Songs from the Middle

role in the canon: evangelist-turnednightclub singer Reno Sweeney, in Cole Porter's 1934 nautical romcom Anything Goes. “Reno is sassy, smart, a lot of fun – but I think she's a bit more vulnerable than she makes out,”

Eddie Perfect pays tribute to the very ordinary suburb of Mentone

This is a show about growing up in the suburbs: namely Mentone. “It was a very white, middle-class existence: house after house, and then it’s The Shops,” recalls Perfect. “I remember working in an educational bookstore run by a tiny man who was almost psychotic: his management principle was never buying any books. So people would come in with their list, and we’d go out the back and look at empty shelves, and then we’d come back and say, ‘Oh, I’m really sorry, we’re out of stock – you’ll have to order that.’ There’s something existential about pretending to look for books that you know aren’t there. I remember thinking, ‘I’ve got to get out of Mentone.’” So Perfect left in search of “his people”. Quickly, he found them in an inner-city art school, and set off on a course that would see him become a nationally acclaimed playwright-performer-composer-screenwriter. First performed in 2010, Songs from the Middle came about when Matthew Hoy from the Australian National Academy of Music asked him to collaborate with the Uk-based Brodsky Quartet. “I decided to go back to Mentone, turn over some stones, see if there were some songs under them.” He admits that watching him take to the piano singing songs like ‘My Sister Worked at Bunnings’ or ‘I Wanna Go Home: The Ikea Song’ could be the definition of cultural cringe – but that’s the point. “The more artists who are courageous enough to write about where they’re from, the more it helps Australian artists value their own existence.” RJ

Melbourne Recital Centre 31 Sturt St, Southbank 3006. 03 9699 3333. www.melbournerecital.com.au. 8pm. $35-$55. Fri Jun 26.