Chapter 1: What are the myths surrounding the Craig McLachlan case?
unfiltered episode 2
Hello, my name is Vanessa Scammell and in the second episode of Unfiltered, Michael Caine and Craig McLachlan continue to discuss all things not guilty. They delve into the backstage culture of the Rocky Horror Show, evidence that was presented in court and the very real human experience of fronting up to a criminal court case. And again, the big question arises.
Should people who choose to go to the press before the police be protected with anonymity in the court systems? Should their names be protected if their allegations have been plastered over newspapers and television sets for everyone to see?
Craig, um... Backstage culture, especially in live theatre, it's not like your typical workplace, like being working in an office or anywhere like that, for that matter. Especially on the Rocky Horror Show, I would imagine before you go out on stage, It's highly charged backstage, you know, a lot of people.
It would be akin to a grand final in the dressing room ready to walk out and produce the goods.
You have to be pumped. You do. In a show like Rocky, it's super energised anyway. People are expecting a party. One of the things that helped was the crowd was always rowdy and up for it, especially Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, you know. You feel the crowd backstage before you even go out and do the first number. And you're right. You're cracking gags at each other.
You're pumping each other up. There was a thing going on with our cast. When we'd go to get our mics checked each night, the sound department would put a subject, they'd write a topic on a bit of paper and we'd have to come up with the naughtiest, most politically incorrect poems. You're in next to nothing, you're crying with laughter and then you're on.
So you're right, there was a sense of every performance was like an important footy match or whatever.
And it's like it's such an iconic show, isn't it, The Rocky Horror, where a lot of people in that audience have already seen it five times over and it's almost like you need to bring it every time. You can't have a night where you're having a lull night.
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Chapter 2: How does the backstage culture of the Rocky Horror Show influence performances?
You're worried about what to say to anyone these days that could land you in trouble. It's almost like you've got to walk past people and not say a word. just to play it safe, but in your industry, you have to speak, you have to rehearse, you have to be constant. If you're working in an office, you can sit in an office space and be away from everyone all day.
An actor has to be in the other person's face to get things done.
Certainly for a theatre show, if it's a show like Rocky, there are a number of shows where it's physical. Choreographed dance numbers are physical. You're holding each other over your head, draped over your body. They're sliding down your body. You might be sliding on their body.
There's a, for want of a better word, there is just a physical intimacy with so many musicals, certainly, and certain plays. You know, you've got plays where there are love scenes and all the rest of it. I mean, to be honest with you, Michael...
You know, I shot films in Europe where I saw a love scene in the script and thought, oh, well, that'll just be a kiss and a cuddle and they'll shoot that. No, the directors demanded all your gear off.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of anonymity for accusers in court?
The actress has got her gear off. We crack a few jokes about the fact that, You know, have I got any dimples? No, do I? But you do it. Humour is often, it's confronting doing that sort of work, but humour gets you through it. But now I talk to people who don't audition for certain jobs because it's so difficult to exist, certainly as we once did.
I never saw anyone deliberately setting out to make anyone feel uncomfortable.
If you actually, you know, in rehearsal, even in the show, if you touched someone accidentally, inappropriately, that was taken the wrong way, misconstrued, that person, especially if you were friends... would probably go, oh, holy shit.
Of course you do.
But there was none of that, especially in that 2014 production.
No, no. And again, I'm working with people who wouldn't, be backward in coming forward. My accusers wanted journalists and the public to believe that there was no culture. Well, that's a lie, again. It was very telling when witnesses, and I can talk about this, this happened in open court, witnesses were asked about the culture in the Rocky Horror Show. These are prosecution witnesses.
That's their team, not my team. Oh, yes, what sort of things would you do? Oh, well, we'd sit on each other. You'd sit on each other.
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Chapter 4: How does Craig McLachlan compare performing in Rocky Horror to a grand final?
Yeah. We'd lounge on each other. Is this during performance? Oh, no, this is just us backstage. Is it true that you would tweak Mr McLaughlin's nipples and sing a Barbra Streisand song? Oh, yes, I'm sure I did. And on and on and on. So that was just how it was.
And in a way, there was a lot of hypocrisy there in regards to saying that you sat on someone's knee when that same person was sitting on your knee in a picture. You wouldn't even go to court regarding that, just the fact that you knew that you would have something that would discredit yourself.
You're absolutely right. I was flabbergasted by that. All I did in court was madly make notes. So when they're coming out, prosecution witnesses are saying, you know...
oh, we'd slap each other's bums, we'd do this, that and the other thing, and it suddenly occurred to me, it's like, okay, so in fitting in with the cast, and again, I didn't do anything that was disproportionate to what was going on around me, it's okay for everyone else to sit on someone's lap, or it's okay for everyone else to slap someone on the bum in jest as they're running on stage.
But for the leading man, it's not okay. But hang on a minute. No complaints were ever made. Never made. There was never a single formal complaint about accidentally touching someone somewhere that they didn't like or whatever. And there's this whole myth that, well, they only didn't complain because I was so powerful.
And now I know that he didn't have that power to stop me from coming back or to stop me from working again.
So I'm so powerful that you stick your finger up my buttocks before I go on stage. I'm so powerful that you try and pull my pants down in front of the cast and crew. I'm so powerful with the power of your future in my hand that you give me wedges on... This is the stuff that was never reported. Moreover, it was stuff that these friends never offered up in their interviews. Quite the opposite.
One of them even happy to let the press think I was the big bully on Rocky Horror Show, at least for that week in Melbourne, however long it was. She never told the journalists that, in fact, I was never the bully in the show. She was bullied relentlessly by...
I think the most powerful thing out of all this is the timeline, which has already been detailed out, but it's going to be brought up again and again and again for anyone that still has any doubts in their mind. 2014, the cast, 2015, 2016, there's still no allegations. The show stops, it gets rebooted for 2018, and all of a sudden the people that were in 2014 that weren't in the cast
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Chapter 5: What was the outcome of the Victorian police's financial settlement?
Lawyers, legal professionals haven't even caught up to the digital age, and what I mean by that is social media and the internet. They will admit... So the feeling was, that's it. And I felt that the truth, because it wasn't reported, you honestly think for one second if I had conducted a hasty interview with Knowles or whoever on that Friday, do you think it would be edited fairly?
Yeah.
Because was any of this balanced? Well, it's beyond words. I can't adequately articulate how it feels. I can tell you though, if I'd been a serial bank robber and I'd been caught on CCTV and I'd finally been caught out and identified, you'd have to roll with that, wouldn't you? But when you know in your guts and your heart that you never ever did anything wrong, it was never your intention,
to hurt upset make anyone feel less than and yet you're being charged with a catalogue of charges some that are doubled up and trebled up because they just want to get you especially with everything you know that the media circus had put out there it's almost like i'm
If it was me, I'd be saying, I'm up shit creek here. That's the way I'd be feeling. And you must be feeling that as well, because it's almost like, here's a question. At this point, do you have a fair indication who these accusers were?
i know yeah oh yeah the fact that it had gone this far the fact that everything had been taken away and it wasn't just blake and rocky horror shows were being developed for me and on and on and on not because i was powerful i wasn't funding these things Everything was gone. Blake was taken off till everything was gone. They'll still get that story out.
They'll destroy me and they'll protect those people.
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Chapter 6: How has the landscape of the theatre industry changed post-#MeToo?
And in doing so, hopefully the truth will never come out. It's time for the truth to come out. And that's what Vanessa's doing.
With the accusations and the charges, my question is... If these were so heinous, why not go to the police first? Why go to the media first? That's what gets me. If it's anything sexual, you'd think you'd be knocking on the police door before going to the media and let it play out.
You'd at least mention it to your husband, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you? Mm-hm. But you go to the media and it's not their first rodeo and they've got all that material and then they say... Okay, now you need to go to the cops. I mean, it's an arse about way to go about it, isn't it?
Do you know when the Me Too thing exploded on the scene, I remember saying to Nessa, you know, we've all known some bullying folks in show business over the years, but I remember saying to Nessa, this is dangerous. This is dangerous because due process is going to go out the window.
There will be people taken down who are taken down just because someone doesn't like them or because someone is jealous of their success, because someone wants to have what they have. Why can't I have that career?
At some point, you know, if you would have said something that, hey, Craig did this to me, the bloke would want to punch your f***ing lights out. So this didn't come up until later. And she's also quoted as saying that, you know, she didn't know what it was. She didn't know at the time.
I didn't know I was being harassed at the time. You know, I just thought it was all jokey. I'll tell you something after 40 years in the business. If you don't think you're being harassed, you're not f***ing being harassed. She's not an idiot. Do you know what I mean?
She's a big, tall, 30-something-year-old woman at the time with a huge sense of humour who's quoted in podcasts or interviews as saying, ''There is no joke that can offend me.''
Christy Whelan-Brown, she was also, there was a period in her life, apparently she was sending pictures of her poo to cast members. I don't find that amusing in any way. In fact, I find that probably disturbing, is that sort of trying to characterise her in that way, but she has done that. What do you think about that?
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Chapter 7: What challenges did Craig face during the criminal proceedings?
Well, you know, certainly showing photos of your own faeces. Did she send you any? Oh, she showed me a right before going on stage one night and was about to show me a second one when the company manager knocked on the door. But of course, showing the leading man who's so powerful, who has your future potentially in his hands. How are you really going to endear yourself to him?
Mr. *** described the atmosphere on set as touchy and noted that cast members were often affectionate with each other, which included hugging, kissing and sitting on one another's lap. He told the court of an incident where Miss Whelan Brown shared images of her faeces with other cast members. She was going through a phase of taking photos of her poo and showing it to the cast.
Her humour wasn't in line with mine.
Yeah, that's what I would do if there was a person I'm working with who I think, wow. He could really take me somewhere with my career.
Leading into the court case, how are you feeling? Like weeks out, days out, nervous?
I'll try and give a short answer on that, which I'm not very good at ever doing. It's not like you? Yes. Yes. Very nervous. But it was a funny sort of nervousness. On the one hand, I couldn't wait to get into court. I know that sounds crazy. I couldn't wait to get into court to have my say. The nervousness came because of big media.
Yeah.
Covering it, you know, walking in and out of the courts. Just I knew what I'd be in for. I'd made a couple of brief appearances before the case started in earnest. It was just awful. I had more anxiety about how it would be covered. Now what are they going to do? So that... That brought about a level of anxiety that went way beyond actually appearing in the matter, if that makes sense.
I couldn't wait to have my say, but everything that went with it, all of those other elements that I knew I'd have to deal with, that was the shit that really rattled me.
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