Gala Variety Performance

Following a cold and cloudy winter’s day in Adelaide the stars were out at last, both in the sky and on the Festival Theatre stage, as old chums and new ‘came to the Cabaret’ to celebrate the start of 2016’s June 10-25 Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

The Gala Variety Performance audience was rewarded with Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect’s warm and funny, casually presented and just a bit naughty taste of some of the treats to come in the Festival. This year’s dual Artistic Directors presented a terrific lineup of established and emerging artists, who represented a diverse 2016 program of excellent cabaret acts.

It was a night that had a laid-back feel, one of being in a room with performers who are so comfortable in their own skins and with their craft that they were just getting together to have fun and were warmly inviting us to join them. This informal atmosphere was enhanced by the audience hearing what is usually backstage business-the ‘beginners’ call, or call to stage for first-up performers and musicians. We also soon discovered that the night was to be ‘managed’ by a bumbling ‘stage manager’, aka cabaret clown Hew Parham, who will star in Rudi’s The Rinse Cycle during the Festival.

All performances took place in front of a towering Cabaret Festival logo, made up of bits and pieces including ladders, cables and a road sign. Backstage workers wandered in and out, adding to the casual tone of a production that was in reality nothing but professional.

Artistic Directors Eddie Perfect and Ali McGregor started the night with their song ‘What You Get’ along with some good-natured one-upmanship as they competed to be the dominant Festival Director. A feast of more fun, music, satire and outrageousness followed. 

Libby Wood and Maeve Marsden (Mother’s Ruin) were delightful in their song about obsession with Gin, while Barb Jungr (Hard Rain) took the stage all too briefly with a rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Things Have Changed’.

Acoustic guitar in hand and with a deadpan face, Frank Woodley (The Composer is Dead) delivered a wonderfully wicked song about revenge. Tripod was among many highlights of the night, with the trio presenting a convoluted song about video games. Both Woodley’s show and Tripod’s This Gaming Life will be presented during the Cabaret Festival in conjunction with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

Andrew Strano was decidedly controversial with his song about an incestuous relationship between twins, while New York’s Amy G (Entershamement) was was terrific in her glittery chicken suit and ostrich feather tail as she performed a zany interpretation of ‘Mon Truc En Plumes’. Jersey Boys star Bobby Fox, in Adelaide for his show 4 Seasons in 1 Night, brought nostalgia into the mix with a superb rendition of the Four Seasons hit ‘Stay’.

There was plenty more to relish, including from German pop duo, Die Roten Punkte (Eurosmash!). Accompanied by Astrid’s accordion, Astrid and Otto were very funny as they sang a drinking song that reminded us we needed to enjoy life because we’d be a long time dead.

Rhonda Burchmore was hilarious in her Sia take as she felt her way around the stage, face almost completely obscured by an outrageous wig. A rotund vision in a nude bodysuit writhed around the performance space in side-splitting accompaniment. Was that Burchmore’s sibling in Twins, Trevor Ashley?

In using the word ‘writhed’ to describe the latter’s hysterically funny performance, I seem to have stumbled across the comedy hook of the night, because a performer from Miss Behave’s Gameshow almost stole the show with his physical comedy too. As consummate performer Miss Behave invited the mobile-phone-packing audience to divide into teams in order to play one of her games, her assistant ‘Harriet’ seemed initially quiet and timid. That is, until he broke into such a spurt of outrageously physical action, he brought the house down.

But no one could out-star the star. Veteran South Australian performer and artistic director of extraordinary festivals, Robyn Archer (Dancing on the Volcano) graced us with her signature voice before she was presented by Eddie Perfect and Ali McGregor with the Festival’s Icon Award.

Fine accompaniment for the Gala evening was provided by Musical Director Vanessa Scammell and her musicians.

Together with the other experienced performers of the night, Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect joined with the young up-and-comers of cabaret (Class of Cabaret 2016) to finish off the whole shebang with a bang; literally, thanks to the audience. A whole-cast rendition of ‘Friends’ was amusingly enhanced by the audience collaborating to add loud bangs as multiple balloons were popped after they floated down from above. Something of a ‘Proms’ touch that seemed to suit this night.

It’s exciting to know that despite all the talent on show, this night was made up predominantly of the first weekend’s acts, a tasty mouthful of the cabaret feast to come during the Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2016.

For program details visit adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au

Lesley Reed 

Images: Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect; Bobby Fox (photographer: John McRae) and Robyn Archer.