Mary Poppins

★★★★★

Adelaide Fringe. Norwood Concert Hall. 28 Feb 2021

A two hour long children’s theatre show is not to be sneezed at. Yes, there was minor boredom, and yes, some scenes dragged, but it shows that if the identification factor is strong then kids will adapt their thinking from screen to stage as required. I thought the much loved Mary Poppins might be too long for the kids (sample of three ranging in age from five to ten), but the youngest proclaimed loudly as we walked down the stairs afterwards; “I love Mary Poppins”.

Indeed. All three grandchildren have watched the 1964 film version starring Julie Andrews multiple times. A theatrical version starring young Adelaidean Issy Darwent for Adelaide Theatre Academy is simply not in the same league – or is it?

Darwent did an exceptional job as Mary Poppins, easily identifiable to children as the much loved nanny. Tiffany Buchan played Bert, a stretch of a character for her, especially in the singing, but her support for Darwent was strong. Incidentally, this was a young cast, and a surfeit of young women at Adelaide Theatre Academy meant a number of roles were played by girls instead of boys. Confusing? Not really.

There were other changes from Disney’s film version, some reflecting the original 1930s books of PL Travers. Mr Banks leaves the bank, then returns. In this version it is a misunderstanding and he is rewarded. Mrs Banks is a suffragist. Try explaining that these days… since the film was based in 1910 London, the books set in the 1930s but filmed in 1964 in Hollywood maybe it all makes sense. It speaks to the enduring nature of Mary Poppins, and the enduring nature of love and relationships. The set was well dressed, never overdressed, and the unfolding storyline easily followed, even with some of those deviations as mentioned.

And a criticism, the only one, poorly tuned wireless microphone systems are an abomination. When they trim frequencies and attenuate room acoustics they are worse than no amplification at all, and Norwood Concert Hall is a difficult acoustic environment in which to work. The major sound issues, luckily, remained only that for the first 10 to 15 minutes.

The standout performances were those of the fully wound up and totally energetic Jasper Darwent and Elliott Purdie as the children, Jane and Michael, respectively. They were astounding; working together or as part of the ensemble, they rarely miss a cue, and the enthusiasm they bring lifts the show for the entire audience. Truly an outstanding performance for what it promised, then was able to deliver.

Alex Wheaton

When: Closed

Where: Norwood Concert Hall

Bookings: Closed

Fangirls

Adelaide Festival. Belvoir, Queensland Theatre and Brisbane Festival, in association with Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP). Ridley Stadium. 28 Feb 2021

A new Adelaide Festival phenomenon has arisen. It’s the Fangirls fan! Count this veteran critic right in there among them.

This brand new Aussie musical has all the good ingredients and then some. If there are any shortcomings to the show, they are utterly forgiven since the whole package is such a classy feel-good experience. 

Ironically, it is a show with a very dark side to it. It deals with the psychopathology of fandom and the online cult of fan groups. It delves so deeply that one wonders how it can extricate itself. It does so with one song too many. Including interval, it is a two-and-a-half-hour show after which its audience leaps to its feet and whoops with glee.

What is it? 

It is a breath of fresh air. It is a brilliant idea. It is as serious and relevant as it is lively good fun. It is exciting. It is an exposure of dazzling new talent. It is top notch professional theatre. It is on the internet zeitgeist. It taps a huge, cross-generational nerve. 

Furthermore, it is a loud, pop-style musical which does not leave one's ears ringing, albeit it very cleverly makes the seats vibrate beneath one.

The storyline follows Edna, Jules, and Brianna, 14-year-old girls ardently in fan-love with a young English pop star called Harry. They moon and swoon about him and fantasise about meeting him. Edna, the most obsessed of the three, belongs to one online fan cult in which she shares her fan-fiction ideas with a gay American fanboy nicknamed Saltyspringl. Edna is utterly convinced that it is her destiny to meet the object of her adoration, and to run away with him, thus saving him from exploitative celebrity. When it is announced that Harry’s group is to tour Australia, the passions hot up but things don’t turn out to be straightforward - at all. So, there’s all sorts of drama.

This gives the music a chance to stretch its wings, so to speak, and the songs have a broad emotional range. And there are a lot of songs along with a lot of fabulous dance numbers and utterly whizzy lighting. 

Book, music, and lyrics for this brave new show are by Yve Blake and it has been snappily directed by Paige Rattray  with expert support in video content, choreography, sound and of course, lighting. Applause to the whole five-star team. 

As for the cast, here’s welcome to some fabulous new talent whose names one cannot doubt will become familiar in due course on the Australian stage.  Chika Ikogwe, for starters. She plays Jules, the most charismatic and also mean-spirited of the three girls. It’s a complex character but this performer is up to every nuance and then some. One falls in love with her. Karis Oka absolutely dazzles as Edna. What a voice. What a dancer. They are supported beautifully by Shubshri Kandiah as sweet, hapless Brianna and also by Danielle Barnes with the tricky counterpoint role of Edna’s battler mum.  She artfully adds an element of poignancy. Ayesha Madon, a powerful singer and dancer, goes all the way as the over-the-top fan girl. Oh, boy, she is a loud one. And then there’s James Majoos as the funny, clever Salty, ever-so-gay with star quality written all over him. Talking of which, there’s AYDAN. Yes, he spells his single name in caps. He’s already found stardom on the Australian music scene in the likes of Australia’s Got Talent and The Voice and he is absolutely the perfect fit for the character of Harry, the superstar subject of the Fangirls’ fixation. AYDAN has absolutely magnetic presence onstage.

Move over kids, you need to make room in the squeal pit for a few oldies.

Samela Harris

When: 28 Feb to 14 Mar

Where: Ridley Stadium

Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au

A German Life

Adelaide Fesival. Dunstan Playhouse. 27 Feb 2021

The great Sir Alec Guinness used to say that the secret to good acting was posture, capturing the gait of a character.

This observation springs to mind as Robyn Nevin shuffles onto the set in A German Life. Her body seems loose and lived-in.  Her shoulders droop under years of sunless retirement. Her footfall is uncertain. Every movement is slow and meticulous, glasses on and glasses off, to focus on the chores of pouring water into a plastic cup, or making a cup of tea.

This German woman inhabits a bland but impeccably neat room in an aged-care home.  Even the pictures on the wall are small and understated. But it is a safe place where an old woman can stay in her room and roam around in her past.

Brunhilde Polsen’s memories, recorded when she was 102 and written for the stage as a monologue by Christopher Hampton, are of an unremarkable girl who rose through her diligence with shorthand and typing to become part of the Nazi party’s inner sanctum as Goebbels’ secretary. Her pre-war Germany was peopled with Jews and her narration carefully traces the way in which these very nice people kept disappearing, not that she ever really knew what was happening to them. She knew nothing. She was just a secretary. She just typed for people. But she was there as Hitler rose to power and Nazism swept the country. Changes were going on. Perhaps she was just too stupid to clue up. She sat next to Goebbels at a dinner party, but she did not speak with him. She was part of the propaganda department and she picked up on its lies. But she just did her job. She had not chosen it. She had a Nazi boyfriend, but he never tried to convert her. She was an unimportant female, not expected to be interested in politics.

And so the account goes on, the actress delivering it in a guttural voice with the rhythmic intonations of a German accent. She is never passionate or hurried. She is often hesitant, searching for a word, losing track of what she is saying; all those mannerisms which afflict us in latter years. She admits that while she is forgetful about what she ate yesterday, there are many things from the deeper past she can never forget. 

But the memory is selective and lies so easily become truths. She does not say so, but it is implicit in the Hampton script. She is a member of the crowd of Germans who were “just doing their job” in Nazi Germany. And Nevin, always a cool-headed actress, does not try to make the character likeable. She is what she was - a passive witness. 

Brunhilde’s conclusion is that she cannot see such a phenomenon ever happening again. “Stupid people follow false leaders”. People are not so gullible now, she says. “People wouldn’t fall for it.” And, of course, the audience laughs nervously at the huge irony implicit in those words.

This Festival theatre centrepiece has been directed by the Festival’s co-artistic director, Neil Armfield with a keen eye on the ambivalence of retrospection and the fact that in this moment of history, its theme has new relevance. There is a compassionate insight, also, on how tiny is the world of aged-care residents, how repetitive are their dreary tasks. He does not allow colour to enter Brunhilde’s world and, indeed, the musical integration by cellist Catherine Finniss adds to the dourness of it all, the end-of-life woman alone with her recollections.  Dale Ferguson’s set completes it all. It is a melancholy statement on the bleak nature of aged care accommodation, although with tall windows and long gauze drapes it looks brighter and airier than most. This is a design deceit since those white areas become screens for the projection of grim Nazi war newsreels which underscore the play’s theme.

It is not fun. It is not uplifting. It offers neither regret nor hope. Instead, in all its sleek and artful dramatic professionalism, it delivers us a meditation on whether the world will ever learn from history.

Samela Harris

When: 27 Feb to 14 Mar

Where: Dunstan Playhouse

Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au

Rosehill

★★1/2

Adelaide Fringe Festival. Main Theatre at Goodwood Theatre and Studios. 27 Feb 2021

Rosehill the musical is produced by the Creative Academy of Performing Arts and is being enthusiastically greeted by the families and friends of its creatives, cast and crew.

Violet, played by Tea McGuire, is a Goth-inspired teenager who is grappling with the death of her mother and having to relocate to live with her estranged father (Vincent Lee-Hewitt) in the idyllic little town of Rosehill, where “rules are the best”: respect your elders, be home by 8pm and the like. However, all is not what it seems and there is a sinister cult at work that controls the minds and lives of its inhabitants. Despite her rebellious nature, Violet eventually succumbs but is ultimately freed from the forces of control with the assistance of friends who have fought to cling to their own identities.

The show is an exploration of how adolescents struggle to find themselves and make sense of an unforgiving world that throws competing and contradictory ideas and philosophies at them. It also explores the notion that we all have the potential to thrive in the midst of strong role models and that individualism is a positive and necessary thing.

The production is set simply in drapes with minimal sets and properties, which are changed slickly from one scene to the next. The lighting plot is simple and well executed and enhances the minimalist style of the show. Probir Geoffrey Dutt’s eclectic music score is recorded onto a backing track and the cast generally handle it well, with very few cueing problems from one vocal number to the next. The vocals are uniformly strong, and the choreography is unpretentious and effective.

Director Judy Sampson has kept faith with the modest storyline and not tried to extend it beyond its dramatic capabilities.   At the end of it all, Rosehill is a feel-good story that sends you off whistling a catchy tune or two.

Kym Clayton

When: 27 Feb to 6 Mar

Where: Main Theatre at Goodwood Theatre and Studios

Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au