★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Le Cascadeur at The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 4 Mar 2020.
Fudnut: Glasgow slang, meaning a person who portrays themselves as being intelligent, but thick as shit. (Urban dictionary.)
Larry Dean is no ‘fudnut’. If anything, he is the polar opposite: he regales us with eye wateringly funny stories of wholly stupid things that he has done in his quest for his ideal man (yes, he’s gay), but he does this in a entirely calculated way that just stops short of provoking ‘unhelpful’ feedback from his audience. To be sure, Dean covers some very earthy material that is sure to make some wince, but if you check your moral superiority and sensitivities at the door, you find that it’s really all good fun and just a racy exposé of someone’s reality, not just Dean’s.
Dean’s material focusses on men he has known – as lovers and boyfriends (he hates the word ‘partner’) – and why they eventually broke up. After an hour we feel we have a glimpse into why. We come to know a little more about Dean: his vulnerabilities, his inclination towards being childlike at times, and his loyalty to those whom he loves (whether they be dead or alive!). Throughout, Dean is self-deprecating and he plays it as an art-form. He almost runs the risk of depressing the audience, but just in the nick of time he re-sets and does something outrageously funny with his body and his face in time to an up tempo backing song. Classy stuff.
There is of course an extended piece about accents. Dean is of course Scottish and he can be as broad as he likes, and does. But he makes fun of the Irish, and the English, and… Aussies of course. And of course Aussies enjoy laughing at themselves but not nearly as much as at those from the former ‘motherland’!
Dean’s show is over in a blink. There’s the usual crowd interaction, but not too much (one feels safe!). There is a little bit of politics, and only a smidgen of social comment, but most of it is just plain funny storytelling, about his self and others who are significant in his life. It feels authentic, and it leaves you feeling good after it is over.
Highly recommended.
Kym Clayton
When: 4 Mar to 15 Mar
Where: Le Cascadeur at The Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Grace Emily Hotel . 3 Mar 2020
Opening his show in the small performance space of the Grace Emily, Benjamin Roberts notes that his band Ukulele Death Squad didn’t exactly get death threats when they performed their Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds tribute show last year, but it came close. Fortunately, the ground has already been well trodden with Springsteen and ukulele covers (eg ‘Born To Uke’ – Various Artists, 2019), so he’s a bit safer this time.
He does however, acknowledge that with more than 300 songs to choose from, chances are you aren’t going to hear some of your favourites. “Born In The USA!” shouts someone from the crowd – I’m thinking that’s not going to get an airing tonight.
From Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978), Roberts opens with The Factory, followed by Atlantic City and Nebraska (Nebraska 1982). His playing here is beautifully sparse, leaving the pregnant spaces that is such a signature of early Springsteen. Dancing In The Dark with a beautifully turned riff and Streets Of Philadelphia bring the appropriate crowd response as loved and well played songs, and it is in I’m On Fire when Roberts brings out the percussive finger beats on the face of the uke, and really shows his mastery of the instrument.
The ukulele, despite the George Formby and Tiny Tim memes, can be an awesome instrument, and in Roberts’ hands it is plucked, picked and strummed, tapped, rapped and beaten. His homage to Springsteen and the song choices reminds us that Bruce is a storyteller first and foremost, and when the music is stripped back, the stories matter, and the words resonate.
Vocally Roberts falters in places, but it’s of little import in the overall scheme of things. He throws in an original song for good measure (he’s a working stiff after all) and closes with Wrecking Ball, which he notes was firmly at the bottom of someone’s interweb List of 300 Springsteen Songs. I wouldn’t have put it that far down, but hey, it’s all subjective. By my reckoning, adding in last year’s album Western Stars, there’s about 315 songs left to for future shows – he could do this for years!
Uke Springsteen is Benjamin Roberts’ first solo outing and, initial jitters aside, he’s pulled this off. And no, he didn’t play Born In The USA. Well done.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 3 to 10 Mar
Where: Grace Emily Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Allegria. 1 Mar 2020
Not sure where the 27 comes from, as this female acapella choir is apparently 35 strong, and from what I could see, there were a few more than 27 gin labels available at the Prohibition Distillery!
Allegria formed in 2008, and specialise in renditions of contemporary composers such as Nick Cave, Paul Kelly and Billy Joel. This concert was dedicated to ‘strong women’ with a handful of prohibition era tunes thrown in to acknowledge the setting; the audience sat in full view of the rather marvellous gin still at the rear of the Prohibition Distillery.
The group opened with Java Jive, which I think was first recorded by the Inkspots, although the King Sisters and Manhattan Transfer also had great versions. Allegria made it their own, casting aside mentions of coffee halfway through and substituting ‘gin’. Clever girls.
A laid back version of The Video’s Trickle Trickle brought out some great harmonies, and narrator Brenton Shaw introduced Adele as one of the strong women they would be celebrating tonight. Rolling In The Deep, a big song at any time, revealed some of the vocal shortcomings in the group, as did The Boy From New York City by the Ad Libs.
The Manhattan Transfer are clearly a favourite of Musical Director Angela Sharp; many of the songs performed tonight are also covered by various iterations of that group.
Nina Simone is given the nod with My Baby Just Cares for Me featuring polished accompaniment from pianist Emma Knights and percussionist Gabbi Lopa, with Shaw noting Simone’s civil rights history; Dolly Parton’s Jolene was prefaced with an explanation of her work with child literacy through the Imagination Library.
Björk and Regina Spektor also featured with some difficult arrangements, and a lovely version of Samson.
Highlight of the evening was Siren, theme song from Home Fires, while closer I Will Sing of My Country was stunningly haunting; a fitting end to an entertaining evening.
Arna Eyers-White
When: Closed
Where: The Prohibition Distillery
Bookings: Closed
★★★
Grist To The Mill. The Bakehouse Theatre. 2 Mar 2020
“Thar she blows!” One of the most famous lines in literature comes from American Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick: or, The Whale. And it’s thrillingly the first line of Ishmael in Ross Ericson’s re-scripting of the tall whale tale from the novel to the stage in his one-man show.
The set comprised a few of the sea farer’s needs and a bit of sail. Ericson is an imposing whale of a man who commands attention; he is dressed in interesting clothing of the day and is bursting to tell the tale. The text is taut as a hemp rope on a whaler and he admirably rips through the long novel with amazing detail, but Ericson’s energy gets the best of him. While we are evocatively aboard ship on the high seas, chasing and harpooning large whales from small boats, and enthralled and fascinated with the obsessed Captain Ahab and his malevolent white whale, loudness seems suitable to convey the excitement yet Ericson is too often yelling. When employed, his dulcet tones were a relief, but alas, we didn’t hear enough of them until after the show when he was himself, spruiking his other show, Gratiano. Too frequently, lines were recalled after a short brain search, and sometimes a wrong word was followed by the similarly sounding correct one, rather cutely, like, “Queequeg,” and then, “Pequod.” Diction and clarity also got trampled in the rush.
Director Michelle Yim maybe didn’t notice these things, or opening night was far too exciting for Ericson. The creative team might also have included more evocative sounds like creaking blocks and tackles, high winds and seas, and the cries of violent deaths. Ericson pursued a great script and then harpooned it.
David Grybowski
When: 2 to 11 Mar
Where: The Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Nick Power. Lion Arts Factory. 2 Mar 2020
The Lion Arts Factory was the perfect venue to attend a hip hop dance event. However, the ghetto-like brick walls and ten metre diameter cypher circle weren’t enough to convince that Nick Power could fake spontaneity with his choreography. Hip hop was born in New York and its popularity is proven in this production culminating from four years of collaboration bringing together Aaron Lim from Darwin and Erak Mith of Phnom Penh. The young men begin like fighting cocks – posing for fearful effects and faking the first move. Once cred is shown, the game of one-upmanship challenges is on. Some of the moves are astonishing for their suddenness and adroitness. Hip hoppers spend a lot of time close to the ground, upside down and on their head. After challenging each other to exhaustion, Lim and Mith take a deserved break and bottle of water while the audience watches wondering what will happen next. A new challenge begins but this time it’s a bromance with the dancers entwined in dynamic couplings of great accomplishment, but none as gravity-defying as in the picture in the Festival program. It becomes clear that Mith is the mentor and Lim the student.
While a great demonstration of the genre, the show opens the question once more if it’s possible to take hip hop, or street art for that matter, out of the spontaneity of the street - where so much more is at stake for the participants and audience - and enjoy the same thrill in a controlled environment. This wasn’t so much dancing with wolves – more like owning a clever dog.
David Grybowski
When: 28 Feb to 4 Mar
Where: Lions Arts Factory
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au