A lot of the jokes are very specific to Australia and NZ. I personally love it. It's certainly not aimed at the purists though. Australians find fun in poking fun at things, including themselves.
I remember seeing this live! I also remember following John English down the streets of Melbourne for his autograph. Oh, I was a stalkerish 10 year old then.
I agree -- I saw a production in 1995 at a community theatre and the KoKo there did the same thing. Then in 2004 when I was in The Mikado, he did it again! Eric Idle was the first I saw doing the digging too. I like it though. :) Makes it more comedic to me.
Poo-bah. For this production, they merged Poo-Bah with Pish-Tush and gave him a bigger part. Suprisingly, it actually works prety well. I always thought that Pish-Tush didn't belong.
I think this version is a bit too slow, I like this song to be properly hectic in my opinion. Makes it more stressful so you feel for the characters more