Dead Men Talking finds actor Max Cullen and Warren Fahey, as Lawson and Paterson, having a casual drink at Leviticus Bar and Grill, Heaven’s Gate, and sparring over their lives, and legacies in verse, yarns and song.  

“We’re reacquainting ourselves with each other and Banjo is a little surprised to see Henry in that place,” Fahey said. 

“We have a laugh, dissect each others personality, but along the track we also realise that we have a lot in common despite our differences.” 

There’s some friendly leg-pulling over Paterson replacing Lawson on the ten dollar note, a subject close to the hearts of the audience in Gulgong, the Ten Dollar Town.

In turn, Paterson gets a ribbing for selling his most famous work, Waltzing Matilda, to the Billy Tea company to be used as an advertising jingle. 

Dead Men Talking also takes up the war of words played out in verses published in the Bulletin between 1892 and 1893. 

The poetic battle, in which Lawson, Paterson and others pitted their contrasting views of the bush against each other, was dreamed up by Lawson to make more money from The Bulletin, which paid writers by the line. 

“That’s what the reality was,” Fahey said.  “It started out as a bit of a joke, but Henry took it too serious and started to write some very depressing verse. 

“We continue that battle.” 

Fahey said the poetry of Paterson and Lawson struck a chord with readers at the time around Federation, when Australia was in the grip of a prolonged drought and many people had moved to the city or the coast. 

The city versus country debate appealed not only to those still living in the bush, but also to city dwellers nostalgic for the rural life – or glad to have escaped it. 

In contrast to Paterson’s gentler, often humorous view, Lawson pulled no punches when writing about the hardships and poverty of bush life. 

“Paterson remodelled the bush ballad a bit, and Lawson put on the bolts,” Fahey said. 

“Telling people some truths about the bush was important to him, especially to people who lived in the city.” 

Dead Men Talking grew from Cullen’s one-man theatre show about Henry Lawson.  

“He felt he was only telling one side of the story, so he approached me and said would I be Banjo Paterson,”  Fahey said. 

“I said I wanted to be Henry Lawson – but I lost out.” 

Fahey said he related to Lawson’s rebellious nature and thought Banjo Paterson was a “bit of a silvertail”. 

But after many months in the role, Fahey has become comfortable in the shoes of Paterson, who penned favourites such as Clancy of the Overflow and The Man From Snowy River. 

“He did end up a silvertail, but his father went bust on the land twice, so he was not a privileged person in that respect,” Fahey said. 

“In contrast to Henry, who had a lot of demons, he would have seemed privileged, but both of them were on the goldfields and both saw lots of troubles.” 

Dead Men Talking was an instant success when it opened in Melbourne this year and has continued to tour to sold-out houses. 

Fahey said the success of Dead Men Talking shows many people still feel strongly about the two poets’ place in Australian culture. 

“They are much loved and no one wants to see the works disappear,” he said. 

Although they have been asked to take Dead Men Talking to places as far away as Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cullen and Fahey deliberately chose to tour the Central West, including Paterson’s birthplace, Orange, and Lawson’s boyhood home in Gulgong. 

The tour will not only give them a chance to revisit the poets’ stomping grounds, but also to perform in venues such as the Royal Hotel in Hill End and  Gulgong’s Prince of Wales Opera House, where Fahey performed with the bush band The Larrikins 25 years ago. 

Mudgee misses out on this tour in favour of Wellington, Cullen’s birthplace, but the pair hope to bring Dead Men Talking to the Mudgee Brewery next year. 

Local audiences can see Dead Men Talking at the Royal Hotel in Hill End on Monday, August 3, at 8pm, or the Prince of Wales Opera House in Gulgong on Wednesday, August 5, at 8pm. 

Tickets to the Gulgong performance are available from the Gulgong Post Office (cash sales) or online from www.gulgongmads.com

Tickets to the Hill End performance are available from the Hill End Arts Council and office of Environment and Heritage or online at deadmentalking-hillend.floktu.com

Sunny plains’! Great Scott! — those burning  wastes of barren soil and sand 

With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land! 

Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies, 

Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes; 

Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep 

Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep. 

Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass 

Turned from some infernal furnace on a plain devoid of grass.

So you’re back from up the country, Mister Lawson, where you went,

And you’re cursing all the business in a bitter discontent;

Well, we grieve to disappoint you, and it makes us sad to hear

That it wasn’t cool and shady — and there wasn’t plenty beer,

And the loony bullock snorted when you first came into view;

Well, you know it’s not so often that he sees a swell like you;

And the roads were hot and dusty, and the plains were burnt and brown,

And no doubt you’re better suited drinking lemon-squash in town.