‘…Australia Will Be There…’  Or  ‘…Cooee…digger!
Who’ll come a Fightin’ the Kaiser with Me?
We’ll drink all his beer, and eat up all his sausages.
Who’ll come a fightin’ the Kaiser with me?’

Fightin’ the Kaiser is a one – man vaudevillian melodrama incorporating the songs, poems, letters, anecdotes, reportage and reminiscences of the ANZACS.

Glen Phillips plays Gassy, a wounded vet eternally inhabiting the no man’s land of a veteran’s hospital. He talks, sings, jokes and rails at ‘Young Tippen’, his best mate; ‘…long dead on Anzac…’ and now forever young in a portrait on his bureau.

Through caricature, larrikin humour and great WW1 songs, Gassy reflects upon the Great War. He jokes with Tippen about their recruitment in Sydney, teases him over their hi-jinks in Egypt, roars about the trials and tribulations of the Dardanelles and reflects on the great tragedy of the Western Front.

‘You were lucky to cop it on Anzac Tippen; you missed the worst of it.’

A powerful WW1 drama with a sense of humour and great songs.

‘Could you please pass on my thanks to the actor for an absolutely wonderful performance yesterday for our Year 9 cohort at Scots. I was, along with the 100 or so students, completely transfixed on Gassy and engrossed in the stories he told. It was an awesome opportunity for the boys to experience such an emotionally rich account of the events of WWI, from a character who had clearly never been able to escape from the battlefields of WWI and recover from “shell-shock”.

It is a topic that is not widely covered in any of the educational textbooks, so to have the issue tackled through such a confronting medium will have a lasting impression on the boys and provide a basis for some excellent discussion over the coming weeks.
Thank you again for the work you do and I look forward to seeing you back at the College some time soon.’

The Scots College

‘This was one of my favourite performances ever. It was funny, emotional and very moving. The actor is an extremely passionate person who put a lot of time into research for the play. It was emotional for the audience, as many could relate to family members who were also involved in war and have suffered physical and mental illness as a result. It was very exciting and emotional to watch one man play many characters and made us feel as if we were in a room with a group of war veterans. He managed to do this with very little props and no set. The show was extremely emotional and moving.’

Year 9 student St Aloysius College