Bran Nue Dae

In 1990 I started production in Broome on Lord of the Bush (1990), a documentary about the enigmatic figure Lord Alistair McAlpine, who had big ambitions of developing the town in the 1980s which ultimately failed. It was during the making of that film that I met Jimmy Chi, the creator and writer of Bran Nue Dae and his fellow musicians in the Kuckles band. The musical was already starting rehearsals for its world premiere at the 1990 Perth Festival. During the completion of Lord of the Bush, I was asked by Bran Nue Dae Corporation (the rights holder to the musical) whether I was interested in producing and directing a documentary about Jimmy. I immediately accepted, and the ABC obliged with a pre-sale.

Jimmy was born in Broome in 1948 to a Bardi Aboriginal mother with Scottish heritage and a Broome-born father whose parents were Chinese and Japanese. Broome’s blend of cultural influences played a significant role in nurturing a rich artistic society where music was the dominant mode of expression. Indeed, by the late 1970s the town had developed a distinctive style which became known as the “Broome Sound”. 

Jimmy embodied his hometown’s cultural diversity. He grew up in Broome watching Hollywood musicals at Sun Pictures before being sent to a Catholic mission school in Perth to complete his secondary schooling, and from which he was eventually expelled.  Returning home to Broome, he completed his studies and then went back to Perth to start an engineering degree. However, his studies were interrupted when he was involved in a serious car accident. After coming out of a three-week coma, he developed severe bipolar disorder.

After spending several months in a psychiatric hospital, Jimmy gave up his university studies, returned to Broome, and devoted himself to music. He bought a guitar and started writing songs, initially on his own, and then with Stephen Pigram and Michael Manolis. In 1980 the three of them moved to Adelaide to study music at the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM). A year later Jimmy, Pigram and Manolis formed the band Kuckles. 

Jimmy wrote the script for the musical Bran Nue Dae shortly after settling back in Broome. The story, based largely on his own personal experiences, is that of an Aboriginal boy’s flight home from the city of Perth back to his homeland at Lombadina, just north of Broome. His journey in search of identity, love and security takes us across the state in a blend of rock opera, road movie, comedy, song, dance and romance. Jimmy reworks his personal history to a positive end; characters that were threatening in his childhood are deflated through parody. Painful experiences become instructive, and there is a great deal of warmth and humour, sensuality and spirituality. The music derives from sources as disparate as traditional Bardi performance, blues, rock and roll, Hollywood musicals and the rituals of the Roman Catholic Mass.

One of the famous verses from a song in the musical sums up Jimmy’s dry humour and sharp political approach:

There’s nothing I would rather be than to be an Aborigine
and watch you take my precious land away
For nothing gives me greater joy
than to watch you fill each girl and boy with superficial existential shit

Launching the show was quite a feat. It took several years to convince funding bodies to back it. Once support was obtained, it was decided to use Broome’s people as much as possible to give them the chance to enter professional theatre as well as giving the show a unique “Broome style”. All this required a long rehearsal period and a high level of financial backing; funds came from both Federal and State governments plus an unusual quarter: Lord Alistair McAlpine, the ex-Treasurer of the British Conservative Party who had recently renovated the Sun Pictures theatre and purchased the Cable Beach Club. 

Filming with Jimmy started in 1989. I needed to obtain a master interview, but he refused to do one in Broome. Instead, he wanted me to do it on his homeland at Lombadina. This suited me perfectly, and the two of us spent a week camping out on Country. He did the interview and then showed us round nearby Beagle Bay, which was the site of the first mission in East Kimberley, founded in 1890. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people from all over Western Australia were forcibly removed from their parents and taken to this mission. Mission activities stopped in the early 1970s and Beagle Bay became a self-governing Indigenous community in 1976.

Scenes from the theatre production were filmed for the documentary without the audience present. These were intercut with interviews with Jimmy and his long-time friend and colleague Stephen Albert. The documentary culminates in the opening night at the 1990 Perth Festival and includes interviews with some of the original cast, including Ernie Dingo.

Bran Nue Dae was a runaway hit, playing to packed audiences. This was followed by highly successful seasons in Sydney and Melbourne plus an international tour. Not only did it become one of Australia’s most successful musicals, but it also brought acclaim for many Aboriginal artists including Yamatji man Ernie Dingo, Walmadjari woman Josie Ningali Lawford and Goa, Gunggari, Wakka Wakka Murri woman Leah Purcell. Its success led Jimmy to create a second musical, Corrugation Road, which similarly toured Australia and broke box office records. 

Jeremy Eccles, reviewing Bran Nue Dae in The Bulletin, wrote that Jimmy was “turning the Aboriginal survival skills of mimicry and irreverence to expose the foolishness and cruelty of the invaders who, for two centuries, have been trying to change black to white.”¹

Bran Nue Dae (1991 Australia 55 mins)

Prod, Dir: Tom Zubrycki Phot: Joel Peterson Ed: Ray Thomas Mus: Jimmy Chi, Stephen Pigram, Michael Manolis, Patrick Bin Amat, Gary Gower

Cast: Stephen B’Aamba Albert, Maroochy Barambah, Ernie Dingo, Robert Faggette, John Moore

Endnotes