Gangsters, showgirls and a story born in the car
A gangster tale dreamed up to pass the time on long family car journeys has an appropriately playful origin. In 1974, filmmaker Alan Parker began inventing Bugsy Malone for his four children, then shaped it as a mash-up of Hollywood musical and gangster film. For the movie, he devised “splurge guns” as a comic answer to the question of how a children’s gangster story might handle guns. That unlikely blend of showbiz swagger and kid-sized mischief is the work’s distinctive spark.
Now Bugsy Malone arrives at Teatro at the Italian Forum in a stage production billed as a family musical adventure of laughs, music, dancing and mayhem. The original film’s custard-pie effects belong to its screen history; this listing promises a lively musical outing, without specifying those effects for the Sydney performance. It’s an appealing pick for families drawn to theatrical mischief and a gangster story with a distinctly unconventional origin.
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