Last night’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala impressed audiences with glitter, sequins and outstanding performances from a number of artists playing this year.
After the Welcome to Country was performed by Issac Hamilton, the curtains raised to show a stage above which posters from this and 22 past Adelaide Cabaret Festivals were suspended, a sparkly chandelier and gold satiny fabric dressing the front facing edges of the band’s stage.
Virginia Gay was the MC for the night and razzle-dazzled us with both her performance of the Razzle Dazzle song and her incredibly sparkly low V necked sequin covered jumpsuit. She declared at one point that she felt like a mirror ball had been stripped because of how much sparkle she had. Gay also impressed with her jaw-dropping splits, all the while wearing heels.
This year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival has 9 past Artistic Directors as its Artistic Directors with each of them contributing to the programming. 7 of them were present at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023 Variety Gala last night. Starting with Julia Holt who was the first Artistic Director of the festival who explained the desire to create an incubator/a glasshouse for cabaret artists and to stir up an alchemy between artist and audience.
Rather than performing herself as many of the other Artistic Directors did last night, Julia Holt introduced us to a jazzy French band that she brought to Adelaide all those years ago in the festival’s first years: Paris Combo. Tragically, the group’s lead singer Belle du Berry passed away from cancer just after the recording of their last album during COVID. Their concerts in Adelaide are an Australian exclusive and will feature a number of other vocalists in a celebration of Paris Combo’s songs and a tribute to their Belle. They performed one of their well-known songs, and one of pianist and trumpetist Australian David Lewis’ favourite songs Senõr [read our interview with David here]. Paris Combo is performing three shows at this opening weekend of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023 with two remaining: tonight, Saturday 10 June at 5pm and tomorrow, Sunday 11 June at 7:30pm.
Virginia Gay then introduces us to who she calls one of the most powerful power couples, David and Lisa Campbell who were Artistic Directors of Adelaide Cabaret Festival from 2009 to 2011. It is the Campbells that we have to thank for there being a Variety Gala, which is now one of the always sold-out shows in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival program. Lisa explains that they decided to put on a variety gala without telling anyone who would be performing and were surprised to see it sold out! So, they kept doing it.
Another of this year’s Artistic Directors is Kate Ceberano, wearing a long black dress, who gave us a sweet taste of what to expect from her show Kate Ceberano – My Life is A Symphony. She performed her song Brave which is the first track on her recently released album of the same name as the show. Witnessing Kate performing her iconic song in a way most of us have never heard it before was enchanting. She’s performing My Life is A Symphony for one show only, tonight, Saturday 10 June at 7:30pm.
Changing the pace, and era, was Mark Trevorrow (who you may better know as his alter-ego, Bob Downe) performing “Alfie” (What’s it all about) with Bev Kennedy on piano. This being Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s song inspired by the 1966 film Alfie. Mark Trevorrow’s performance was a taster of what to expect from his show Singing Straight, in which he ditches his alter-ego, in its Adelaide premiere tomorrow Sunday 11 June at 7pm.
Ali McGregor spoke next in a bright red dress with a statement brooch on her waist. In speaking of her time as Artistic Director, she declared that “this is my home” and that the wonderful thing about cabaret is that “cabaret can be anything you want it to be”. McGregor told us about how the 2016 poster with the word “Cabaret” lit up in lights came together – in the carpark under the casino with the letters made from junk and salvaged materials.
Then it was Eddie Perfect’s turn. He declared Adelaide Cabaret Festival to be “my favourite festival on the planet” which is quite an accolade for it. He performed a song “Death to the critic” from a play he’s writing the score for in which the performer decides to kill the critics one by one. The song was fantastically clever and dark and surely even critics will find it amusing. This reviewer did! The premise made me think of the French black comedy film The Axe (Le Couperet) in which an unemployed man becomes an assassin killing off his competitors in the job market.
Next up was Sarah-Louise Young giving the audience a taste of what to expect at her show An Evening without Kate Bush performing the song “Wow”. Young tells us that Kate Bush has 6 dance moves, including champagne whip crack and the rollercoaster. Even if you’re not a Kate Bush fan, this show promises to be entertaining.
Taking us to interval is a performance from Thando, a Zimbabwean-Australian singer, who is perhaps best known for her appearances on The Voice television talent show. In a dazzling white tiered dress, Thando’s voice soared as she performed “I am changing”.
After interval, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala resumes with last year’s Adelaide Artistic Director Tina Arena’s “I’m in chains”. Except Tina Arena isn’t able to be in Adelaide for the festival this year and we are greeted by Adelaide icon Hans who gives us “a song by a different Tina” (this time Tina Turner): an energetic performance of “Proud Mary” (Rolling on the river). Shockingly I’d never actually seen Hans perform before and he did not disappoint. He had four dancers that he names The Lucky Bitches: two women and two men and it was refreshingly amusing to see it was the men showing their skin wearing little shorts and tank-tops, while the girls wore dresses.
All of the Artistic Directors came out on stage after his performance to award Hans the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award, an award which was started by Kate Ceberano during her Artistic Directorship. Hans seemed genuinely shocked and humbled at being given official icon status.
Another part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival is the Class of Cabaret, which is also a legacy from David and Lisa Campbell’s time as Artistic Directors. We were treated to a performance by 2019 graduate, Philimon Araya, of a mash-up of Michael Jackson’s Baby be Mine and Benny’s Ethiopia. It was a powerful performance and his incredible soaring voice achieves impressively high notes.
Virginia Gay returns to the stage having had a costume change at interval now in a slinky champagne sparkly dress. This time though she leads us into a tribute to Barry Humphries, who was Artistic Director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2015. The most fitting person to perform a song in tribute to him is of course the wonderful Meow Meow, who was a dear personal friend of Humphries. She walks on stage shoeless and sits on the chair attempting to put on her shoes declaring “I’m not ready” in signature Meow Meow style. However, she then expands and says “I’m not ready for this moment” to face the “reality of the loss”. She then leads us into her poignant performance of a song from the Weimar era, the music that Hitler hated, which translates to “if I could wish something it would be to be a little bit happy”. Meow Meow is not otherwise performing at Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023 so it was a real treat to see her last night.
Julia Zemiro returns to the stage and speaks of her Artistic Director experiences, including having the 2020 festival ripped away from her because of COVID-19. She tells us that she is bringing back All the Queen’s Men for their LGBTIQ+ Elders Dance Club (on Saturday 17 June at 1:30pm), and of course her iconic RockWiz which this time will see a Salute to Adelaide (Saturday 17 June at 7:30pm but currently sold out). She has also selected Vince Jones and Nina Ferro who perform “I’ve got you under my skin” to give the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala audience a sample of what to expect from their show Come in Spinner (which is on tomorrow, Sunday 11 June at 5pm).
We are then treated to another taster with Bob Downe and Willsy performing “Two of us” from their Adelaide tonight show (6pm nightly from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 June).
Eddie Perfect returns to the stage now to introduce Ali McGregor who gave the most powerful performance of the night with her version of Radiohead’s “Creep”. McGregor performs the song like you have never heard it before. It was spine-tingling and brought tears to my eyes. She performs her own show Fool’s Gold tonight at 8pm (and we’re so disappointed that we can’t go because if last night’s performance was anything to go by it will be one of the highlights of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023) and Ali McGregor’s Late-Nite Variety Nite Night at 10:30pm tonight Saturday 10 June and tomorrow Sunday 11 June.
Closing the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala was David Campbell with Ali McGregor, Virginia Gay and Nina Ferro in a mash-up of songs from Adelaide performers including Sia’s Chandelier and The Master Apprentices’ It’s because I love you.
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala took us on a bit of a walk down memory lane with the Cabaret Collective talking about their time as Artistic Directors in the past and showcased a number of performers who are part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023 program. It highlighted big names in Australian music and the lesser-known talents who are ones to watch. It was so much fun we wish we could do it all over again. Cheers to the start of Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2023!
5 CROISSANTS
Matilda Marseillaise was a guest of Adelaide Cabaret Festival
