Carita Farrer in Too Much is Never Enough

Spot picks up pianist John Rodgers in tails as he plays introductory chords. The Drunken Diva enters through the dark auditorium, martini in hand, a little unsteady on her feet. She feels her way through, singing lustily about love and occasionally spilling martini down someone’s back and mopping it up gently with her black glove.

Carita Farrer is a consummate performer with a big beautiful voice and she knows how to use it. She also knows how to interpret a song to maximum effect for this medium. Even for wicked effect at times. Her interconnecting repartee kept the audience in stitches.

Before the floods she played Wednesday nights at Drift, the restaurant washed away and scrunched under the Go Between Bridge. Her Drift fans were out in force to welcome her back.

John (André) Rodgers played straight man to her comic riffs and played piano brilliantly (sometimes around her when she took over his stool). They gave us 100 minutes of joy, hilarity and agony ─ thirteen songs each more passionate and desperate as she explored the simple set for yet another hidden martini (and finally a bottle of Gin).

When she collapsed in a drunken heap, she crawled out of her diva dress and finished the show in glamorous underwear. What a class act!

Jay McKee

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