Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Space. 24 Jun 2021
The poet who never lived simply cannot die. He continues to puzzle, disturb, and stir the creative juices. Following Stephen Orr’s extraordinary re-imagining of the Malley saga in his recently-published Wakefield Press Book, Sincerely Ethel Malley, Adelaide songwriter Max Savage emerges with an Ern-Malley cabaret show. Well, it is named as Ern: Australia’s Greatest Hoax and Savage avows a lifelong fascination with the Malley poems. He has said of his production, a result of the 2021 Frank Ford Commission, that it is a fresh take, his own take on the 1940s attempted duping of modernist poet and Angry Penguins editor Max Harris and with it an attack on the then burgeoning modernist movement in Australia (read more at ernmalley.net). And so it is. Audaciously so.
One must listen carefully for the threads linking to the hoax and they seem to come at the end of the concert, a concert which stands on its own as something loud and wild and different and often thrilling.
Max Savage is possessed of a dense and interesting gravelly voice, sometimes Dylan-esque and sometimes Tom Waits-like. His hands shiver and jerk beside him like a demonic Joe Cocker. There’s a bottle of red wine beside him on the stage and his throat is regularly lubricated as the show progresses.
The music is a rough amalgam of blues, folkrock, jazz, and electronic buzzsaw.
Savage’s brother, Ross McHenry is his collaborator on the music, much of which is riffed impro by a bunch of the city’s very best musicians.
Like all jam, it has its moments of high brilliance and its downs of self-indulgence. Sometimes the clarinet’s stridency is too persistent, cutting through the air; but, is it saying something? Is it telling of the pain inflicted by a malicious hoax? Perhaps. Ow.
The audience can only listen, wonder, and make individual interpretations. Perchance, many know little of the literary hoax, despite the display in the foyer. Many of them are well into the red wine, making trips out of the theatre to replenish their glasses, as if it was a pub gig.
Savage conducts the band between verses, prowling into the midst of the musicians, shouting and screaming, his mouth agape like an angry animal, or perhaps a giant Pacman, chomping at the smoky air. He revs the musicians into crescendos.
He is truly an original. What’s more, he is a good poet. His lyrics are profound and beautiful, often reiterated like verbal Philip Glass notes.
Of all the songs, his Ode to Kintore Avenue is closest to a tuneful evergreen with its ambling good rhythm. It is a poignant reflection on the boys who did not come home from World War II, notably, the two young Angry Penguins poets D.B. “Sam” Kerr and Paul Pfeiffer.
He does not use any lines from the Ern Malley poems.
In fact, he defies their content with strong references to God and salvation. Ern Malley was Godless.
Savage does, however, oft reference soldiers, reminding us that McAuley and Stewart, the hoaxer poets, were said to have been in their barracks, two bored young soldiers on a quest of malice when the hoax was perpetrated.
Savage gives them a serve, describing their hatred as “original sin”.
In an inspired nod to the Angry Penguins magazine wherein the Ern Malley poems were published, Savage has invited artist Josh Baldwin to create a large-scale work live on stage as an evolving backdrop to his performance. Angry Penguins celebrated the Modernist artists alongside the Modernist poets and novelists of the day, so this living aesthetic is an extremely enlightened inclusion.
Furthermore, it is just beautiful. There are two performances of Ern in The Space and therefore two artworks will result. On opening night, Baldwin creates a sweeping landscape. Vivid blues shimmer as distant mountains and foreground rivers. An arid expanse of undulating ochre land is gradually dotted with stark little tree motifs and then, in an Olsen-esque gesture, a couple of lines of thrown paint streak across the canvas. Eventually, as the concert draws to a close, with signals between the singer and the painter, a horse and rider are added to the vista - and it is Don Quixote! It deserves a standing ovation in its own right.
Savage and the band do, in fact, receive a loud ovation for the show, albeit also a stream of people quietly wandering off into the winter’s night wondering what had just happened.
What it was all about - a Max Savaging, a new era hoax, or just a flight of Ernest imaginings?
Samela Harris
When: Closed
Where: The Space
Bookings: Closed
NOTE: Samela Harris, is daughter of Max Harris, the poet and Angry Penguins editor who was target of the Ern Malley hoax.
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Theatre. 19 June 2021
Vince Jones blows a few notes on one of the horns he is accomplished in before the audience is even ready, but that is it for the horn-blowing. Maybe this was his whimsical protest against RocKwiz’s Brian Nankervis - who wrote the show - for not having any Vince Jones horn-blowing in it. Jones, of course, is a respected elder of Australia’s jazz scene and an activist in environmental and human freedom issues, so a show featuring protest songs written by somebody else would seem like a good fit, but it really isn’t.
This world premiere does get off to a good start, though. Jones senses a song, and where there is a match with his jazz oeuvre and style, one feels his feeling for the material. The opening number, Strange Fruit famously recorded by Billie Holiday, is a triumph of empathy. Jones eschews showmanship - his style of performance with hands behind his back manifests his desire to let the music and treatment speak for itself. Jones’s creative juices are flowing amply whenever the original song was of a jazz nature or was about a specific human tragedy or unfairness – songs like Kev Carmody’s Thou Shalt Not Steal and Archie Roach’s Took The Children Away. His passion and identification with his own culture’s issues in John Schumann’s I Was Only 19 had me in tears. The two songs about getting into the head of the US President – including Pink’s Dear Mr President - did not resonate for their cliché and cynical narrative. A few fossils are trotted out, Blowin’ In The Wind, If I Had A Hammer and even John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Imagine presumably to appeal to the audience that has aged with Jones. These were very much less successful because they are not specific or jazz. Jones looks like he’d rather vote Liberal than sing If I Had A Hammer, and consequently it is mundane and boring, and anyways, I don’t think his style could improve on some of the masterful covers, let alone the originals. Jones refers constantly to a tablet for song text, which is pretty distracting – and even with the words in front of him, there are many near-flubs. The accompanying musicians under the direction of Matt McMahon are wonderful.
Which brings me to the point, I didn’t get the sense this was Jones’s show. It was written by Nankervis who explained the theme and then introduced many of the songs. While this covers for Jones’s lack of articulation in the narrative department, the intros vary from too much information to fascination, and seem like interruptions rather than part of the flow. It looks very much like Nankervis’s journey, but Jones was the wrong vehicle, even as sweet as ever he was.
David Grybowski
When: 19 to 20 Jun
Where: Dunstan Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Claire Bowditch, Katie Noonan, Sarah McLeod. Festival Theatre. 18 Jun 2021
To have an entire show based on your compositions, with every one a winner, is surely a place that many songwriters’ can only dream of reaching.
For Don Walker, that place, and time is now.
One of the two more prolific writers in the iconic Cold Chisel, Walker has managed to spread his compositions around, and this was evidenced tonight through songs that have been recorded by his own bands - the aforementioned ‘Chisel, Catfish, Tex Don & Charlie and The Suave Fucks – as well as artists the likes of Jimmy Little, Kate Ceberano, Slim Dusty and Sarah Blasko.
On this night, his interpreters were Katie Noonan, Claire Bowditch and Sarah McLeod, each a diva in their own right. They were initially to be joined by Emma Donovan (a COVID border casualty), then by Mahalia Barnes, who fell ill at the last minute. As the trio explain, this meant they had to quickly fill the gap and learn a few extra songs on the run. So under the circumstances, a few stumbles are going to be inevitable, and entirely forgivable.
Noonan on Saturday Night opens the show, and very quickly the three piece band make their presence felt. Zoe Hauptmann on bass and vocals, Jess Green shredding the guitar and Brie van Reyk kept the more wobbly moments at bay throughout the night. The three, along with Noonan, are probably more known in jazz circles than in the Chisel mileu, but they carried this off brilliantly.
Standing on the Outside brought McLeod’s rock chick ethos to the fore, while Bowditch pulled out Breakfast at Sweethearts. A litany of hits follow with each taking turns at running the lead, although they could have done with a bit more vocal support in the arrangements. While it was understood that they weren’t familiar with all of the songs because of the personnel changes, they noted a number of times that they had barely met each other and a number of songs they’d only learned in the past few days, if not that day; a little surprising for a show has been programmed for months.
A little too much banter saw the show’s energy level drop in a few places; McLeod pushing the levels back up with a brilliant rendition of Flame Trees, while Noonan keeps the heart strings happy with laid back versions of Choir Girl and Silos. Bowditch, always good value, got the crowd going with Tucker’s Daughter, and a good fun rendition of the Dutch birthday song for an audience member.
The generosity and joi de vivre of the three carries them and the audience through the show; while it is a bit uneven in places, the combination of three fabulous voices, a fantastic band and a dozen or so of the finest songs in the Australian music lexicon are enough to make a great night.
Arna Eyers-White
When: Closed
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Theatre. 18 Jun 2021
Eddie is oh so perfect for what he does. Pictured in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival program cuddling with his two sleepy daughters on what looks like a city train, Eddie is your ‘everybody’. He writes and sings about his immediate surroundings. No topic is too small; we are treated to songs about taking out the bins and fledgling birds struggling heroically against dogs and wheels and running shoes. And no topic is too big, like Broadway’s King Kong The Musical. After writing the King Kong and Beetlejuice musicals for Broadway more or less simultaneously, escaping the virus in New York and fleeing Melbourne between lockdowns, Eddie sees the CabFest as the Perfect moment to reflect on the crazy last three years.
This is a cozy and intimate affair, a chat with an old friend who has been through a lot and grew wiser for the experience. Accompanied by cello and violin played with great syncopation to Eddie’s piano – all three looking retro in jumpsuits – Perfect generously sets up each song with a tangle of memory, humour, wisdom, and wistfulness that the fact that only about seven songs are performed is totally forgivable. The night is more about friendship than showmanship. Even his attention-seeking quivering quiff is forgivable.
The journey begins with his dream of writing a Broadway musical. After numerous sojourns to The Big Apple, he offered to write two songs for Beetlejuice as a test of his talents, and he got the gig without even a meeting! Eddie plays the song for Lydia that won him the job and the opening number that was cut by the Warner Brother bosses. These songs, made for a giant stage with huge cast, are wonderfully arranged for a musical trio. The musical garnered eight Tony Award nominations, including Best Score which is specifically directed at Eddie. He composed a thematic four-minute musical pitch for the ceremonies - The Whole Being Dead Thing - that was so compelling it has had over 1,000,000 playbacks on YouTube. Beetlejuice, ironically, a show about dealing with death, was still going strong when it was closed mid-stride due to COVID.
Eddie gives near equal time to the King Kong experience which he relates as a personal failure. Yet, he was brought in at the last minute to resuscitate the production after Broadway luminaries like Jason Robert Brown fell to the wayside. It grossed $1 million in its first week and played 324 performances.
On the way between theatre and home, his observations on bins and birds are turned into lyrical dramatisations which at first seem overblown for the topics but are so musically accomplished one imagines they must be made of less suburban stuff. But that is the magic of Eddie – he is one of us with one hell of a mirror. He is the boy from St Bede’s of Mentone who applied his prodigious talents to writing and performing in musical theatre, co-directed the Adelaide Cabaret Festival (2016-17), then dreamed of Broadway and made it.
Bravo!
P.S. His relationship to critics is complicated. While claiming that you have to live with it, he performs Death To Critics in a suitably accented voice. It’s a hilarious rant from a frustrated creative, which apparently will one day fit into a new revenge musical. Can’t wait!
David Grybowski
When: 18 to 19 Jun
Where: Dunstan Theatre
Bookings: bass.net.au
Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Famous Spiegeltent. 18 Jun 2021
It’s close up and personal, masked, marvellous and just a bit surreal. Who would ever have imagined Adelaide Tonight in a mirrored circus tent perched on the Torrens slopes? That old TV variety show of yore was ever within the bounds of a fairly clinical studio set. Now, a lifetime later, it crowds onto a super-busy little cabaret stage in a dazzle of bling and riotous good spirit.
How could it be otherwise in the hands of two of the country’s most beloved and evergreen entertainers! Willsy’s a proud 77 and Bob Downe a toyboy at 62. Peerlessly as good old showbiz buddies, they can belt out a song or two, hit the harmonies, crack a joke, slip in some innuendo, and bathe in a glory of nostalgia.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the show. Willsy dazzles in a series of seriously sequinned mini dresses and Bob shimmers in his golden polyester crimplene/boucle jumpsuit and defies the tiny, wee girth of the stage’s performance space, to show that he is just a gorgeous mover.
Of course, since Adelaide Tonight was always a variety show, they have a few guest stars.
And they’re big names. Cabaret cream.
First up, Jeff Duff sparkles out in the tiniest spaceman hot-pants jumpsuit ever devised. With his skinny long legs, white Minnie Mouse shoes and pancake makeup, he looks like a marionette. This man has made quite a footprint on the Aussie pop landscape over quite a few decades and, when he opens his mouth to sing David Bowie, one knows why. He is a powerhouse, with a wonderful voice proving a strong emotional engagement with his lyrics and yet… it really is a very odd costume and one’s mind bends at the oddity of it all.
The next guest act is John O’Hara whose CabFest show, #Val - A Campfire Kiki with Mother, suffered the interstate travel sorrows of cancellation. He’s whizzed over from Perth to do some snatches of the show on Adelaide Tonight. In utter contrast to Duffo, O’Hara’s costume reflects himself as a sleek modern style icon. Self-proclaimed as an “Australian National Treasure”, he is young, lean, oozing self-confidence, and he sings with panache.
Star of the guest stars is Liza Minnelli, well, the Liza one has when one can’t have Liza, and a very big and funny Liza she is, albeit her real name is Trevor Ashley. She is hot, wild, and a bundle of taut energy. Her stiletto heel stamps on the floor as she throws the mic from hand to hand and belts out show tunes in a throaty, vocal storm. She’s a vivid and arresting pastiche, and perhaps another national treasure.
Just as in the old days, Adelaide Tonight is an hour-long show. It is fast and fun. The Sam Leske band does everyone proud. It’s a very nice Adelaide outfit shining brightly in the CabFest spotlight. The TV monitors at either side of the stage show classic old-school TV ads: tasty tuna, and oh look, there’s Ernie Sigley with a lawnmower.
And, just for good measure and since there’s no room for a big wheel, there is a “barrel girl” prize at the end of the night.
The lovely night. Something old. Something new. Plenty blue.
They’re on for another week with a fresh set of guest stars every night. Take Aunty Flo and go.
Samela Harris
When: 18 to 26 Jun
Where: The Famous Spiegeltent
Bookings: bass.net.au