When a Delightfully Strange Screen-to-Stage Australian Musical Happens: Paul Hodge and Simon Phillips Chat 'Round the Twist'

Have you ever, ever had the theme tune from a 90s Australian television show lodged in your brain for decades? For anyone who watched the first two seasons of Round the Twist when they originally aired — or anytime afterwards, or the third and fourth seasons in the early 2000s as well — the answer is always yes. Audiences have author Paul Jennings to thank for the series, which initially adapted stories from his novels Unreal!, Unbelievable!, Uncanny and more. Musician Andrew Duffield also deserves gratitude, given that he composed the earworm of a main song. In 2024, Paul Hodge and Simon Phillips join the list, too, but for Round the Twist as no one has ever seen it before: as a stage musical.

Hodge understands the power of that catchy theme. It's one of the influences, unsurprisingly, for the sound of the stage production from Queensland Theatre and Queensland Performing Arts Centre that's enjoying its world-premiere season at QPAC in Brisbane until Sunday, December 8, 2024. He also knows how deeply that the tune has burrowed into an entire generation of 90s kids' minds. "I said to Andrew Duffield, who wrote it, I said to him just before the rehearsal period 'how do you feel to know that you can just penetrate people's minds simply by them hearing 'have you ever…' and then it's stuck in their head for the rest of the day?" he tells Concrete Playground. "He was like 'oh yeah, it's fun. It's great'."

Before he had musical-comedies Clinton the Musical and Joh for PM on his resume — and opera Riot as well — Hodge grew up as a fan of the lighthouse-dwelling Twist family and their supernatural-tinged adventures. If he hadn't, the idea to pen the musical of Round the Twist wouldn't have sprung for the writer and composer, who was inspired by randomly recalling a line from season-two episode 'Smelly Feet'. Phillips describes himself as too old to have known anything about the television series at the time, but helms yet another 90s Aussie classic making the leap from the screen to the stage. Previously, he's directed stage versions of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Muriel's Wedding. "I'm churlish that I missed out on Strictly Ballroom," he jokes.

Fans have had since 2021 to look forward to the result of Hodge and Phillips' efforts with Round the Twist, when the musical was initially announced. This wasn't the first time that someone had approached Jennings and the Australian Children's Television Foundation, which produced the TV series, about bringing the Twists to the stage with tunes — but it was the first time that they gave the tick of approval. Hodges credits Jennings' stories first and foremost, including for having fun making the musical, and for a production that he hopes will be both entertaining and moving for theatregoers. "I think what Paul is really good at is that, as well as obviously his stories are fun and silly and bizarre, he understands what it's like to be a kid," Hodges advises.

"There's this story of this kid coming to him at one of his book signings saying 'how do you know what it's like to be me?'. And I think that he understands also the not-so-fun parts of being a kid — what it feels like when you're embarrassed or you're scared, and things like first kisses and those kind of things. He looks at those moments and milestones of growing up, and portrays them in a very fun and silly and bizarre way. Because he has that understanding, his stories have a lot of heart in them, and that's what I've tried to maintain in the musical."

How did Hodge approach his task as a fan of both Round the Twist and Jennings? "As a kid, I read Paul's short stories and then I watched the TV show, and it's fun going back and doing that again as an adult. The musical is based on the first two seasons, which were the ones that Paul wrote, and so I have now watched those — rewatched them — so many times now," he shares. "If there was any kind of Round the Twist trivia, I'm sure I could win them for the first two seasons."

For Phillips, he looked at his perspective as bringing fresh eyes to something so adored by so many. "Initially, it was a long time before I watched the TV programs. I tried to read the script as if it was a fresh new work that no one had ever seen before, which indeed of course it was, but that didn't have the references. And then at a certain point you go 'I'm not quite sure why this is there', and the answer is 'because it's one of the most-beloved moments in the TV program' — and that's a good enough reason," he says. "But it also went through the process of gradually having a few of the favourite moments from the TV program getting lost in the storytelling. Because we realised that for this story to feel coherent, it just couldn't have everyone's favourite bit from the TV program, or it would have been a) four hours long and b) have no individual plot of its own."

There were essentials that Hodge absolutely had to include, however. "I think I always knew that the 'Smelly Feet' episode, "up the pong!", would have to be in there, because that was the origin of it. It's interesting that for each of the Twist kids, I knew there was an episode that I felt had to be in there. For Bronson, it was 'Smelly Feet'. For Pete, it was 'Without My Pants'. And for Linda, it was 'Nails'. Those were the ones that had really stood out for me as a kid for each of the Twist kids."

Hodge and Phillips also chatted with us about the musical's origin story, getting the green light from Jennings, the adaptation process, whether taking on something with decades of affection behind it was daunting, why Round the Twist endures and introducing it to a new generation — and more.

On How Round the Twist The Musical Finally Came About

Paul: "Apparently I wasn't the first to have the idea, but the Children's Television Foundation has said no previously. But the way it came about was that I had been trying to think of something that I could write for my whole family to come to, because I have a lot of nieces and nephews, and I wanted something that all the generations of the family could come to — my parents and my siblings and nieces and nephews. 

There's an episode of Round the Twist where Bronson, the youngest Twist kid, he's trying to save up the smell of his feet, basically, for six months, to then try to use it as a weapon. And when whenever he uses this power — he's using it for a good purpose — then he says 'up the pong!'.

About eight years ago, my mum was changing my nephew's nappy one day, and she said 'ohh, that's a pongy nappy'. And my brain immediately went 'up the pong!'. Which, I think, also shows the enduring power of Paul Jennings' stories, for something from my childhood to come back to me in adulthood like that.

When happened, then I went 'oh, Round the Twist, that's the thing that I should do'. And so then I then approached the Children's Television Foundation and Paul Jennings about adapting it, and the Children's Television Foundation said 'we've been approached before and said no, but we're going to say yes to you'. I feel very privileged and humbled that Paul and Jenny Buckland of the ACTF and Andrew Duffield, who wrote theme song, have placed their trust in me to tell these stories."

Simon: "My analysis would be that it took someone, i.e. Paul Hodge, who had been the right age to watch the show to grow up and sufficiently develop the skillsets to write the musical. Because it was so of its time and of its audience. The 90s was its heyday, and so I feel that both in the writing of it and in the audience space for it, it's great that there's something that is there for the mid-30s to mid-40s generation who grew up on Round the Twist.

But I, of course, didn't really know anything about the TV series, because I'm too old. And I think that's another reason why it took a while for the show to find producers — because the people who were in a position to support it financially probably also slightly missed the show, and didn't view it with the same affection as the generation who had really grown up on it.

And so I started merely talking to Paul during COVID, who I'd met a couple of times before, when everyone was locked down — and I started really talking to him about the shape of the show and reading it for him and giving him some feedback. Then it started to find its feet after COVID. And indeed, with some fantastic assistance from the RISE funding, which got its workshopping process, that's what managed to get it up from the page to something that we could start really rehearsing on the stage proper."

On Getting the Green Light From Paul Jennings and the Australian Children's Television Foundation

Paul: "I think it was partly grasping why Paul's stories are so great. I think it was also that I could give a reason of why it should be a musical — not just coming in and going 'ohh, anything can be a musical'. Because I think with any story, the first question you have to ask if you're adapting something into a musical is 'why does this story sing?'.

Lots of stories can sing — it's just people need to find the way to make that happen. To me, why I said this story sang was because in the way that Round the Twist works, all the episodes are kind of unrelated, because they're all each based on a Paul Jennings short story. But, over the course of a season, generally there's a thin thread that goes through the season and then pays off in the final episode of the season.

In the first season, that thread is that they are hearing mysterious music that's coming from the top of the lighthouse, and then that pays off in the final episode. And in that final episode, they end up singing to resolve the plot. So I said that to me, already this story sang. Music was already a part of it, and singing was an incredibly important part of that finale of the first season. I think that was one of the reasons of why, to me, this story sang — and was one of the reasons that they gave it the green light."

On Starting the Adaptation Process — By Watching Round the Twist, Of Course

Paul: "I watched and continued to rewatch the show many times. And then, because there's 26 episodes in the first two seasons, it was a decision of going 'okay, what episodes am I going to include in the musical?'. So that was a process of partly going ' well, the finale episodes of the first two seasons are the ones that have an overarching arc to them, and the first episode of the series is obviously important in setting everyone up', so I assumed that I would be incorporating those.

The I worked out my own thing of going 'what were my favourite episodes as a kid?'. Also, I trawled the internet to see if my episodes checked out as the same as other people's, what their favourites were. Then it was then trying to work out how to put all those together. And the thing that is holding the other important part of the music side of the musical —also of the TV show — is the theme song. So in the musical, the nursery-rhyme lyrics to the theme song are riddles that the Twist kids are trying to solve — and they are related to the different plots. So that's the thing that's holding these different episodes together as they're trying to work out this mystery.

Over the process of writing, it's been a process of pulling all these disparate episodes together and shaving away each of the episode stories to its core element, and then merging different things together. When I sent the first treatment to Paul, then we had a conversation where I was saying 'well, in this episode there's a ghost that haunts a toilet, which is the first episode, Skeleton on the Dunny', and then there's this episode also where there's a ghost that haunts the toilet — and I've merged those two into one, and I've merged them also with this other idea'. And Paul was saying to me, 'well, that's the exact same type of thing that I was doing when I was adapting the books into the TV show'. So it was good to know that we were following the same process."

On How to Tackle Directing a Musical with Such Adored Source Material

Simon: "You essentially have to approach it in its own terms, based on its own musculature. You have to say 'what is this that we're making?', but you also fly in the face of certain elements from the original show at your peril. And this is that weird combo, because it's been books and a TV show, but the way that people relate to it, the characters have been semi-formed in people's minds via the TV show.

Sometimes, I think when you're doing an adaptation of a film or something that has originated in celluloid, and you're putting it on stage, the ghosts of the people who originally played it is very strong in your audience's minds. I guess we have the advantage from the TV show that people also read it in book form and got their own individual images.

And the casting changed inside the TV series anyway, so there's no single person where you could say 'that actor is in our minds Pete Twist' because he was a few different actors. So that helps us."

On Not Being Daunted by Round the Twist's Page-to-Screen-to-Stage Path — and Huge Fandom

Paul: "I think I'm more excited about it. I approach it from the point of view of a fan. Like, I am a huge fan of Round the Twist and that's how I've been writing it. It's as a fan and going 'if I was seeing a Round the Twist musical, what would I want to see on stage as a fan?'.

So it's more been a process of going like 'ohh, people are going to love this bit'. It's been fun. And it's been important to me that it maintains the spirit of the original TV show. That's why I wanted to make sure that Paul and the ACTF and Andrew Duffield have been involved in the process as we've gone along."

Simon: "It's more a great wave to surf — that you actually feel supported by the energy that its origins give you. And indeed, this is why so very many musicals that are made are adaptations of existing work: it gives the musical a launching pad, it gets it off the starting blocks with a little bit of an advantage, I think."

On the Inspiration for the Musical's Songs Beyond the Iconic Theme

Paul: "The theme song was the touchstone for the sound of the show in general. I wanted it to feel like it was all one whole and the theme song didn't feel separate from the rest of the score. So I used the feeling of the music in the TV show also a touchstone. 

And I wanted it to be definitively Australian, so I was listening to a lot of Australian pop and rock music, and I was listening to a lot of Triple J. I remember going back through the Hottest 100 one year, and going 'okay, these songs feel like they're the vibe of what I'm looking for'. I would just be listening to a lot of Australian music to try to make sure that the music in the show felt Australian."

On Taking the Audience on a Tonal Rollercoaster Ride, as the TV Show Did

Simon: "Part of the challenge, actually an interesting challenge of it, is that its tones are multifarious. So that's a balance, although music  always helps with getting those maybe slightly illogical or over-sudden mood shifts that are required in a piece like this. Music is a fantastic tool in terms of immediately changing the audience's emotional sensibility depending on how the music's telling them to feel.

In the end, the story is really quite moving, I think. It ends up having a big message about healing and restoring and mending the past. It's kind of a madcap farce in its first half in many ways, and then it becomes quite strong with heartfelt family elements to it in the second half of the show."

On Why Round the Twist Struck Such a Chord with Audiences When It First Aired — and Since

Simon: "I did have an opinion about that. I've been trying to articulate it a bit. I think there are, as always, many reasons, but I feel like it's very strongly to do with Paul Jennings' particular genius for identifying the inner hopes, fears and ambitions of children and teenagers, and speaking to those things in a way which was uncensored on behalf of saying the right thing for their parents.

And so really quite often, the episodes of Round the Twist the TV series are dealing with really quite, in a way, risque or what would now be quite inappropriate ideas. But they're exactly the things that are going through teenagers' heads. And whatever you say, you can't stop teenagers having those anxieties and wishes and hopes, because they're teenagers, and their lives are changing, their bodies are changing. 

That was part of the real secret of the success, that it dared to be irresponsible about a whole number of different, quite erratic things. And then the other side is the imaginative — you can't help feeling that in another time and another place someone would have said 'but this doesn't make sense'. That was never an issue for Paul Jennings or the people who put his stories into TV. They were perfectly happy for it to have its own sense, its own illogical sense of logic, and stand or fall on that. I feel that was its secret ingredient in a way."

On Conveying the Idea That Strange Things Do Happen — and It's Okay for Life to Be Strange, and for You to Be Strange

Paul: "That's very important. And that was one of the things that I said to Paul when I was first approaching him and the ACTF about adapting the TV series, I said like that I feel like his stories are all 'weird things happen and it's okay to be weird. It's okay to be different'.

One of the other main parts of the musical is, because sometimes it was quite scary in the TV show, there's this idea that I think is quite important that as well as it's okay to be weird, it's okay to be scared. Everyone gets scared. Even adults get scared."

On Introducing Round the Twist to a New Generation

Paul: "I am very excited by it. I always designed it as something that the whole family could come to, and that's why I think what is exciting to me is that the generation that grew up watching it will now be able to bring their kids and introduce their kids to the musical. So it's very, very exciting to me to have it for a new generation.

And I think it shows the importance of telling Australian stories, and that they are good and they are worthwhile, and they should be supported and told — because these stories started out as books, and then they've become a TV show and now a musical. It shows the enduring power of those stories and how they were each passed down into different generations. Now I'm very excited that the new generation's going to get to experience these stories."

Simon: "It pains one to say it, but you never really know what you've got as a show until you put it in front of that audience, however much your fingers may be crossed. You've honed it. This is the frustration of anyone who's worked on making a new musical, including the people whose musicals we see coming in from Broadway, fully honed and perfectly resolved — behind every one of those great musicals are three failed musicals and a lot of blood, sweat and tears. 

I think that you put a musical up there and our hope is that, this coming back to what we're talking about before, my job of trying to think about it as something that people who know nothing about Round the Twist might be coming to see — it has to have an energy and its own compelling narrative that takes them on a new and exciting, and hopefully equally eccentric, ride, as the TV series originally did."

Round the Twist The Musical plays the QPAC Playhouse, Cultural Precinct, corner of Grey and Melbourne streets, South Bank, Brisbane until Sunday, December 8, 2024. Head to the Queensland Theatre and QPAC websites.