Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Festival Theatre. 25 Jun 2016
The first Cabaret Festival for Artistic Director’s Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect closed in fine form with some lovely performances & covers of Australian songs by Festival artists.
The evening opens with a sultry and rousing performance of Can’t Get You Out Of My Head originally recorded by Kylie Minogue for her 2001 album Fever. McGregor oozes over the lyric with back up from Perfect and galah-esque dance provided by the cast of The Birds.
McGregor is clad in a shimmering outfit, reminiscent of the colours of a galah, whilst Perfect leaves nothing to the imagination in his singlet and stubbies; dressing his outfit up with the later addition of a white tux suit jacket.
Kate Ceberano and renown pianist Paul Grabowsky pair up for the second song of the evening. Ceberano wears a beautiful black evening gown and glows as she sings a gorgeous cover of the Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, a song she performed for breast cancer awareness; “I don’t want anybody else / When I think I about you I touch myself / I love myself, I want you to love me”. Ceberano continues to demonstrate why she is one of Australia’s greatest singers and performers.
Adelaide’s own Deborah Krizac takes to the stage next with a sweet rendition of Olivia Newton-John’s 1974 hit I Honestly Love You, ably backed by the onstage band for the evening ‘The Budgie Smugglers’ lead by Vanessa Scammell.
Writer of Keating! The Musical, Casey Bennetto is up next with a hilarious rendition of his own creation titled Show, Don’t Tell; “But if life were just a cabaret extended / Then what would be the point of cabaret? / The day is where our efforts are expended / The night is for escaping from the day..” a perfectly apt song choice for the evening.
Next into the fray is Australian, Carla Lippis backed by the Class of Cabaret Graduates spinning a sexy rhythm around Australian alternative rock band The Church’s Under The Milky Way. The Graduates - Naomi Crosby, Benji Riggs, Mellie Tantalos, Harry Nguyen and Jemma Allen – groove along with Lippis, creating delicious harmonies and rhythmic support.
The comedy lifts with McGregor’s return to the stage as she tells an amusing story of the best and worst cover songs of all time. The winner was of course, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s Halleluja by Jeff Buckley, but the loser is where McGregor sought to make amends - Celine Dion and Anastacia’s duet of the AC DC hit You Shook Me All Night Long.
Shunning The Budgie Smugglers, McGregor pulls out a Suzuki Omnichord from the 80s and takes back the AC DC hit singlehandedly, providing her own backing as well as the soaring lyric. She truly is a spectacular performer, even lending some seriously high pitched opera squeals to the number!
Host of the second week of the Backstage Club and Class of Cabaret mentor Libby O’Donovan takes to the piano next and tells a heart rending story about how music has the power to awaken memories from the darkest depths of patients with advanced dementia.
She goes on to sing a beautiful number titled Songs Remember Me; “I still know all the words to Danny Boy / And all at once I know just who I am / When they play Amazing Grace I am a young girl once again / In the church hall in my mother’s loving hand / Once again my yesterdays have clarity / Songs remember me…”. It is a wonderfully moving piece.
Dash Kruck returns the smiles to our faces with a politically reimagined version of John Paul Young’s Love Is In The Air with the lyrics changed to “The election's in the air”. The audience lap up both the energy and the humour, grooving in their seats and singing along. His performance manages to bring supporters from both camps together – particularly “those who believe in climate change, and those who don’t understand science!”
Australian singer and actress Naomi Price is up next with John Farnham’s Burn For You from the 90s album Chain Reaction. This Australian icon is always touching, and Price’s rendition is no exception; her voice has gorgeous timbre that sits beautifully on the lyric.
Eddie Perfect sits his lily-white legs at the grand piano with a rendition of best friend Casey Bennetto’s song about the well-known Aussie landmark, the Big Banana; Tom Burlinson – aka The Man from Snowy River – croons his way through the 1981 Billy Field hit, Bad Habits with a sexy sax solo in the break; and Yana Alana sets off into an Italian Aria before swiftly changing direction and ripping into Russell Morris’s The Real Thing clad in all the colours of the rainbow.
Sven Ratzke absolutely steals the stage, opening with a bit of stand-up about his stay in Adelaide that really gets the audience going before launching into David Bowie’s Lets Dance. But before you decry “that’s not an Aussie song”, McGregor joins Ratzke for a duet, overlaying a tribal harmonisation of Yothu Yindi’s Treaty, beautifully layered with the sounds of live didgeridoo from The Budgie Smugglers.
As the end of the evening approaches, McGregor and Perfect give a spoken tribute to Tim Minchin (who sadly couldn’t be present to perform), and announce that Matilda the Musical will be coming to Adelaide for an 8 week season as part of their 2017 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. With that, James Millar – currently performing as part of the Melbourne Matilda cast – takes the stage with When I Grow Up.
Fittingly the 2016 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Last Galah closes with a performance of Paul Kelly’s From Little Things Big Things Grow, with verses shared by each of the evening performers, before a rousing finish with the entire cast and backstage crew.
The Last Galah is a stylish and generous way to close The Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and gave many of the second week performers a chance to share their talents with Adelaide audiences in a collaborative event. Let’s hope the idea is reprised in years to come.
Paul Rodda
When: 25 Jun
Where: Festival Theatre
Bookings: Closed
