If you think too much cricket is not enough … we have just the show for you. Cricket The Musical makes its return this year, shadowing the English Cricket team’s tour this summer.
Starting in Perth on November 19 Denis Carnahan’s one-man show will tour to all the cricket capitals – Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Carnahan is a singer, songwriter and satirist who is also responsible for that other cultural event – Rugby League The Musical.
Cricket The Musical is a shape-shifting beast that will change from show to show, depending on what happens on the various pitches.
“The 2025-2026 cricket season is destined to be filled with controversy and pantomime, from the World Test Championship to the West Indies series, followed by the always hilarious touring English cricketers,” Carnahan says.
He lampoons the English as a matter of national pride and explores things such as “the slapstick of Bazball”. (For the uninitiated Bazball is an aggressive, fearless style of Test cricket championed by the England team, coached by Kiwi Brendon McCullum, whose nickname is “Baz”. It prioritises taking the initiative through high-risk, high-reward play, aiming to score as quickly as possible to force a result, and is characterised by bold decision-making in all aspects of the game.)
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“Add to that the drama of last season’s Indian shoulder charges and send offs and the burlesque of the Big Bash, and you have more comic narratives than any music theatre librettist could ever dream of!” continues Carnahan.
“So I can’t think of a better time to tour Cricket The Musical and bring people together around their shared love of the game than while the energy is high and the crowds are buzzing around the country this summer.”
As Australia’s hardest-working musical sports satirist Carnahan will use his unique spin to review all the standout moments of this summer’s cricket, along with the game’s history of treachery, villainy, facial hair and illegal abrasives.
For almost two decades he has been producing songs and parodies about the many colourful characters and controversies Australian sport produces. They go to air weekly on the ABC and have previously featured on The Footy Show, Fox Sports, Triple M and elsewhere.
His songs about Stuart Broad’s sportsmanship, MCC selection policies, Mitchell Johnson’s moustache and other sports have had millions of hits on YouTube.
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With a nod towards the English pantomime tradition, Carnahan is happy for you to boo the villains and cheer the heroes as Cricket The Musical brings songs to life on stage, with videos, sketches and caricatures celebrating the many controversies of this summer’s matches.
Among his characters is one known as Channel Nine, a fine historical figure of cricket manhood – Carnahan wearing stubbies, a World Series Cricket t-shirt and sporting a shaggy ’70s hairstyle and a moustache that is a nod to all the great facial hair of cricket. Mitchell Johnson’s mo was particularly memorable, Carnahan says.
“One of the songs in the show laments the fact that Travis Head is the only one who has a mo nowadays,” Carnahan says.
His Channel Nine character laments the disparate state of cricket broadcasting while his character The MCC gives us a potted history of cricket.
Carnahan grew up playing the game and his son continues the family tradition. Together they have experienced the highs and lows of a game invented by the English and mastered by the Aussies. He expects some of the touring Barmy Army to attend his shows, which follow the Test Matches between the two historical rivals.
“It’ll be fun having them here,” he says. “It is meant to be a bit of a pantomime and they will get that.”
English audience members should be warned that the Poms will be lampooned along the way. But hey, that’s cricket.
Cricket The Musical plays The Old Museum, Bowen Hills, Brisbane, December 2 and the Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide, December 14.