Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Friday 8th June 2018.
The
Variety Gala is the traditional opening night production for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, known to regular patrons simply as, CabFest. Compèred by the Festival's Artistic Director, Ali McGregor, it brings together all of the performers who are already in town to perform their shows in the first week or so. A closing event does the same with those still in town for the last week.
This is the final Cabaret Festival for the current artistic director, Ali Mc Gregor, who carried on alone after
Eddie Perfect had to resign as co-artistic director after last year's Festival, due to his unexpectedly increased workload.
Always a packed event, it is not just a showcase of much of the talent in the Festival, but also acts as a marvellous guide for any patrons who might still have a free evening to fill. All of the glitz and glitter one might associate with cabaret is there, along with a small orchestra of local musicians.
It is a tradition that performances open with a 'welcome to country' from a member of the traditional owners of the land, and Jack Buckskin was on hand to do that, combining with Ali McGregor singing
Welcome Home, by Dave Dobbyn, backed by the Modern Maori Quartet.
Todd McKenney, who appears with
Nancye Hayes in Bosom Buddies, then took over the stage, with a rousing rendition of
Delta Dawn, followed by operatic soprano, Antoinette Halloran, who repurposed a familiar aria from Verdi's Rigoletto, with words taken verbatim from chapter eight of the book, 50 Shades of Grey. Her show is intriguingly titled, Taking it Up the Octave.
Amber Martin revisits the songs of
Janis Joplin in her show, Janis: Undead, and she treated us to a fine rendition of
Maybe, before the Modern Maori Quartet returned with a superb medley of poignant war songs. Changing the mood completely was Adelaide icon, Hans, who will be performing with the band, Lucky Seven, indulging in an outrageous version of the theme from the television series, The Loveboat.
Nancye Hayes is star quality, and her rendition of
Liza Minnelli's,
I Am My Own Best Friend, thrilled the audience.
Peruvian coloratura soprano,
Yma Sumac, the stage name of Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo (1923-2008), is a hard act to follow, and even harder to recreate. She had a range that was reputed to have covered six and a half octaves and, in the 1953 song, Chuncho (The Forest Creatures), she covered a good four and a half of them (B2 to F#7, for those of a musical bent), as well as demonstrating her remarkable double voice technique. Ali McGregor is taking on this role in her Festival show and, in her Gala performance, she gave a great taste of things to come.
Mark Holden co-wrote the song,
Shine, with Vanessa Amorosi, and his performance delighted his many fans. Another pop star from the pasy was Richard Carpenter, and
Matthew Floyd Jones was hilarious with his revised and slightly distorted version of
Close to You.
In his act, Sammy Davis Jnr. would take the familiar song,
Birth of the Blues, and mimic a number of his friends who had never sung it. Christiana Bianco has built an entire show around impersonating an incredible range of performers and, for the Gala, she presented a remarkable version of
Cabaret, as sung by the likes of
Liza Minelli, and her mother,
Judy Garland, as well as
Bernadette Peters, Barbara Streisand,
Julie Andrews and others.
Em Rusciano, who presented an extended and rambling tale of her hilarious juvenile crush on Johhny Farnham, culminated her segment singing
A Touch of Paradise, to the lights of waved mobile telephones.
McGregor broke free of her operatic routes when she ran away to join the circus, specifically, La Clique, the group that performed in The Famous Spiegeltent.
David Bates was behind the reintroduction of those forgotten portable venues and he was the recipient of this year's Festival Icon award. It didn't end there, though, as Captain Frodo then appeared to perform his balancing act, creating a tower of ever-smaller tin cans, and sitting, very carefully, on the top. He is one of the members of the show, Glorious Misfits, who all then appeared for the finale of the Gala, along with all of those who had performed during the evening.
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2018 is now well and truly underway.
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