How Raygun could have taken a leaf out of Shane Warne's book amid ugly saga around musical

If someone close to Rachael "Raygun" Gunn is reading this, can they please pass it on to the Olympic breakdancer before what’s left of the love for her in Australia runs out. Back in 2008, comedian/actor Eddie Perfect wrote the script and played the lead role in Shane Warne the Musical. And, initially, he encountered hostility from the subject matter.

"When I first heard about it, I was angry and wondered how anyone could possibly do this - surely people need permission to portray your life as a stage show," Warne wrote at the time. "But, no, apparently they don't." Warne, who led a rock star life off the cricket field, was apprehensive about how Perfect would portray him.

"Some of the personal stuff was no laughing matter and had a huge impact on my family," the leg-spinning great said. "Not many people have a musical written about them, so in a way it's flattering. But I kept asking myself, "what's it like?" and, "is it full of cheap gags?"

Raygun launches legal action against Sydney comedy club

Unlike Gunn, whose legal representatives have gone after a small Sydney comedy club and demanded they shut down Raygun the Musical, Warne decided to get in on the joke. He went to see the show for himself so he could make an informed decision, nervously downing a couple of pre-show VBs before watching Perfect play out his life on stage.

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"I felt weird but, in a strange way, proud of what I'd just witnessed," Warne later wrote. "I think Eddie and his team have written the musical in a respectful and sympathetic way, and that they have captured my fun, larrikin side.

"I walk away feeling good and thinking that although it isn't totally accurate, it's a very funny show and extremely entertaining. Enjoy it, I say." It's advice Raygun could well heed.

The move to jump all over a small production and hit organisers with legal threats - citing theft of Gunn's intellectual property, including the moves used in her infamous Olympic routine - is as mean-spirited as it is laughable. That all proceeds from the show were to go to a women's shelter makes it all the more unpalatable.

If the late Warne – for all the cringey moments in his life – could laugh at himself, surely Raygun is up for a piss-take. It’s time she used another breakdance move – the backflip – and let the show go on.