The DVD Review

PETER ALLEN: The Boy From Oz 
Released by AV Channel. Available to buy now

Peter Allen’s star is on the rise again, in part thanks to Hugh Jackman’s Broadway musical extravaganza, this new release from the AV Channel  covers his life story with plenty of emphasis on his music. Blessed with a great songwriting ability and a terrible sense of fashion Allen was always going to be a star, learning the piano at an age and playing in pubs in the small outback area where he grew up. 

In the early 1960’s Peter was taken under the wing of Judy Garland, getting married to her daughter Liza Minelli but Peter’s career failed to take off, it wasn’t until his divorce from Liza in the late 1960’s and his burgeoning talent for writing songs began to take hold that he found stardom. Full of concert footage, rare home movies and material from Peter’s appearance on This Is Your Life The Boy From Oz is excellent, Allen wrote some very good songs (Tenterfield Sadler is a proper classic) and won an Oscar for co-writing the theme from the movie Arthur.

Despite a tendancy to gloss over the scandal, not touching on Allen’s homosexuality (he died from AID’s related cancer in 1992) you still get a feel for Allen’s life coming away with the impression that he was a pretty nice guy well liked by most people he came into contact with, Narrated by Jack Thompson and featuring interviews with Harry Connick Jr, Bernadette Peters, Bette Midler, Ann-Margret, Carole Bayer-Sager, Trish Noble and Judy Stone, Peter Allen the boy from Oz is an essential purchase for every Allen fan and a more than interesting experience for everyone else.