Company 2. The Garden of Unearthly Delights – Aurora Spiegeltent. 20 Feb 2015
Packed like sardines in a can, we sit in the Aurora Spiegeltent for the much-anticipated ‘Scotch and Soda’ from the cast and co-creators of past Fringe hit, ‘Cantina’.
This vaudevillian, circus-cum-cabaret style show has remained popular amongst audiences since its mainstream resurgence about five years ago. The formula has changed little; performance in the round; live music; crazy costumes; daring acrobatics; and a little something from a highwire or trapeze.
‘Scotch and Soda’ is billed as a “whiskey infused evening of raucous beats and dexterous feats” in a universe somewhere “between depression-era travelling circus and Europe’s 19thcentury carnival past”. The characters and costumes accurately depict this theme and the energy and skill of the performers is suitably entertaining – but that’s about where it stops.
One expects to queue for such a popular show, but with sold-out houses and audience numbers in the hundreds expected, you might also hope that the producers would be running a well-oiled performance machine. Not so on this occasion. The show, which already starts at the late, late-night timeslot of 10.15pm, went up no less than 30 minutes late! And it is only 60 minutes long. To add to the frustration of this delay, the designated audience queue location is situated just downwind from a block or porta-toilets, and it was still over 30 degrees at 10.00pm (pew!).
But this is the renowned company that produced ‘Cantina’, so it is going to be worth it! At least that was what I thought. Perhaps the shine was taken off by the cramped seating, hot weather conditions, late entry, general tiredness and stinky toilets, but I think it had more to do with the fairly routine performance that was to follow.
Now don’t get me wrong. These performers are hugely talented and the format looks and sounds great; performance values abound. But what you get for the next hour is a well-lit, well-miked, well-dressed version of stuff I have seen on more than one occasion, for free, when walking through the mall. These talented acrobats leapt and flipped and balanced and climbed, on bikes, on boxes, on bottles and on each other, but the real ‘Cantina’ wow was missing. It was fancy busking in a fancy tent.
The music from the ‘Crusty Suitcase Band’ was fantastic – a standalone performance I would pay good money to see any day of the week. Their long music-only interludes during this show however, felt more like padding for a lack of new circus tricks. And speaking of padding what was going on with the budgerigar routine!?
The ticket price is not what I would call “cheap” by Fringe standards, so I would make my choice wisely. You aren’t going to hate this show; it is really is quite good. But if you have subscribed to the past works of this production team, fair warning. I don’t think this one quite lives up to the hype.
Paul Rodda
When: 20 Feb to 8 Mar
Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights – Aurora Spiegeltent
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
