Scotch and Soda

Company 2. The Garden of Unearthly Delights – Aurora Spiegeltent. 20 Feb 2015

Packed like sardines in a can, we sit in the Aurora Spiegeltent for the much-anticipated ‘Scotch and Soda’ from the cast and co-creators of past Fringe hit, ‘Cantina’. 

This vaudevillian, circus-cum-cabaret style show has remained popular amongst audiences since its mainstream resurgence about five years ago. The formula has  changed little; performance in the round; live music; crazy costumes; daring acrobatics; and a little something from a highwire or trapeze.

‘Scotch and Soda’ is billed as a “whiskey infused evening of raucous beats and dexterous feats” in a universe somewhere “between depression-era travelling circus and Europe’s 19^thcentury carnival past”. The characters and costumes accurately depict this theme and the energy and skill of the performers is suitably entertaining – but that’s about where it stops.

One expects to queue for such a popular show, but with sold-out houses and audience numbers in the hundreds expected, you might also hope that the producers would be running a well-oiled performance machine.  Not so on this occasion. The show, which already starts at the late, late-night timeslot of 10.15pm, went up no less than 30 minutes late! And it is only 60 minutes long. To add to the frustration of this delay, the designated audience queue location is situated just downwind from a block or porta-toilets, and it was still over 30 degrees at 10.00pm (pew!).

But this is the renowned company that produced ‘Cantina’, so it is going to be worth it! At least that was what I thought. Perhaps the shine was taken off by the cramped seating, hot weather conditions, late entry, general tiredness and stinky toilets, but I think it had more to do with the fairly routine performance that was to follow.

Now don’t get me wrong. These performers are hugely talented and the format looks and sounds great; performance values abound. But what you get for the next hour is a well-lit, well-miked, well-dressed version of stuff I have seen on more than one occasion, for free, when walking through the mall. These talented acrobats leapt and flipped and balanced and climbed, on bikes, on boxes, on bottles and on each other, but the real ‘Cantina’ wow was missing. It was fancy busking in a fancy tent.

The music from the ‘Crusty Suitcase Band’ was fantastic – a standalone performance I would pay good money to see any day of the week. Their long music-only interludes during this show however, felt more like padding for a lack of new circus tricks. And speaking of padding what was going on with the budgerigar routine!?

The ticket price is not what I would call “cheap” by Fringe standards, so I would make my choice wisely. You aren’t going to hate this show; it is really is quite good. But if you have subscribed to the past works of this production team, fair warning. I don’t think this one quite lives up to the hype.

Paul Rodda

When: 20 Feb to 8 Mar

Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights – Aurora Spiegeltent

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

Best of the Edinburgh Fest

Mary Tobin Presents. Comedy SuperNova – Venus Room. 20 Feb 2015

Nosebleed back rows of the Nova as critic's allocation was a bit of worry. It is really nice to be able to see. However, the full house turned out to be not so full and the audience was directed to move down. Second row seats were much better.

Why the show was not the described full house is perplexing. This threesome of seasoned comics are about as good as they get. Only one was on the advertised line-up, but who cares?

All three were well-rehearsed. All three had excellent, interesting material in the loose narrative style. All three were pithy and funny, funny, funny.

John Hastings from Canada opened the show, picking an appropriately reluctant audience target and thereafter periodically referring back to or embellishing references to this target. Naming and developing a persona for the cat was particularly sweet and one always wonders at the disciplined quick thinking with which these audience patters are devised.

Hastings described himself as looking "like Hitler's wet dream" and, indeed, he is a WASPish looking fellow. Turns out, he was born three months premature and he is possibly the only comic on the circuit with premmie gags.

Some nice observations on Tony Abbott went down well, too.

British Carl Donnelly rocked up on stage full of the joys of laser eye surgery. He became funny when he delved into his divorce stories and, heavens above, tales of providing sperm samples.

Chris Parsons, also from the UK, polished off his very slick and funny act and the night itself with a hot cooked chicken yarn which had the audience crumpled up and weeping with laughter.

That is what comedy should be about. These comedians have restored my faith in Fringe comedy.

Samela Harris

When: 17 Feb to 14 Mar

Where: Comedy SuperNova - Venus Room

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

Shotspeare Presents Romeo & Juliet

Bruckmor Entertainment. The Garden of Unearthly Delights - Umbrella Revolution. 20 Feb 2015

'Shotspeare'? Ha, ha, ha! What could they possibly mean? So off I went, and hey, this is a whole new way to do Shakespeare, specifically, Romeo and Juliet. S'easy.

First, be greeted at the door by the actors merrily downing Coopers' Mr Tims (a brilliant discovery for these Americans, and rightly so). While seats were taken, some audience members were offered shots of vodka in plastic cups from huge sweating bottles. Then the actors announced that there is going to be a considerable amount of drinking during the show, and it would be a lot more fun if you drank, too; I wished I was forewarned as I foolishly showed up empty handed. Then three audience members (there should be a word for audience member, like audient) were given power to call out Shotspeare and the show has to stop and everybody on stage has a shot of vodka. There was also a wheel that was spun prior to a soliloquy and some shenanigans were undertaken, like spanking, or throwing socks at the actors, and more shots. A lucky audience member was chosen to help out with the small parts, and he was told, "Noooooo, you can't take your own beer up here, you have to chug it!" which he did, and was immediately fixed up with a fresh Dr Tims. Giant vodka bottles and Dr Tims were iced on stage and ready to go. To add to the confusion, there was a guy dressed as a knight complete with armour in the front row, but he had nothing to do with the show.

Oh, the show. Well, that was completely shambolic, as you might expect. Somewhere on stage were good actors who accomplished a one hour R &J - complete with ridiculous sword fights - filled to the gills. In sweat-soaked period costumes, they cavorted and yelled their way through the script with gleeful irreverence, but there were heaps of surprisingly (given the circumstances) performance bits that connected with me, and the silouetted sex scene was a real hoot.

I got caught up in the fun, I mean, it's a funny (weird) show, it's a concept that would normally not be remembered to have been thought of the night before on a bender - somebody must have been taking notes. So I kept thinking, "Why did they do it?" Does the booze excuse substandard performance? Does it unite the players and audience in Bacchanalian revelry? Is it a great way to make R & J an out-and-out comedy? Did it make Shakespeare accessible?

I walked out of the show, thinking, "Wow, that was pretty novel; I had a few yucks" and the day after, in the clear light of day without the buzz, I'm thinking, "What a load of crap." But if you want to experience the whole panoply of the Fringe experience, have a few Dr Tims with vodka chasers first.        

David Grybowski

When: 13 Feb to 15 Mar

Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights - Umbrella Revolution

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au

We Are All

Not Suitable for Drinking. Holden Street Theatres – The Arch. 19 Feb 2015

Personal stories are becoming quite the thing in Fringe 2015. Here’s another one. Thom Jordan’s mother called him “miracle child” because he survived childhood leukaemia, so he re-invented the disease to summon up miracles as an adult.

What a dishonest man he became. But that’s okay because he was in the dishonesty business. He had become an evangelical preacher. He preached about truth while enacting a great big lie. Problem was that lies eventually are found out and if you lie that you are dying of a terrible disease, sooner or later you have to die.

This liar was hale as can be.

So he cut his losses and quit living the lie.

To tell this tale, Jordan brings a rack of clothes onstage, dons an oxygen cord, and bounds around very vigorously setting up the story with a bit of stage shtick moving chairs about the place to depict his move from Brisbane to Sydney as a teenager. No matter how much energy and sparkling emphasis he puts into this, it is a boring bit of narrative. Worse, the performer seems rigidly over-rehearsed. Writer/Director Julia Patey needs to cut him some slack.

He winds the clock back to his childhood, living in a manse with his strict minister father and his embarrassingly mushy mother. Oh, he was born in the NT and then lived in Toowoomba. Then he got the leukaemia and they moved to Brisbane for treatments. Then he wasn’t special and he moved to sleep on his friend’s kitchen floor in Sydney. Then he discovered preaching.

And, to prove the point, he preaches. And he preaches. He struts and gestures and jumps about waving his arms. He quotes gospel. He repeats and repeats phrases, as they do. And he shouts and shouts and shouts.

When the end comes, it is a relief. One understands that, by default, he found truth himself. And he gave up the lie.

This production is too long and tedious in the delivery of this message. The message is indistinct. Is the man still God-fearing or did he realise that his own fake illness was not the only lie in the business?

The idea of the show is good, but it needs a very serious re-working. It bills itself as “dark new comedy”...“about the nature of religion”. It needs to become that.  And cut the preaching. 

Just because the theatre venue was once a church does not mean the audience has come to hear a revivalist sermon.

Samela Harris

NOTE:  Since writing this review, new information on the performance comes to hand indicating the show is not a personal account. This is not on the program notes. It muddies the water in a whole new way.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/pastor-with-cancer-spun-a-gospel-of-lies...

When: 14 Feb to 15 Mar

Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Arch

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au