What does it take to create a new parody musical and premiere it at one of the world’s biggest arts festivals? As it turns out, a penchant for fun, a friendly collaborator, and a very serious deadline. Emma Knights and Samara Gill, co-creators of the parody musical Beauty & the Bachie, discuss inventing a new word, clocking many hours of reality TV viewing for the sake of ‘research’, and writing and producing original work.

To many, the process of writing a musical is a mystery. There are so many moving parts that it can seem overwhelming to even consider such a feat. But Knights and Gill have taken up the challenge and their creative process was not so linear.

Beauty & the Bachie is set to premiere in the Adelaide Fringe in February, so you’d be forgiven for thinking it was an idea conceived recently. However, as the creators explain, it is a product of many years of ideation, shelving, and returning to the process of creativity.

Gill reflects on the inspiration behind their musical, “we used to watch The Bachelor a lot together, and watch all the funny recaps after. When you first start out watching them… I was starry-eyed, [thinking] ‘isn’t it romantic?’ and as time goes on you just get more and more cynical watching… it feels very familiar.”

“Just before 2020, we were watching a season, and thought ‘we should write a musical about The Bachelor,’” Knights recalls. Gill, not taking her friend seriously, responds, “I thought you were joking.”

“So, we got some wine, went downstairs at [Sam’s] house, and we just wrote some songs. I think we wrote two songs for it that night, and it kind of got shelved for a while.”

It’s understandable that the idea was shelved given the events of the world in 2020, but as time went on the idea kept niggling at Knights and Gill. When Knights decided to take the project off the proverbial shelf, she took a chance at a grant funding application.

“I decided in September [2023], Fringe had their grants round and I thought ‘you know what? They’d probably get behind this idea and give us some funding.” Her optimism paid off, but not before she cheekily confessed that she didn’t let her co-writer in on her grant funding application.

“So, I put [the application] in, I didn’t talk to Sam beforehand, and then got the grant, so there were good tactics there, then said ‘So, Sam, that musical that we started… we have to write it now because it’s being performed in the Fringe. [We’re] two songs in, so that was in October, I think.”

The song titles were the first step for Knights and Gill. They had a lot of fun coming up with songs, and the titles alone sound like they’d do justice to the hilarity and melodrama of a typical episode of The Bachelor, as Gill explains.

“One of the most fun things was coming up with the titles because we tried to think of all the ridiculous cliché moments, for example “I Can’t Think With My Shirt On”, “Confess Your Love”, and “The Accidental Villain”.

“And I really wanted to incorporate into one of the songs, the way that when the bachelor kisses one of the girls, they’re all like PHWOAR! So there is a song called “Cocktail Party” and in brackets (Phwoar).”

Gill states that one doesn’t hear the word ‘phwoar’ in songs enough, while Knights proceeds to give us a short rendition of a chorus to one of their songs.

“Phwoar, she tried to kiss him, Phwoar, she tried to kiss him, Phwoar, she tried to kiss him… but he didn’t kiss her back.”

The creators wanted to shed light on the bittersweet truth behind reality TV participants’ experiences through their parody musical.

“We came up with the song list first, and we sort of covered so much in the songs, so then trying to work out how the story unfolded around that, that was a bit of a challenge. We wanted to make the story pretty clear in the way that these types of shows are very manufactured. They’re very scripted by the people in control of them, and the people on telly, they’re characters that have been produced. They don’t know at the time that that’s the character they’re going to be.”

The friendship between Emma and Sam is well established and there is a warmth and playfulness to the duo’s energy combined, which is reflected in the music they’ve described. Knights met Gill many years ago at the Flinders Street School of Music where they both studied and they’ve been friends ever since.

Gill and Knights emphasised that trust was a core ingredient for their effective collaboration, and their established friendship has helped their creative ideas move forward with ease.

“Because we’ve known each other for so long, and we’re just having a little fun, it was really easy to bring ideas. I was a bit nervous.”

“It’s always hard to be – when you’re trying to create something – completely open and honest and just throw your ideas out there, but I think that we could trust each other enough to do that without feeling too self conscious or almost ‘the sillier the better’. If something was too silly, we’d just have a giggle about it. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Better yet, both Knights and Gill are proficient pianists. It appears that technical proficiency and trust combined has served the duo well. While describing their creative process, they spoke in a call-and-response manner akin to two musicians in dialogue during a performance.

“We speak the same language. We were able to really bounce off each other.”

Samara gill

For those thinking that the show title implies references to any Disney films, Knights and Gill clarify that it’s more inspired by reality TV than Disney princesses.

“One of the first things we first bonded over was our joint love of Disney. We both grew up on it, and we’re probably heavily inspired by it. But, no you won’t see a whole lot of Disney inspiration.”

“It’s based predominantly on The Bachelor but we’ve tried to bring in a lot of other reality TV dating show things in as well. Parental guidance recommended. There’s no racy stuff. It’s a fairy tale, really, like all reality TV.”

In one final bid to get viewers along to their show, Gill stated, “If you have enjoyed The Bachelor, and you like reality TV a bit, you probably will enjoy it. If you like musicals, you’ll like it. If you hate The Bachelor you’ll probably like it.” Finally, Gill gives us a spontaneous spoiler before the interview ends “Someone gets happy in the end.”

Beauty & the Bachie will be performed 16 and 17 February 7.30pm at Star Theatres, and 23 February 7.30pm at The Parks Theatres. Tickets for Beauty & the Bachie are on sale now via the Adelaide Fringe here. Visit emmaknights.com to learn more about events by Emma Knights Productions.