Pop Goddess Colleen Hewett Returns To The Show That Launched Her Career

New production Godspell Reimagined may be putting a contemporary spin on one of the most popular musicals ever staged in this country, but it is making one sizeable nod to the show's first Australian incarnation - the presence of original star Colleen Hewett.

Back in 1971, when the Aussie premiere production of Godspell - Stephen Schwartz' s rock'n'roll musical based on the last days of Christ - became the first international production of the show staged anywhere in the world after it's smash-hit off-Broadway debut, Hewett's starring role made her a household name and shored up her career for decades to come. The '70s staging was a barnstorming success that still ranks among the most significant box office triumphs in Australian theatre history, more than 40 years later. In total, the production played a little over 1,700 shows during its Sydney, Melbourne and touring seasons.

 "It's kind of weird to be winding the clock back that far, to 1971 when I did the show."

Hewett's presence in this latest production offers a link to Godspell's first-rate pedigree Down Under. "I'm not actually in the cast, they've got me in a 'cameo' role - I'm just coming out and doing Day By Day at the end of the show," Hewett chuckles. "The audience will already have heard Bonnie [Anderson] doing the proper cast version, and then I'm right down at the end of it. It's kind of weird to be winding the clock back that far, to 1971 when I did the show, and it's a lovely honour that these people have given me. It wasn't a hard one to say 'yes' to I can tell you that, and I do say 'no' a lot."

Hewett's 1971 single version of Day By Day became a smash pop hit, topping the Go-Set charts and being certified gold. "Well [producer] Ian Meldrum - or Molly Meldrum as you'd know him - he took it way, way further than the actual cast version of it," Hewett remembers. "The cast version is a very simple little song, sweet as a lolly, but obviously if you give something to Meldrum to work on and oh my gosh... it's still my closing song in any shows that I do, and it's by far my most-requested song. I'm very lucky, I am so lucky."

On her original involvement with Godspell, Hewett reflects, "I'd already been given [Day By Day] to listen to [to] see if I wanted to record it, it was given to me by the man who put the show on [Kenn Brodziak] - he also brought The Beatles out to Australia, he was quite an amazing guy.

"Then he rang my manager and asked him if I'd be interested in auditioning for the show, and I said, 'What sort of show?' I was only 20 or 21 at the time and very naive, and he said, 'It's a show called Godspell, it's the show that Day By Day comes from and you'd be acting with a script as well as singing'. And I just went, 'No, thank you!' because I was just starting out my career as a singer and doing a musical seemed like it would stuff things up. Little did I know that it was going to change my whole life so much for the better."