★★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Treasury 1860. 24 Feb 2021
Well, well, well. Suddenly, we have an academy of specious absurdity and, in a torrent of eloquent explanatory bafflegab, it all makes absolute sense. If you don’t think too hard.
It is run by a Professor Longsword of the MBA School of MBA and he will do the thinking for you. He may be familiar to Fringe-goers from a former season with Becky Blake in the show Innuendo Everywhere. Then, he was a mere headmaster, albeit something of a disciplinarian. Now, in his magnificently tailored flowing academic robes and snappy mortar board, he has reached realms of far greater power and authority and he is almost beneficent in his munificence.
His course for the Fringe is, as advertised, a lunchtime Masters in Business Administration. Eligibility for the course seems dependent upon the ability to wine, dine, or perchance coffee at gorgeous Treasury 1860 and, indeed, having something of a taste for Longsword’s pun-lectable long words. A sense of humour helps, too.
Then again, one seriously must pay attention to the good professor since what he has to say about business administration, education, and academia is actually intensely clever. The devil is in the detail.
Of course, the Professor is marketing guru, standup comic and man-about-town Steve Davis and, in writing this show he has collaborated with his director Glynn Nicholas. Both men are seasoned in the humour department and old enough to have wide terms of reference. Hence this absolutely silly show is full of really clever and apposite commentary.
Not only but also, it is the most refreshingly original show in the Fringe. A lunchtime MBA? What a concept. In itself, it makes a pithy wee jab at the ubiquity of MBAs. And if audience members don’t have an MBA, Professor Longsword provides them on the spot, well, on graduation from the performance.
The professor is assisted by one Paige Turner, a woman with an epic laugh. And, among segments of the show, they turn on some audience participation with marketing research with novel foods. Oh yes, they’ve thought of everything.
And, while one has had a good laugh at the expense of academic pretensions, one also has been provoked to quite profound depths of contemplation. For instance, this critic may remain forever deeply concerned at how on earth to leverage the value of a paradigm shift.
Samela Harris
When: 24 Feb to 19 Mar
Where: Treasury 1860
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Disclaimer: Steve Davis appears with Samela Harris as a resident critic on ABC 891 Smart Arts on Sunday mornings.
★ ½ Adelaide Fringe Festival. The Garage International, Adelaide Town Hall. 22 Feb 2021
Chopin’s Last Tour is an homage to the man behind some of the most treasured music ever composed for piano. The man is Fryderyk Chopin, and he needs no further introduction, or does he? Phillip Aughey knows that Chopin’s music stands on its own merits, and that back-stories are not really needed to enjoy his music, but a little knowledge about Chopin himself does enhance the listening experience.
Written and performed by Aughey, Chopin’s Last Tour is the story of the composer’s life: his upbringing and family, his nationalistic pride, his battle with illness, and his relationships. The play is set in Scotland in October 1848 during Chopin’s last tour abroad, one year before his death. At this point, Chopin’s life was in disarray: he was emerging from the dramatic ending of his relationship with his lover Amantine Dupin (best known by her pen name George Sand), he was desperately short of money and reliant on benefactors and fees from concerts that he was loath to perform, and he was dangerously ill with tuberculosis. In short, Chopin was desperately unhappy and felt that his life was little more than a misery from which he ached to be released.
The script tries to bring all this to life through a well-constructed and interesting monologue interspersed with performances of some of Chopin’s popular piano music played by Aughey. The pieces are representative of a different phase of Chopin’s life.
The fundamental concept and design of the show is sound, but the execution is tired. Aughey’s acting and pianistic talents are modest but waning, and neither is adequate to make the show really work.
The most poignant moment of the performance is at the end, when Aughey plays the Nocturne in C sharp minor, No.20, which was published posthumously. The lights are dimmed and the monologue concludes with the announcement of Chopin’s death.
Kym Clayton
When: 22 to 24 Feb
Where: The Garage International, Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Octagon, Gluttony. 21 Feb 2021
A fast moving one hour show featuring various performers all for the kids? Excellent. On this Sunday afternoon of the first Fringe weekend the kids were primed for excitement and the crowd was noisy, especially when whipped into a small-scale frenzy by the MC.
Don’t Mess With The Dummies are a perfect opening act, the three women setting the tone and keeping the kids on a high. “They are weird campers!” said the seven year old. Not to be outdone his five year old brother added “They are silly!”. The nine year old, transfixed, thought they were great. And fun, with juggling and hula hoops and tents and sleeping bags which morphed into singing sleeping bags for Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight).
Act 2: Lisa from Big Tops Tiny Tots Circus is just excellent for the pre-teen crowd, who don’t seem to mind a lecture on good diet and the food groups built into their entertainment routine. Lisa balances spinning plates on sticks. That’s pretty much it, apart from the way in which she keeps the plates spinning through her performance and uses the audience to keep her informed. It’s all inclusive action and good stuff.
The final act were The Diamond Duo, brother and sister jugglers and trapezists Calin and Arwen, who contrive to match each other catch-for-catch in seeing whom is the best juggler of the two. They keep the kids entertained with trickier and more difficult scenarios, culminating in Calin escaping from a straitjacket while balancing on a tall unicycle.
Interest is maintained to the end, even with the bolshie five year old who was shouting a random “No, no no!” at the performance whilst his brother yells a more subdued “Yes, yes yes!”. Make of that what you will; I think they were engaged.
Overall, an outstanding hour of fun.
Alex Wheaton
When: 21 Feb to 21 Mar
Where: The Octagon, Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
World Première. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Black Box Theatre, Adelaide Botanic Garden. 21 Feb 2021
The Reichstag is Burning is stunning - it elevates Fringe Festival artistry to heights that are infrequently seen. Writer/performer Joanne Hartstone and designer/director Tom Kitney have an indisputable triumph on their hands that merits playing to capacity audiences around the world. They have experienced such success before (think The Girl Who Jumped Off the Hollywood Sign and That Daring Australian Girl, as well as all of the other shows they have curated and produced over a number of years), and this show will continue to see them as irresistible theatrical forces of nature.
The Reichstag is Burning is billed as cabaret in the tradition of Weimar Kabaret, but it is so much more than that. It is classy theatre that includes a high impact light and sound installation, superb singing, an evocative music score, sharp lyrics, tightly performed choreography, and dark humour that speaks to issues that gnaw at your guts.
The Reichstag is Burning is essentially a documentary revealed through song and dance about the rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s seizure of power prior to the outbreak of World War II. It looks at various key major events, such as the book burnings, demonization of the Jews, the burning of the Reichstag, and savage repression of artists and performers. These events are studied through a cornucopia of iconic songs – such as Total Control (by The Motels), Chuck Out the Men (a Weimer Republic 1926 classic by Friedrich Hollaender) – whose lyrics are re-imagined so that they become satirical social commentary in the true tradition of cabaret. Emma Knights’ astute musical direction shows through.
Perhaps the most compelling inclusion was History Repeating composed by Alex Gifford and originally performed by the Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey. As Hartstone belted it out, the projections on the backdrop behind her transitioned from Nazi Germany to modern day USA with images of Donald Trump peddling ‘alternative truths’ to his adoring masses. History repeats itself, indeed.
This show is a must see.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 14 Mar
Where: Black Box Theatre, Adelaide Botanic Garden
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. Peter Goers. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 21 Feb 2021
’Tis only the sixth in the Goers trilogy of Fringe shows. If one was wondering where he could go in the wake of the other five, the answer comes as “upwards”. It is not that the old dog has learned new tricks; it is just that he has honed and timed and gathered and dared. If anything, he becomes more shameless - and for one whose life is a very open book, broadcast on radio five times a week for X decades, this is saying something. In Joyful Strains he strips naked his abnormally high-arched foot to reveal the mysterious floppy big toe. It is something of a medical mystery and not a pretty sight. “Floppy, floppy, floppy”. Those words will never sound the same.
Goers' carriage and epic life experiences belie his stubborn 48 years, but his mental arithmetic keeps the gag rolling ad infinitum. Keep moving over, Jack Benny.
The show’s format is as ever: Goers swings into the old comic gold of his raconteur persona telling tales of the stars of yore and anecdotes about his adventures in rural South Australia. The adorable “Singing Milkman”, Robin “Smacka” Schmelzkopf, sings a gorgeous song, this time Show Me the Road to Amarillo. Goers does some more showbiz schtick and then ever-loved-and-loving Anne “Willsy” Wills comes on as the penultimate dazzle of fun, reminding us all that she ever was a singer who knows how to sell a song. It’s Broadway Babe this year, and the frock and boots are a blaze of giant red sequins.
Goers plays to the oldies because someone has to. He loves them and never patronises them. Hence, the show has a language warning. He knows his craft and he makes sure his peeps get their money’s worth.
Samela Harris
When: 21 Feb to 21 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
DISCLAIMER: Samela Harris is a Goers colleague on the Sunday Radio 891 Adelaide Smart Arts program but, as a theatre critic of fifty-plus years standing, she swears she would not and could not ever give a bum steer. If the show was lousy, this space would be blank.