-up of artists and creatives right here on our shore and it’s an incredible opportunity to showcase this.”

With Mallett’s wife and fellow musical theatre star Chloe Zuel due to give birth to their first child in August, Mallett initially applied for the smaller role of Sun Records founder Sam Phillips. But director Alister Smith insisted he audition for the lead and after discussing it with Zuel, he agreed. (Four boys will share the role of the young Presley.)

Watching Mallett rehearse a scene set to Blue Suede Shoes, standing on his toes while gyrating his hips and swinging his arm, shows Smith made the right call. Still, these routines leave Mallett sore in muscles he didn’t even know he had.

“Most people’s knees only bend in one direction but when you’re dancing like Elvis, your knees bend in ways they shouldn’t,” he says. “I have a sauna where I’m staying and man, have I used it.”

“The version of Elvis I had in my head was this tragic figure but I now realise that he changed the world through music and culture.”

Rob Mallett

While countless books, films and documentaries have dissected Presley’s life – including his prescription drug addiction that contributed to his untimely death in 1977 – A Musical Revolution culminates with Presley’s triumphant 1968 comeback special on NBC.

“The version of Elvis I had in my head was this tragic figure, but I now realise that he changed the world through music and culture,” Mallett says. “When I look at the artists who influenced me, from the American punk rockers of the 1990s to Michael Flatley in his black leather, you can almost draw a direct line between Elvis and those who came after him.”

According to Melbourne couple Debbie and Lee Brasher, who own the retro-themed Fonzies Diner in Melbourne’s Kilsyth, the king continues to win new devotees.

“Ever since [Baz Lurhmann’s] Elvis movie came out, we’ve seen a new generation of kids who love his music; they’re 16 or 17 years old and they know all his songs,” Debbie says.

The pair have collected thousands of pieces of Elvis memorabilia over the years and even had a replica of Graceland’s famous gates custom-made for their previous home. But in 2018, tragedy struck when their son Corey died of a severe asthma attack.

“To help concentrate on something other than our grief – which of course we still feel – we wanted to help other people create happy memories,” says Debbie, who runs Fonzies Diner with daughter Tiarnie.

In Sydney, Jim Porter, who joined the Elvis Presley Fan Club of Australasia in 1970 before becoming its president 33 years ago, is preparing for his 22nd trip to Graceland. He has met Presley’s wife, Priscilla, and their late daughter, Lisa Marie; spent an estimated few hundred thousand dollars on 10,000 items of memorabilia; attended almost 4000 Elvis-themed events; and even owns a beaded tassel from one of Presley’s white jumpsuits.

“I’ve met Rob Mallett and I have to say, I was impressed,” Porter says. “He’s certainly under pressure to make people happy, especially the die-hard Elvis fans, but I said to him, ‘If you have fun up on stage, you’ll bring the audience with you’.”

Mallett is aware of those expectations. “I do feel the pressure, especially after the impeccable job Austin Butler did in the Elvis film,” he says. “It’s both a blessing and a curse that Elvis is so famous but at the end of the day, I have to release myself from that pressure and do the best interpretation I can.

“I also think it’s kind of ironic that I’m studying these videos of Elvis and trying to capture him on stage because in so many instances, Elvis himself didn’t do a consciously stylised performance. He just cut loose and did what came naturally because his magic was innate.”

Despite A Musical Revolution boasting the rare imprimatur of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the show is not a hagiography.

“We see some pretty unglamorous colours of Elvis throughout his journey,” says Mallett, careful not to give too much away. “That stuff has presumably come from qualified sources given it’s endorsed by his people. The plot is loose and we rely on some assumed knowledge; we don’t even acknowledge his death because everyone knows he died at a young age. It’s more about how he changed both music and popular culture and left a lasting legacy.”

Growing up in Tasmania’s Huon Valley, where his family runs an apple orchard, Mallett spent his formative years playing AFL, cricket, basketball and water polo. He sang in a church choir and earned a place in national Irish dancing contests but didn’t consider a performance career until a 2006 trip to London, where he saw Footloose.

“Before then, I didn’t know anyone who made a living in this industry, so it never occurred to me that I could do it,” he says. “I wanted to be in the defence force because my uncle was in the army and my dad was in the reserves, but when I did the interviews they dug deep on the fact I danced and had done amateur musicals.

“I don’t want to put words in their mouths, but my theory is that they need people who wouldn’t question authority and if you have a creative flair, it might make things harder for them. I walked away a bit rattled and staggered to my mum’s office in the city and she pulled out her computer and said, ‘Why don’t we explore [enrolling in a performance school]?’”

Mallett was soon accepted into the musical theatre program at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. “I’d become a big fish in a small pond,” he says, “and all of a sudden, I was around a bunch of other big fish, which makes you swim even harder.”

Since then, he has had major roles in Hot Shoe Shuffle, Singin’ in the Rain, The Rocky Horror Show, Aladdin and Les Miserables, where he met Zuel in 2014. He has also acted in TV programs including House Husbands, Home and Away and The Accidental Soldier.

Before he auditioned for A Musical Revolution, Mallett could name only Presley’s biggest hits but when he listened to his back catalogue on Spotify, he was stunned by how many songs he recognised.

“That’s proof of how deeply ingrained Elvis is in our culture,” he says. “For me, the litmus test of a good musical is whether you walk out humming the songs and I have no doubt that will happen with this show.”

Elvis: A Musical Revolution is currently playing in Sydney and opens October 6 in Melbourne.