Canberra Musicians Club. The Polish White Eagle Club. 18 Apr 2013
Despite what many people believe, Canberra is a pretty interesting place to live. Being the political heartland of this country, we get all manner of movers and shakers living or passing on through this quaint little city of ours – most with something intriguing to say. And, as Canberra grows and diversifies, its arts scene seems to have hit its stride, producing a steady stream of unique home grown talent.
There’s so much to see and do in the ACT in fact, that people usually only get to experience a fraction of what’s on offer. Producers Chris Endrey (of local band, Fun Machine notoriety), and Meg O’Connell (ANU Arts Revue) have ‘capitalised’ on this abundance of activity, and come up with a way to showcase a wide range of acts, ideas and persuasions at one time through their inaugural variety show.
Best described as Hey Hey it’s Saturday for hipsters, In Canberra Tonight provides a sample of just about everything. On the performing arts side there was lamenting poetry by Australian Poetry Slam champion CJ Bowerbird, eccentric sounds by Nozl’s Tom Harwood, risqué chanson with the glorious Milly Cooper and some quirky story telling featuring divine spaghetti.
The current affairs section also held its own, with The RiotACT’s slide show on the week’s essential happenings in Canberra, Dr Paul Francis attempting to unravel the mysteries of the universe, information about gardening co-ops (The Dirty Beanstalk) and interviews of sorts with media celebrities all featured on the menu.
Surprisingly, some of the guests on the show were of quite high calibre, including ACT Federal Senate candidate and former national director of GetUp, Simon Sheik, SBS chief political correspondent, Karen Middleton and Radio National’s Melanie Tait. So it was rather unfortunate that they had to take the time out of their busy schedules, only to be trivialised through inane questioning from either Endrey or the executive producer, Nick Byrne.
This is not to say most people in this sizeable crowd didn’t find this immensely entertaining on the night, but it is clear that In Canberra Tonight is more of a boutique production targeting more of an undergraduate arts student viewer.
Although the acts were already quite swift, O’Connell was lumped with the irritating role of constantly interrupting the talent with a tedious time call throughout the night, which only distracted from their already condensed performances. It seemed superfluous, and some subtlety would have better served these purposes. That being said, the show flowed along at a nice pace with any hiccups invisible to the naked eye.
Chris Endrey (accompanied by contrastingly square announcer, Pablo Latona) as the campy host complete with timid Chihuahua and wonderfully eccentric leopard print attire, was warm and upbeat. He kept the momentum flowing along nicely until the close of curtains, all the while maintaining a firm grasp on the audience’s attention as he navigated his way through the evening. However, while radiating a casual, personable yet somewhat self-conscious charm, it would have been more enjoyable had he moved further out of his comfort zone and shown less aloofness towards the project.
The resplendent in-house jazz band, affectionately dubbed The House Rats, played their role as entertainment, segue machine and musical banterers with good humour and timing, grooving along unobtrusively in the background and oiling the wheels of ambience.
Staying true to tradition, a smattering of wacky participatory games were also provided for the audience. Most enjoyable of these was the highly original ‘Spin the Wheel, Win the Spiel’ segment, where four people were selected to put their names on the wheel, with the winner then able to choose a victim who is obliged to offload a rant onto the throng (climate change was the order of the day). It has to be said though that the Lucha Libre eating competition, featuring bananas and Tabasco sauce, hands down won the laughs.
Being aimed at a specific demographic, this show is representative of the Canberra community within an unapologetically defined scope. It certainly feels like preaching to the converted, but overall the line-up was true to the term ‘variety’, and otherwise inclusive in terms of who was able to snag a three and a half minute spot.
No doubt In Canberra Tonight will evolve into something of an institution as time goes by, but what form and direction it takes is up to the producers. They will need to decide if they would prefer a niche audience, or to broaden their appeal and take it further afield to Canberrans outside the boundaries of the ANU and the inner North. Both directions are perfectly acceptable, but either way it has great potential and deserves our applause.
Deborah Hawke
