Adela
ide Fringe. The GC. 17 Feb 2018
Max Riebel is a rare bird indeed. He is a classically trained countertenor who is equally at home singing Judy Garland as he is with Henry Purcell and JS Bach!
The Great Pretender is his current show playing out of The German Club for a limited three night season, and its name is styled after the popular song of the same name popularised by The Platters in 1955. But there’s more to the title of the show – it is also about Riebel being chameleon like and holding the countertenor up to any mirror. A singer for all seasons if you will.
Riebel is at home signing from almost any genre. The hour-long performance includes a mix of songs from the baroque era through to contemporary, as well as several baroque pieces played by classical guitarist Ziggy Johnston, who is just superb.
The show has a decidedly melancholy feel to it: the song selection certainly displays Riebel’s vocal agility and musicality, but they are mostly sad and reflective songs, which in turn renders Riebel’s patter somewhat down-beat apart from some off-beat self-deprecating quips that have the audience giggling with delight.
However, the moderately sized audience are there because they knew what they are in for, and they get it – a stunning display of the art of the countertenor, but turned inside out for a totally different experience. Riebel knows how to communicate a song as well, and his operatic singing and acting experience shines through. He inhabits each song.
His performance of Over the Rainbow (of Judy Garland fame) is truly spectacular. Again, without the benefit of program notes, one cannot attribute the arrangement, but suffice to say the melody line and meter is altered in such a way that Riebel’s counter tenor voice imbues the song with such unusual qualities that it is elevated to quite a different level. This song alone is worth the price of admission!
What Power Art Thou (aka the Cold song) from Purcell’s semi-opera King Arthur is also a highlight. Riebel takes a moderate pace and is able to extract resonant tones from the nadir of his register. It is dramatic, imperious and a truly fitting way to end the concert.
Riebel is no pretender, no interloper – he is the real deal.
Recommended.
Kym Clayton
4 stars
When: 17 to 18 Feb
Where: The GC
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Trash Test Dummies. Corona Theatre. The Garden of Unearthly Delights. 17 Feb 2018
The Trash Test Dummies are back! Circus trio Jamie Bretman, Jack Coleman and Simon Wright created their original children's comedy act in 2013 and have been touring nationally and internationally ever since.
Their latest show is a twist on the trash-themed original, which scored Best Children's Presentation at the 2015 Adelaide Fringe Festival. It features an array of water-themed skits: Bay Watch-inspired life guards, swimming cap capers, synchronised splashing, and a somewhat drawn-out, but thankfully PC, shower scene. The set overflows with slap stick comedy and circus theatrics.
Your favourite dummy will change throughout the show as they show off their many skills. All three are accomplished performers and well-versed in how to make kids laugh. Wright is a super strongman and a master of the unicycle, Coleman is the acrobatic wonder, whilst Bretman impresses with comic timing and his finesse with the hoops.
This show is perfect for primary school aged children; the non-stop physical theatre slows somewhat mid-show and may lose younger audience members until the pace picks back up. Despite this, it is a wonderfully fun and entertaining hour of laughs.
Whether you are looking to dive into the festival head first or wade in at the shallow end, give this splash-tastic show a go!
Nicole Russo
4 stars
When: 16 Feb to 18 Mar
Where: Corona Theatre, The Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
The Gemini Collective. Mainstage at Bakehouse Theatre. 16 Feb 2018
Based on the characters from the popular children's book series Ivy + Bean, this lovely musical theatre production is written and directed by husband-and-wife team Sarah Williams and Anthony Butler. Operating as The Gemini Collective, this is their debut production and one they can be proud of.
Inspired by their own children's love for Annie Burrows' New York Times best-selling books, the play focuses on the unlikely friendship between two seven year-old girls. Living on the same street but with opposing personalities, they avoid each other until circumstance brings them together and they discover a perfect partnership.
The show features a stellar cast from the Adelaide theatre community. Briony Kent, an actress with an impressive list of professional and amateur appearances, captures the rebellious but well-intentioned Bean wonderfully. Her characterisation is believable and she is very successful in portraying conflict between Bean's staunch independence and her desire to do the right thing.
Millicent Sarre's Ivy is so endearing. She nails the childish innocence of her bookish character and she plays off Kent brilliantly. Sarre's voice is divine and she exudes a natural and effortless warmth that lights up the stage.
The supporting cast of Jemma Allen, Zak Vasiliou, Nadine Wood and Thomas Brodie Phillips are fantastic and fulfil their many roles with ease. They interact easily and genuinely just as childhood friends would, and garner plenty of laughs at the right moments.
Allen is particularly delightful as Bean's tyrannical older sister. Successfully mustering all the puffed up arrogance of a tween-ager, she is hilarious as the eleven year-old Nancy.
This production is a perfect afternoon out for primary age children. As well as being a treat for any fans of the book, it is a great introduction to musical theatre for those not old enough to sit through a full length production.
Nicole Russo
4 stars
When: 16 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Victoria Square. 16 Feb 2018
The white tents and food stands don't look too prepossessing from the Victoria Square outside. The magic is within.
Grounded is a concept playground - a pop-up Fringe precinct "for kids and their adults”.
It is called “Grounded” because it puts one in touch with the ground. Bare feet on the grass are most acceptable.
There is a strong Aboriginal element to which end Vic Square should be recognised as Tarntanyangga, the dreaming place of the red kangaroo.
Grounded opened on Friday night with the Lord Mayor, Martin Haese and Grounded guru, David Sefton, formerly director of the Adelaide Festival, and a formal smoking and Welcome To Country ceremony which included the most utterly beautiful Of Desert and Sea Dance from Kurruru.
Grounded has a full program of its own throughout the Fringe. It includes a Supermassive Music Festival featuring Sara Blasko, HeapsGood Friends, Solli Raphael, DJ Trip and others.
On February 24 it presents a special outdoor screening of Windmill’s wonderful Girl Asleep and an intriguing Megaphone Project with red megaphones. It also features a bar and shaded places to sit for the grownups, food stands from Central Market and art installations.
Most importantly of all from this critic’s perspective, there are performances in the tents. One is puppet theatre. The other was launched on opening night - Saltbush - Children’s Cheering Carpet.
This is the jewel in the crown.
This is the must-see for children.
It is not just about seeing. It is immersive and interactive. It is earthy. It is ethereal. It is joyful. It is Indigenous. It is universal.
The Cheering Carpet is an illuminated stage on which a world of nature and mythology is most expertly and imaginatively projected.
This lovely thing is part of a series created through Insite Arts and Compagnia TPO with Aboriginal artists Lou Bennett, Deon Hastie and Delwyn Mannix.
The audience must shed shoes before entering the tent wherein dwells the Carpet.
Seated in the dark on broad tiers, to a soundscape of birds and song, they see the carpet come to life as Aboriginal storyline art. It becomes a river, rippling and running beautifully while two dancers dip and splash in it. It becomes a giant turtle. It becomes the glorious night sky of vivid stars.
Throughout the transformations, the children are invited onto its surface with the dancers to chase the lights, to peck as emus and bound as kangaroos and to shelter beneath the canopy of stars.
Their engagement is total. It is a joy to behold.
Interactive kids’ performance doesn’t get much better than this.
It gets five stars in a Milky Way.
Samela Harris
5 stars
When: 16 to 25 Feb
Where: Tarntanyangga (Victoria Square)
Program details: groundedadelaide.com
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Michael Hackett. The GC. 16 Feb 2018
Mystification.
This Fringe comedy show is touted as “groundbreaking”.
Um. What ground? Where?
Perhaps there is some poetic justice in the fact that this English comic’s main impression of Adelaide so far is that we have very smooth tarmac. It’s hard to break ground under tarmac. It is effectively ground sealing.
Michael Hackett seemed to love our tarmac almost as much as we didn’t love him.
He’s a stand-up from Manchester. He stands up tall at 6’ 7”. He supplied his enthusiastic audience at the GC with nips of vodka on arrival. They were very popular indeed.
Hackett worked and worked. He started out moderately well. He is extremely appealing. He has the cutest, most irresistible smile.
He had the old comedian's formula; he’d picked a couple of local references. Smooth tarmac on our roads and the Aussie argot of “strawbs” for strawberries. They were to be his best comedic assets.
There was no great revelation about “giantology” except that long legs are uncomfortable on planes.
But, for some reason, he read his audience as really classless turkeys who could not get their minds above their genitals.
So he hammered on and on about genitalia. His preoccupation with vaginas became tedious. One wanted to send him off to Hobart where he could gaze at them to his heart’s content on the MONA vagina walls. We learned about his scrotum.
One could go on. He did.
He effectively embarrassed and humiliated one sensitive young man in the front row. A few yobbos at the back guffawed before going out to get more drinks.
But, with other audience members streaming off to the loo never to return, he realised that his opening night world premiere in Adelaide was not going down. He had forgotten a chunk of his shtick, he said. He had jet-lag. The vodka was the thing his audience seemed to like best, he lamented. He does not think he’ll do that again. He cut his losses and ended the show early.
Relief.
Samela Harris
2 stars [one for the vodka]
When: 17 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Variously between the GC at the German Club and The Bakehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au