How a dirty nappy led to the creation of Round The Twist: The Musical

Around this time last year, a 20-foot-tall poster appeared on the side of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. In lurid yellow and hot pink, it asked a simple question:

"Have you ever, ever felt like this?"

For many passers-by, the query would be cryptically incomprehensible. But for anyone that took in the delights of ABC Kids as a youngster, the phrase instantly conjures images of sentient, skateboarding brains, fertile tree sprites and copycat mushrooms.

The billboard was, of course, referring to the opening lyrics of the theme song from iconic Australian kid's show Round The Twist.

But this poster wasn't spruiking a reboot or remake; it was leaving a breadcrumb trail that leads all the way to the brand new Round The Twist musical spectacular, which has now opened in Brisbane.

Up the pong!

Round the Twist's lore is as long and robust as the grip it has on a majority of Australians born anytime from 1980-2000.

The half-hour sitcom based on the delightful short stories from Paul Jennings revolved around the Twist family: Dad, Tony; older siblings Pete and Linda; and annoying younger brother Bronson and the wacky events unleashed on their lighthouse home.

First broadcast in 1990, a second season crept in three years later due to fan demand. After a rapturous audience and critical reception, the series was revived for two more seasons at the turn of the millennium, but the new episodes were not based on Jennings's work.

Round the Twist's decade-long gap between the second and third seasons meant that it captured the attention of multiple generations, including writer and musician Paul Hodge.

"It obviously left a mark on me in a way I didn't even realise, but I remember watching it at both my parents' house and my grandma's house," Hodge reminisces.

Coming off the whirlwind of his international hit production, Clinton: The Musical, Hodge was looking for a project that his young nieces and nephews could enjoy, and which their parents would also like.

In fact, it was his mum's reaction to his nephew's "pongy" nappy that caused the light bulb to go off in Hodge's head.

"My brain immediately went 'Up the Pong!' and I went, 'oh my god, Round the Twist. I should adapt Round the Twist as a musical'," Hodge remembers.

"I think that shows the kind of enduring power of Paul Jennings's stories, that he was able to lodge in my brain as a child and come back as an adult."

The next step was getting the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF), who produced the original series, onboard. A daunting task considering they had passed on multiple adaptation pitches before Hodge stepped up to the plate.

"I think it was because they felt that I understood Paul's work and what made it special. In writing any musical, you have to ask the question, 'Why does this story sing?'" Hodge says.

"There's a tiny thread that goes through the season where the family hears mysterious music coming from the lighthouse and then, in the season finale, they end up saving the lighthouse by singing. And so that, to me, was why this story could sing."

To Hodge's surprise, the ACTF gave him the green light.

Paul on Paul

With the ACTF's blessing under his belt, Hodge then moved onto something many millennials have only dreamt of — working with Paul Jennings himself to adapt the stories for the stage.

Armed with a basic treatment, Hodge and Jennings began sending notes back and forth that would eventually become Round The Twist: The Musical.

"It was funny to see, like, the similarities of things we'd go through. I would talk to him about, 'In this episode, there's this ghost that haunts a toilet. There's another episode, but this goes towards the toilet. I've merged them into one thing'," Hodge says.

"And he said, 'Oh, that was the exact same type of thing that I was doing when I was adapting the books into the TV show'."

The pair focused their narrative on the first two seasons of the show, the one that Jennings was involved with taking from page to screen. But condensing 26 episodes of television into one coherent stage show was no easy feat.

"We haven't so much cut episodes, but we've shaved away elements of those episodes just to be able to fit in as much as possible," Hodge says.

"It was tough, but I think Paul was thrilled by what was included, and felt it was fitting for stories that he had created."

Of course, some things had to change. In the Round The Twist season one episode Lucky Lips, eldest sibling Pete comes upon a lipstick that makes the wearer irresistible to any woman — including his high school teacher. The optics of a 30-something woman forcibly kissing a teen didn't really fit in with 2024 sensibilities, so the lore of the lipstick pivoted.

"In the musical, it works on any gender, but we still felt it was weird for Pete to be using the lips so, in the musical, it's Gribble Junior, the villain. We both thought that made more sense for the character," Hodge says.

But there was one trademark Round The Twist moment that Hodge was disappointed to see cut from the final script.

"The iconic moment of Bronson pissing over the wall [from Little Squirt] was in the first draft, but Simon [Phillips], the director, was like, 'It makes no sense in the context of the whole show, and what was necessary for the whole show to work'," Hodge laughs.

"So that was a sad moment to lose, but we still have elements of Little Squirt in the show."

Our stories, told by us

Australia is no stranger to a big import musical: Wicked is currently being housed in QPAC's main theatre at the same time it lights up cinema screens; Beetlejuice will hit Melbourne next year; and, after sell-out seasons, British mega-musical SIX is back on our shores, travelling to Newcastle for the first time.

But Round The Twist: The Musical offers something unique, Hodge says.

"A new Australian musical, it doesn't happen so much. Most of the things you see on the stage almost always are shows from overseas," he says.

"I think it's a really great showcase for the young talent in this country and for what Simon would call our more experienced character actors."

And for Hodge, a life-long Queenslander, opening the show in the Sunshine State (even though the TV show takes place in Victoria) is just the icing on the cake.

"Queensland audiences are very up for seeing new things and very generous in helping support new work," he says.

"Brisbane is where I was a kid watching the TV show, so it means a lot to me that it's happening in this beautiful place where I grew up."

Round The Twist: The Musical is playing at QPAC's Playhouse Theatre until December 8.