Ash Flanders: Playing To Win

Ash Flanders (the ‘It Boy’ of cabaret according to Melbourne’s Herald-Sun) is a phenomenon.  He of The Sisters Grimm.  He of ‘transgressive’ theatre and cabaret.  But he gets away with being ‘transgressive’ by being simply, very, unapologetically good at what he does and hugely entertaining.  This show is a revival of his already rave-reviewed outing at last year’s Cabaret Festival.  The raves are completely justified.  He is entertaining by being funny, ‘shocking’, articulate and witty.  The brief impersonations of his Mum are hilarious – and to the point.  His Mum is very certain – about everything.  Mr Flanders is a doubter.  But he also sings superbly and keeps up an energy level that is almost exhausting to watch.  One of his riffs is about confidence and talent.  He knows lots of people with confidence… but has had to come to the conclusion that, actually, talent is required.  A sobering if sometimes unacknowledged fact.  He, however, appears – anyway – to have both confidence and talent in high octane quantities – both, there on stage. 

He has presence despite wearing a skin tight kitty (or ‘pussy’?) leotard – a huge cat’s face front and back, a visual gag that is revealing, but has little relevance to the rest of the show.  It’s made up of stories about and ruminations on success – that is, achieving it, failing to achieve it, and what is it anyway?  He quotes the cliché, ‘Success is a journey, not a destination’ –then explodes it.  Oh, really?  No, success is a destination!  Mr Flanders drove past Ophra Winfrey’s and it’s a compound.  But then… when you see Brittany Murphy, singer and movie star, behindthe invited-only red velvet rope, dancing alone at her opening night, you have to wonder – even if you don’t dare approach her…  (Mr Flanders lets us remember that Brittany was dead at 32.)

Mr Flanders has said (in an interview with Daily Review on this show’s 2016 manifestation) that he loves ‘to take terribly fluffy, disposable pop songs and offset them with tragic personal stories.’  And that’s what he does.  If the show is not strictly ‘cabaret’ but as much stand-up with songs, who cares?  It’s not as if he merely ‘covers’ the songs.  In the case of Celine Dion, it verges on deconstruction.  The one lapse comes when Mr Flanders goes off stage and dons a suit coat and the persona of a girls’ school drama teacher who proceeds to give an end-of-year prize night speech.  This is not Chris Lilley’s egomaniac narcissist Mr G – on the contrary - and it is to the show’s point too, but the change of pace, tone and content leaves the audience at best bemused and the energy level drops… only to be picked up again, but still…  The monologue has the air of an experiment and I wonder if it will continue to be included as this show continues to evolve.  That said, I’d have to agree with a colleague who said after the show – about this show and others: ‘Oh, Ash Flanders – he can do anything.’

Michael Brindley