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Jason Donovan will star as Randle McMurphy in a stage production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a role that resonates deeply following the death of his father Terence in July at age 90.
Jason Donovan will play Randle McMurphy in an upcoming stage production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The actor says a lot of roads have led him to the charming, unruly psychiatric patient.
Confronting Fear in Cuckoo Production
I have never worked so hard on a script in my entire life, he says, speaking from Manchester during his run as Coach Bolton in the stage production of The Shark Is Broken. McMurphy is a departure from the parts Donovan is best known for and he swings between excitement and apprehension. He is deliberately steering clear of studying Jack Nicholson's Oscar-winning take on the character in the 1975 film, but he has delved deeply into Ken Kesey's novel.
His review of the book is candid, blunt and ends with a laugh. I have read it. Not great on a first read. I reread it.
Still f---ing quite difficult to get your head around. But I sort of just threw caution to the wind. The biggest fear is fear itself. So I went, well, let's go.
You know, no risk, no magic. I think it is the fear of the amount of work in it, the amount of dialogue. It is a monster. The script now resonates more on a personal level following the death of his beloved father Terence, also an actor, in July, at the age of 90.
There are parts of my dad in this character, the craziness of this guy. I sort of channel a little bit of my father in that role. So there is a lot of roads that lead to this moment for me. Though he has lived in the UK now for longer than he ever lived in Australia, Donovan's accent has not changed.
He speaks with a mixture of deep thought, candour, poetic turns of phrase and enthusiastic swearing. His conversation is liberally sprinkled with you know? and do you know what I mean? and when a reflection catches him off guard he happily punctuates with f---! On the atmosphere of Australia compared to his adopted home, he says: Everything in Australia is in focus. It is in focus.
Here, it is like a Turner painting. Then he adds: QF1 - you know I have been on that f---ing plane back and forth more than probably most people. Later, he finishes off his carefully considered dissection of the themes of the story - conformity and rebellion, the danger of institutions, freedom and redefining sanity, and the impact of the story being set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
Honoring Father at Athenaeum Stage
He first heard whispers that this show would happen the last time he performed in Melbourne, in 2023, when he was playing Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror Show. This time, stepping onto the Athenaeum stage will have a different resonance, with his father having also performed at the theatre, for Certified Male as part of the Melbourne Festival in 1999. The whole thing has, not weight, but it is a wonderful bookend, really.
A photo shows Boer War veteran Captain Hugh Woolf and Terence Donovan at the Athenaeum during the season of Breaker Morant in 1978. Set in a psychiatric institution in the early 1960s, the story follows McMurphy as he challenges authority figures holding up a broken system. McMurphy is a trailblazer for all his flaws, says Donovan. Elements of Terence Donovan will make it into his performance in November.
I was very excited for my dad to see it, he says. You know with Dad you never quite knew somewhat what version you were going to get sometimes. He was feisty, strong, and had a sort of controlled madness about him. He embraced life.
He went for it. Donovan knew that his father would be remembered for his acting. But in a career that started in 1960, his work spilled not just across the stage and screen, but into what lay underneath it all. A photo shows Gerard Kennedy and Terence Donovan in front, with other cast members of Homicide and Division 4, marching through the centre of Melbourne in 1970 to demand local content quotas.
Terence Donovan's Activist Legacy
There is a great picture of my dad holding a coffin, he says. The photograph is black and white, and in it Terence Donovan is standing next to fellow actor Gerard Kennedy, the two of them leading a procession of pallbearers through the streets of Melbourne. Taken in April 1975, this is not an image of a funeral. It is a protest.
Inside the coffin were rolls of film, spilling out from under the lid. The procession was made up of some of the biggest names in entertainment of the time, who had all come together to fight for mandated local content quotas to protect Australian jobs on the small screen. I was pretty keen when Dad passed to make sure that he was not just known as the guy who did Neighbours, says Donovan.
He draws a line from the activism done in the 60s and 70s - lobbying successive governments to try and make sure that Australia told its own stories - to the industry we have today, one that helped pave the way for his own career. Though he is almost constantly working, the image we most often see of Donovan is from the late 80s, in stills or videos from what is still one of the most iconic moments in Australian television.
Neighbours Icon and Pop Culture
In 1987, Neighbours aired an episode in which Donovan's character, Scott, married his on-screen love interest Charlene, played by Kylie Minogue. Recently he has been seeing a lot of posts on Instagram where you can put in a picture of yourself and it pumps out you in 1988 with your mullet. I just put in me in 1988. I do not need to AI it.
By now he is used to occupying the strange space of being a figure in pop-culture history. It is a normal part of his story that there is a band called Scott and Charlene's Wedding. I have heard about that, he says, and adds that British electronic band KLF had a single called. He also appeared in Kylie Minogue's Netflix documentary.
Asked if it was a difficult choice to participate, Donovan does not hesitate. No, he says. I will tell you why it was not difficult - because it was her documentary. There was no third party involved.
He clarifies: I was not telling her story for someone that might be able to misinterpret it, so I was not fearful of it being manipulated or misconstrued. He was, however, surprised by how prominent he was in it. I was a big part of episode one. That is not a negative thing.
That was a positive thing, he says. But I did not anticipate being probably such a big part. The documentary explored their relationship and its breakdown. In it, Donovan is very open about his feelings at the time. Love hurts, mate, he says bluntly.
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brisbanetimes:Jason Donovan is about to wrestle ‘a monster’. He just wishes his dad was here to see itThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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