MAMA SUBPOENA: HERE WE PLEAD AGAIN
Law Revue 2025: A Review by Sophie Wishart
Sydney University Law Revue: Seymour Centre 2025
As a Law Revue virgin, I truly didn’t know what to expect walking into Seymour Theatre last Thursday night. Was this going to be a bunch of law students making hyper-niche jokes about Sydney Law, filled to the brim with jargon, legalese, and circle-jerkness? What I got, however, was two hours and ten minutes of absolutely incredible performances, song, dance, and comedy. It was raunchy, topical, and political. Truly, there were very few moments or skits where I wasn’t laughing. It is disgustingly unfair that they were all unbelievably talented AND law students too.
The night opened with a very well-received rendition of ‘Mamma Mia’ (everyone was trying their hardest not to sing along), performed by the humble but mighty nine-person band. One person I noticed immediately, and could not stop noticing throughout the night, was Andy Park, the insanely charismatic composer/electric guitarist leading the way. While ‘Mamma Mia’ and ‘Voulez-Vous’ were the only songs performed from the night's namesake (honestly thought there’d be more — low-key disappointed), the band also delivered other classics such as ‘Hot to Go’ (complete with the dance, of course), ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’, ‘APT’, and, very iconically, the Subway Surfers theme and the Mii theme song.
The revue boasted an impressively large cast (did they wrangle every theatre kid in the faculty?), and everyone made a strong impression. During the many musical moments, they pushed through some rough mic quality. Some fell a little flat when there wasn’t enough theatre-level projection, however, others managed to deliver some Broadway-worthy performances (I’m thinking of that belt at the beginning of the night by one Sophia Chim!). I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of a cappella woven throughout the night. As someone who has (unsuccessfully) attempted to sing along to the Pitch Perfect 2 (2015) ‘Riff Off’ multiple times, those moments impressed me even more than the elaborate choreography that accompanied every musical number (the Gina Rinehart ‘[S]he Had It Coming’ number did thoroughly dazzle me though).
It was a bold choice to have lyrics projected behind the performers in karaoke-esque slideshows. I can only imagine it was a technical nightmare — not to mention the entire audience could see if someone slipped up (although I only recall one instance!). The slideshows also included lyric-relevant pictures, which were hilarious at times, especially during ‘Defamation Girl’ (sung to the tune of ‘Primadonna Girl’ — shout out to Bruce Lehrmann and Ben Roberts-Smith!). However, they were distracting at other times (although maybe that was a tactic to deflect too much scrutiny from the choreography… hehe).
To my FOMO-prone self’s relief, there in fact was very little law-specific humour. The opening number lamented the terrors of Sydney Law to a naive first-year. There was also a funny Juris DOCTOR bit where the gownwearer recited the unresponsive person their rights, plus a skit where a guy showed up to “bring the briefs to the hearing” wearing nothing but underwear (they really put on a SHOW). But most of the skits were broadly accessible and indiscriminately funny. The Grand Designs (1999) cheese-house sketch unfortunately had me crying with laughter. In standard Grand Designs fashion, an under-budgeted man was attempting to make his house out of cheese with unadulterated enthusiasm and confidence, followed by dejectedness when a family of mice moved in, followed again by renewed gusto because the family of mice bought his cheese house for $3.2 million. So stupid (complimentary).
A small but brilliant detail was the audio gag between scenes — completely unnecessary but added so much to the flow of the show. There's nothing worse than the awkward silence during scene changes when the cast is getting into place and you can hear the squeaking of shoes and people’s breathing, so the creative solution that kept the audience laughing and gave the cast some grace.
Of course, there were obligatory digs: Penny Wong (yes, ALL parts of an F45 are lethal), Chris Minns, and Albo. There was a fully choreographed a cappella parody to the tune of ‘We Are Never Getting Back Together’, depicting the Coalition’s tragic breakup and inevitable reunion. The Trump-Elon breakup made the cut too! Lots of dead Pope jokes, including a full “Conclove Island” video skit. The “White South African Refugee Fund” bit had the audience howling (from 20 investment properties, down to just five!?). There were lots of questionable impressions and accents, with varying degrees of accuracy: Tara Seymour impressed me with her range. Another standout was Anthony-James Kennan (also one of the co-directors), who stole scenes as both Queen Elizabeth (summoned by Charles crying for his mummy) and as the Berghain fairy godmother (self-explanatory).
To put the cherry on top of the night, the cast came out for a number about the rise of fascism, paying tribute to the most notable of autocratic leaders contributing to the death of democracy. It was actually extremely depressing — I’m not sure if it was just me, but there seemed to be an uncomfortable air that settled in the audience that starkly contrasted the chipper singing on stage — a gutsy and slightly-off-putting way to close.
Overall, Law Revue 2025 was a hilarious performance with a balance of topical and slightly off-topical scenes. It was devoid of dull moments, and brimming with talent. I was consistently impressed by the quality, the production value, and the commitment of the actors, musicians, ensemble, and crew alike. This revue clearly had a lot of beautiful, dedicated people behind it. I’ll definitely be going again next year — no subpoena necessary.