It was very much a ‘blokes night out’ at The Crossing Theatre last night.
The occasion was the Paul Hogan show, an entertaining two hours of reminiscences and anecdotes from Australia’s iconic comedian, culminating in a standing ovation
And the audience was largely comprised of blokes, men of all ages, from high schoolers to veterans even older than Hoges.
There were men from Moree, Gunnedah, and the shire, and from Singleton, Muswellbrook and Newcastle, representing the mining workforce.
“This is like an end of year footy presentation night” one audience member told The Courier.
“Except there would be more girls at a footy night.”
The show was a sell out.
As show time drew near, the phones were still ringing with people wanting a ticket, but too late - there was no more room and The Crossing Theatre was in the enviable but unfortunate position of having to say ‘sorry, there are no more seats.’
The upstairs section was not available at the request of the star who wanted to maintain the intimate atmosphere of a ‘living room chat.’
More seats were added back up to the auditorium entrance. As the last chairs were pulled out of storage to accommodate late bookings, a total of 612 people were seated and settled down to see and hear Hoges.
And Hoges delivered.
The material which was so popular in the 1980s worked just as well as it did then. It was Aussie humour that nowadays has been lost a little, deemed too unsophisticated, perhaps.
On stage Hoges had a barbecue smoking quietly away, a video screen to show excerpts from his earliest TV sketches and Aussie memorabilia.
Hoges took the audience on a journey from his first steps on stage on the old New Faces program, the forerunner of today’s Australia’s Got Talent.
“There was a two year wait to get on New Faces,” Hoges said. “I had to come up with something original so I decided to apply as a knife throwing tap dancer.
“I had never tap danced or thrown a knife in my life.”
The judges, and more importantly, the television audience was impressed. The TV station’s switchboard lit up with demands to see more of the tap dancing knife thrower and a star was born.
Hogan went on to have his own television show, wearing his traditional uniform of “boots, footy socks, stubbies and shirt with the sleeves cut off.”
Ultimately, the journey led to the hit movie Crocodile Dundee, independently produced by Hoges and his mates.
Crocodile Dundee was the number one movie across Australia, then globally.
The movie made mega millions not only for Paul Hogan and his team but for investors - reputedly including some in the Narrabri shire who took the advice of their accountant to divert some dollars into the film.