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Don't ignore your health concerns. Our expert team is ready to help. Fasten your seat belt. It's going to be a bumpy night. Infinity and beyond, just love finding new places to wind down the a contender. I could have been somebody. There is no place like. Life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Well, it's that time of the week where we go behind the scenes of another movie classic and just a warning that the language in this movie can be sometimes a little salty.

Well. Why not look, he's turned into a bloody good little performer. That's right. A bloody good little performer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I thought we were getting away from all the shit. Two's company. Three's a party. Bernadette, my suite. We're in plugging our curling ones and going Bush for this year. Why would you possibly want to leave all this glamour for a hike in the middle of nowhere? You really want to know?

Desperate. Well, ever since I was a lad, I've had this dream, a dream that I now finally have a chance to fulfill, and that is to travel to the centre of Australia, climb Kings Canyon as a queen in a full length Gaultier sequin heels and a tiara. Great, that's just what this country needs, a cock in a frock on a rock. I'll get back in your kennels, both of you. Now, the first thing we have to work out.

How the hell we're going to get the. So this week, it's the Australian Oscar winning 1994 musical comedy hit The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Television producer with Mind got films. Bill Hughes has selected a bill. Good morning and welcome.

Good morning, Pat. I thought it was time for a bit of light relief leading us into Christmas just to give everyone a giggle. Anybody?

OK, now, before we talk about what went on behind the scenes, tell us the basic yarn. Many people have seen it, of course, because it was a hugely popular movie. But what's the story?

The story is that two drag queens and their friend, a transgender woman, want to go to play an engagement as Alice Springs because one of the drag queens in a previous life had a son by and was married. And his wife, ex-wife is now running this resort in Alice Springs and she needs a show for all of her customers. And she just thought it would be great to have a fabulous drag show from Sydney to come and brighten up the locals lives so they get a bus, the three of them, and they head off together and drive across the bush on a very quite a treacherous journey because, as you know, Australia just goes on and on and on, thousands and thousands of miles with nothing happening.

And there they are in the bus and they're not mechanics. And so things break down and they come across local and aboriginals and they come across local homophobes and they pull into backwater towns where the last thing people want to see are drag queens. And rather than hide the fact that they're drag queens, they go to local bars in full drag, but show drag. So it's like way over the top. So it's like slapping people in the face and it's just hilarious.

And the cast, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce and the legendary Terence Stamp, Terence Stamp plays Bernadette Bernadette, the transgender woman, and she's just had a bereavement. Her long term partner has died. So she's at a loose end. So that's her motivation for going. You've just heard the motivation of the young drag queen, why he wants to go. And then the other guy, it's because of his wife. But the whole thing of being able to put a cast like that together, number one, they had to have a knockout soundtrack.

Number two, they had to be convincing as drag queens. And so the costumes had to be extraordinary. And number three, they all had to be bloody good actors. So and the casting did take a long time. And putting it together, director Steven Elliott, and he he went through so many iterations of what the perfect casting would be. And it was very, very difficult to raise the money as well. I mean, he made three trips to Cannes to try and raise the money, even though he had a film called Fraud's in competition in Cannes, he still couldn't really get a hearing with people to help him out.

But he managed to to bring in the Australian Film Corporation. They put up some money. And on one of his trips to Cannes, he managed to meet Tony Curtis. And Tony Curtis loved the script and approves that he'd be in it. So he was going to play the part of Bernadette and then that fell through.

And then the producer on the film had been friends with David Bowie. And David Bowie was lined up to be the drag queen who's who had a son. And that fell through. And then John hurt and that fell through. And then when Tony Curtis fell through, John Cleese fell through.

So, I mean, it was the maddest collection of people.

But eventually they settled on one casting, which was Rupert Everett and Mr Donovan, the Kylie's sidekick, and Jason Donovan, Jason Donovan. But at the first production meeting, they had an unholy row. Rupert Everett and Jason Donovan did not get on at all and were very rude to the production staff. So it was back to the back to the drawing board for the casting and eventually it all started to fall together.

Hugo Weaving new the director. And so he was a shoo in.

And Guy Pearce literally at the 11th hour, just before filming, he was plucked from neighbors. This was his break. He came out of neighbours and was straight into Priscilla. And Terence Stamp came on board with Grace. And the whole thing was made for the phenomenal sum of 2000 at two million, two point seven million Australian dollars, which at the time was about two million euro. And so low, low budget and what let's before we proceed, let's hear another scene, because you mentioned that they get stranded from time to time and they have all sorts of vicissitudes, Priscilla being the vehicle, of course.

So let's have a listen to that scene.

Well, I've had a look around, and I think we can safely assume that I now know less about motors than I did when I first lifted up that bonus. Know what? This does not think about it for the moment and eat breakfast anyway. Oh, that's a novel idea. Let's stuff ourselves to death. Imagine the headlines. Whales beached themselves in the outback. Mystery broomsticks dead in drag. There's no point in walking back the only life I saw for the last million miles.

But to hypnotize bunnies, most of them are now wedged in the tires or somebody will drive past for sure. Or keep the fire burning. Yeah, some toast. Marshmallows and champagne for when they arrive. What if they don't drive past? Look, you're not helping here. State your hormones help. Why do you stick to the main road? What difference does it make now? You got us into this. Anthony Belrose and I suggest you start thinking about how to get us back.

I don't fancy your chances of ever trying to be a husband again. Jesus, what are we going to do?

We're going to start up with a little facelift, nothing like a new frock to brighten up, you know, and, you know, on the face of it, an outlandish script, an outlandish concept, an outlandish movie. But the world loved it.

It caught fire. People just loved it for its color film, particularly the costumes. Like there's an extraordinarily iconic scene where Priscilla is driving through the outback and the Guy Pearce character is up on the roof in silver.

That goes on for yards and yards of silver blowing in the wind while he's lip synching to an operatic aria.

It is serious, but there's just so much of it that's like that. But the costumes, the costume designer was given the king's ransom budget of 20000 Australian dollars in total for the whole film and even had to get the inmates in one of the local jails in Sydney to try and make the pom poms with the drag frocks. But then what happened was they were the ones who got nominated for the Oscar because the costumes literally leap off the screen, did the most fabulous thing.

So so these unknown costume designers, the next thing where the toast of Hollywood and then also the soundtrack, the soundtrack, just everybody fell in love with it because it was heavily a lot of ABBA.

But songs like I've Never Been to me buy Charlene, I Will Survive. Gloria Gaynor finally by C.C. Pastan and of course, Mamma Mia by ABBA. So when you have a soundtrack like that and great one liners, I mean, it was hard to pick a clip of dialogue that didn't have explosives yet. Again, I would like to find the clips that I did. I had to really go through it with a fine tooth comb, say, well, that'll work, that'll work.

So it's a good job. You'll get some of the words slip by because otherwise there going to be no clips.

Yeah, well, what people have to get a flavor of what the dialogue is like. Hence the salty bits that we left in.

The crew, of course, worked for cut price rates, but they must have got a dividend because they they were in it for a share of profits. So do they end up being well rewarded?

Oh, yeah, because in in Australia, like, it took to cost two point seven million, but at the Australian box office alone, it took 20 million just at the box office there. And then in America it took another 25 million. And worldwide, I think grossed about a hundred million. So it was a phenomenal return. So everybody was handsomely paid and was well remunerated and rewarded.

And but but it wasn't without its controversy because there is a portrayal of the Filipino wife of the mechanic that they eventually meet.

And there was an outcry about her portrayal that it was a very mean spirited and that a film that's looking for tolerance of gays was was not very accepting of the stereotype of the Filipino, the what you call it, the mail order bride. But they got over that because they said, listen, if we're portraying that and they're saying that's representative the Filipinos. Are you saying then that drag queens are representative of all Australian males? I don't think so. So so so that line of logic fell down, but there you go.

Well, Bill, thank you very much for reminding us of the wonderful entertainment that is the adventures of Priscilla, queen of the Desert, and Bill Hughes, television producer with mind the the films. Very happy Christmas to you, Bill.

This Christmas, why not secretly send someone you love, the gift of Cadbury?

Don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to send your loved one to Kate Retreat's and show them you're thinking of them this festive season with the Cadbury Secret Santa. Head over to Secret Santa Cabrito TIGI, or visit our Cadbury Ireland Facebook page for more information.