Comedians on Stage Auditioning for Musicals
It’s audition time again for the Wagga Wagga Community Central Arts Festival Theatre Festival Company Festival and the now thrice divorced co-directors host a range of talent desperate to be in their next production of Cats.
This musical-comedy show is in its third iteration at the Cabaret Festival, hosted as always by Michelle Brasier and Ben Russell, and there’s no shortage of cabaret and comedic stars trying for a part. Accompanied by the ever-brilliant Gillian Cosgriff (‘it’s Guylian, like the chocolate’ says Russell), the sold-out audience is laughing out loud for the entire hour in the Festival Centre’s Banquet Room.
There’s a lot of improvisation in the show, so no two performances will be the same, but this is a compilation of clever nods to the best and worst of musical theatre, whilst still amazing us with the talent of people you didn’t appreciate could sing that well.
Comedian Yoz Mensch was first up with a startling rendition of the titular song from the musical Starlight Express, complete with a train costume. It’s an impressive rendition and even Mensch seems surprised at the reception from the friendly audience.
Alex de Porteous then commands the stage with two scantily clad dancers – and Russell, in his persona as Sir Robert Nida, doesn’t know where to look, prompting Brasier to ask straight-faced, of the characters in their chosen musical, ‘which one is the slutty cat?’
Australia’s ‘first attractive comedian’ Elouise Eftos is bold to take the name of the festival quite literally with her choice of audition song, but without a ‘Britney’ mic, Russell has to follow her around the stage with the microphone, avoiding her high circle kicks and spins.
This combination of musical talent and great comic timing is where this show really succeeds – Russell’s ‘musical theatre walk’ after the obligatory exaggerated hair-tossing bow is hilarious, yet also instantly recognisable to everyone who has been in such a production. As is the discussion on how to wish each other ‘good fortune’ in the theatre, which is relatable and funny – Brasier edging it more and more extreme (and really testing the audience’s musical knowledge with a foreshadowing of the finale), gauging our reaction so that she knows where the line is. That doesn’t stop her stepping over it, but she’s aware that she has.
Even next year’s Artistic Director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Reuben Kaye, made a brief and well-received appearance, his charm and audience-rapport immediate, though Brasier turned him away before he could launch into song.
Zachary Ruane (another Aunty Donna alumni) takes on My Chemical Romance’s ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’, transforming it into a Les Misérables anthem, but the man who takes the recurrent theme of that musical to new heights is Trevor Jones. His one-man performance of ‘One Day More’ was superbly devised and delivered, complete with the key characters either edible or finger-adorning.
Some more recent fans of musical medleys might be disappointed if there wasn’t something from Hamilton, and Brasier and Russell’s rendition of ‘You’ll be Back’ is a fitting culmination to the show, with the hosts whipping the audience into singing along the ‘da-da-da-da-da’s. The audition hour is too short – can we stay for the callbacks?
Review by Mark Wickett
Imagery by Claudio Raschella
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