Illawarra Performing Arts Centre

September 3-5

Malcolm Whittaker has set out to create everyone's idea of the best theatre show ever - while also admitting it's a "futile" exercise.

To prepare for Jumping the Shark Fantastic, Whittaker asked a lot of people in the region what they would love to see on stage, with a view to incorporating that into the play.

In the process, he realised that you can't please everyone.

"One person's best show ever is a family-friendly show and other people want to see everyone naked and drugs and explosions.

"So it's futile in many different ways. One, in terms of representing any of this adequately and then, two, that there are so many contractions in what would be everyone's best show ever that to put them all together means you've ultimately pleased no one.

"It's quite a silly idea to begin with and a lot of the work I make is a very silly idea that then goes too far and gets taken too seriously. And I think that's what I've done on this occasion."

But it's not as hopeless as it sounds - the team at Merrigong saw Whittaker's version of the show in Campbelltown and liked it so much they brought him down here to do it again.

But the show Illawarra audiences see will be different to what Campbelltown theatregoers got - because the input is different.

"It's responses to wherever I go so it's a new show each time around and responds to the desires of the people wherever I go," he says.

"So Campbelltown was the first time I'd done it and I was still working it up. But now I have this residency model for a theatre show that gets made and remade wherever it might get presented."

And, yes, he actually did ask people what they wanted to see and it turns out some had less imagination than others.

"A lot of people defer to shows they've already seen," he says.

"So a lot of people think the best show already exists and it's the Phantom of the Opera or an array of musicals. Then other people like to go crazy and make up all-new things, little scenes that might happen in their heads."

The name of the production is a reference to a scene in the 1974-84 TV series Happy Days, in which The Fonz literally jumps over a shark while wearing water skis.

It's a phrase that has since gone on to denote the moment a TV series - or anything else - begins its decline.

In that, Whittaker thought he'd found a perfect title for his show.

"The idea to completely satisfy everyone is similar to a television show running out of ideas of their own and shamelessly trying to keep their audience watching variations of nonsense," he says.

"I thought it was an appropriate title. This is the moment that theatre jumped the shark."