Ben Mingay returns to WA Opera for The Pirates Of Penzance season at His Majesty’s Theatre

When Ben Mingay mentioned his upcoming WA Opera production of The Pirates Of Penzance in Perth to his octogenarian parents David and Susan, who are no longer fans of flying, it set the wheels in motion for a Mingay family road trip. “They thought they might like to come across, and I said, ‘Oh, well, let’s drive, and then we can all go together’,” the 46-year-old bass baritone recounts following their nine-day adventure from Newcastle. “It meant I could look after them and we had a great old road trip, just the three of us cruising across the Nullarbor. “We went quite the scenic route, sort of down to Adelaide and then around to Port Lincoln, Esperance and Albany. It was a really beautiful trip. We had plenty of tailgate stops for smoked fish sandwiches and then just kept rolling.” It is a perk none of them could have foreseen in the late 1990s when Mingay swapped his construction job, where he was making pretty good money for his age, to follow his pipe dream of a career on stage and screen. While the decision was both terrifying and questioned by most of the authority figures in his life at the time, Mingay knew in his heart it was what he wanted and went down the rabbit hole, taking all the challenges it came with in his stride. Like when the director of Hair, the first professional musical he booked, was searching for special skills in the cast during the first day of rehearsal and eager to please Mingay said he could fire breathe, despite having never done so. Many would find themselves immediately becoming unstuck when then asked to produce their non-existent fire breathing certification to stage management. “The next morning, I went straight to Circular Quay and rounded up some fire breathers,” Mingay says. “It turned out one of them was a fire-breathing certifier, so I got them to teach me how to do it, they certified me on the spot, and I walked back with a certificate. “I had to fire-breathe eight shows a week for about six months. I don’t know if it was the best choice, but I got pretty good at it in the end. You’ve got to be willing.” It is an admirable quality to possess and leaves Mingay with an abundance of stories to regale others, including the time he offered to be the stunt driver for Newcastle local legend magician Super Hubert’s satirical Superman act. “I’ve always been a bit of a revhead growing up out the back of Newcastle, so stunt driver was kind of a natural progression,” he says. “We used to do the Variety Club Bash and he’d lost his driver, and needed someone to do the stunt show with his hotted up little Toyota Crown. I put my hand up and learnt the ropes on stunt driving around the arena with him swinging from a 10-foot pole off the roof of it.” Mingay is the youngest of five siblings in his family, who all squeezed into a two-bedroom shack in Wallsend, which he describes as truly the end of the earth in Newcastle. “We had about 20 acres and backed onto a big old dirt quarry, so we spent a lot of time outdoors, and it was always a mad house, because there was so many of us in such a small space,” he laughs. “Maybe that’s where I got my performing flare from, having to sort of vie for attention.” Mingay’s musical talent started to surface during childhood when he discovered an old flamenco guitar in the toy cupboard that someone had gifted to his mum. He would also listen to his sister’s piano lessons and then sneak in afterwards to play by ear what she had just been taught, musing he kind of knew he had a bit of a musical bone in his body. “Then I got shipped off to boarding school and started to be quite disruptive there,” he says. “My parents and the housemasters got together and said, ‘we need to funnel this energy into something outside of school hours’, which was the school play. So that was my introduction into performing and it turned out I had a knack for it.” With no immediate plan after high school to take it much further than the rock band Mingay sang in on weekends, it was a lighthearted dare from his construction workmates that gave him the impetus he needed. “I had my hotted up Valiant station wagon with the floppy dice and the big side pipes, and I was working on the F3 bypass,” Mingay says, who now lives in Coal Point on Lake Macquarie. “The lads all knew I sang a bit and somebody had cut this thing out of the paper about a scholarship to Newcastle Conservatorium of Music for opera voice. They all had a bit of a laugh saying ‘oh, you’re a singer Mingay, you should audition’. I said ‘that’ll never happen’ and then they all threw in a carton of beer each and $50 and dared me to do it. So I did and then I ended up getting a scholarship. It was quite a roundabout way to get in there.” He progressed to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where vocal coach Maree Ryan told Mingay he had a unique voice, particularly for his age, which could take him far with the right training. “It wasn’t until that point that I thought, ‘Yeah, maybe, okay’,” he shares. “I really enjoyed doing opera, which was surprising, because before that scholarship, I would never have thought twice about opera. Then once I got involved, I really started to fall in love with it. It’s just one of those things that you happen to stumble upon and happen to love.” But his career has not been limited to only classical voice. As an actor, Mingay’s bio is filled with a myriad of TV roles from Packed To The Rafters and Wonderland to Frayed and Home And Away, while musical theatre gigs have ranged from Dirty Dancing and Shrek! The Musical to touring nationally with cabaret act Swing On This. Despite enjoying his screen work, Mingay says there is nothing like performing on stage. “It’s alive, and it’s in the moment, and it’s just always so off the cuff,” he states. “You never know what’s going to happen. There’s always a surprise and something that goes wrong or super right. I just love that aspect of it. “I think the older you get, the more you sort of hang out in this biz, and you develop relationships with directors and producers and that’s how you’re able to add more of those strings to your bow.” This includes developing a great relationship with director Stuart Maunder who Mingay worked with for his 2019 WA Opera debut as the titular role in Sweeney Todd. The Pirates Of Penzance season at His Majesty’s Theatre marks the third iteration of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates the pair has done together, first in Adelaide for State Opera South Australia’s G & S Fest in 2023, before another production of the operetta in Brisbane at the end of 2024. “The version we did in Adelaide, which was sold out to rave reviews, that’s pretty much the version we’re going to do here,” Mingay says ahead of his role as The Pirate King. “Except it’s a bit more souped up, because we’ve got more firepower with WA Symphony Orchestra and WA Opera, so it’ll just be that little bit more specky. “We’re going back to the script and the roots and the music, so I think that’s why this is going to be a really great rendition. I’ve been involved in quite a few, and I’ve also seen a bunch of them over the years. I feel like there’s a tendency to sort of ham things up a little bit too much in some renditions.” While Arthur Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert may have premiered their two act comic opera in 1879 New York, Mingay believes its political and social commentary is “bang on”, making it just as relevant to today, with a broad audience appeal. He uses himself as a prime example. “I was from a working-class background, so I was never really exposed to a lot of this stuff, but the show that actually got me interested in more classical things was The Pirates Of Penzance,” he explains. “I was forced to play Frederic in the school production. Frederic’s a tenor, and I was well and truly a bass baritone, so that’s quite funny. We made a few adjustments to some of the top notes, and I fell in love with my leading lady, of course, as you do. “I think for the general pop who are coming to watch it, or thinking about coming to watch it, it’s entertaining, funny, swift, has a really clever script, and the music is just some of the best music out there. It is special and impressive enough in the classical sense that it appeals to both the opera buffs and the musical theatre buffs and everybody.” Mingay admits it is hard to skirt around the stamp Jon English put on The Pirate King role in Australia’s history of performing this romp across the high seas, but he takes his lead from the script, delivering the necessary swagger and buffoonery. “He’s got all the pomp and the show, but he’s not that smart,” Mingay says. “I enjoy playing that aspect, and we’ve got a great cast to complement that as well. I just need to keep my swords in their sleeves. “In Brisbane, we had an episode where I was excited to welcome Frederic back to the gang in Act II and I went to pull out his sword, and my sword was also in the scabbard. Mine got hooked on his and flung into the third row of the audience. So, you never know what you’re going to get with Pirates. You might get a sword in the chest, but you’ll definitely be entertained because there’s never a dull moment.” The Pirates Of Penzance is at His Majesty’s Theatre, March 28 to April 5. Tickets at waopera.asn.au.

Ben Mingay returns to WA Opera for The Pirates Of Penzance season at His Majesty’s Theatre

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