When did our prime ministers become so damn ordinary?
It's a question that's plagued Canberra writer Tom Glassey ever since he watched Scott Morrison's final speech in 2024 and imploded with rage.
It was, he says, a feeling of disgust that a man so proudly ordinary had wielded so much power and damaged so many lives.
"I know it's delusional stuff - I wanted him to go out in handcuffs," he said.
Our current leader hasn't fared much better, and Glassey blames ScoMo.
It's the kind of discourse Glassey lives and breathes, working up at the parliamentary press gallery as a video producer.
But he's still so angry about it that he's channelled his rage into a soon-to-open play at The Street Theatre - not about Scott Morrison, as such, but about the public lives he affected.
"A play that was properly about Scott Morrison would not be very entertaining," he said.
The 29-year-old worked for a time as veteran journalist Michelle Grattan's assistant at The Conversation before moving over to the press gallery.
"I know it's unhinged from reality, and I know how politics functions," he said of his anger.
"I know no one actually ever stands up and says, 'Hey, this is my fault'. I know that has never happened and will never happen, but that's what I need.
"I needed Scott Morrison's valedictory to be, like, catharsis. I needed him to walk through the list and be like, sorry, I'm leaving this country worse than I inherited it."
He said each generation had their pariah in terms of leaders, and his was the evangelical "daggy dad" who somehow convinced the country that even a so-called ordinary man like him could lead the country.
The resulting work, Playback, is a two-hander about a senior political journalist, Deborah who, while watching Scott Morrison's valedictory speech, sets out to land the Frost-Nixon interview that would be his reckoning.
She hires a young video producer to help her prepare.
"You would make a comparison between me and the video producer character, but he really is all just my worst traits," Glassey said.
"He comes in to help, and it's about them preparing for the interview. But a big part of the preparation is that the young man starts to embody Morrison as he researches, and then you do get to a stage where Deborah is interviewing Scott Morrison as a young man."
He said what upset him the most about the Morrison years was the banality of his persona.
"I think he forever changed what it means to be prime minister, and I don't think we can go back now, because he was so proud of being so banal and so ordinary," he said.
"Well, why are you prime minister of Australia? You should be an extraordinary person."
He said his play was the result of a period of obsessive research trying to understand the man.
While he ultimately realised this was a futile pursuit, he does believe writing a play about him will push a particular button.
"A big part of [Morrison's] upbringing was theatre. His dad ran the local company, and if I want to hurt Scott Morrison, a play is the way to do it," he said.
"I don't feel that way anymore, but ... the first professional production he was in was a production of Oliver Twist, where his dad was Fagan and Scott was the Artful Dodger. That's the first role he played. He could act, it just wasn't a grand performance."
