It was 1986, and John Farnham’s days as Australia’s King of Pop were well and truly behind him.

Farnham had recently stepped back from big arena tours with The Little River Band and was saddled with debt. He was done singing in RSL clubs and performing for daytime television.

“He was cash-strapped, middle-aged, a new dad, and living in a run-down house in Bulleen, outside of Melbourne,” said Mitchell Butel, artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, who will bring Farnham’s vocal genius and story of second chances to the stage next year.

Butel will direct a new musical about the making of the Whispering Jack album, Australia’s highest selling album of all time, coinciding with its 40th anniversary. Recorded in the garage of the same suburban rental, it was the album which revive

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