murraybramwell.com

June 15, 2023

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Edge of Reality: Elvis Presley Songbook

Filed under: 2023,Archive,Cabaret,Music

In Edge of Reality, bandleader Paul Grabowsky, and Oz music luminaries Joe Camilleri and Deb Conway brilliantly rescue Elvis from impersonators and cartoon legend and celebrate his considerable musical legacy.

Written by Murray Bramwell

It is 46 years since Elvis Presley died, aged 42. It will soon be fifty. At the time his ardent followers were inconsolable. He was the first god of Rock’n’Roll, transforming the very notion of popular music. He looked like a cross between a pouting …

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February 24, 2023

The World Returns to Botanic Park

Murray Bramwell talks with Director Ian Scobie and Associate Director Annette Tripodi about the rapidly approaching WOMADelaide 2023

Annette Tripodi is not really pondering the idea that WOMADelaide is entering its fourth decade. She is just pleased the current one has landed in the net. “It’s worth saying that the last three years have been so peculiar in that we never knew what the next festival would hold…”

COVID-19 has cast a long shadow over all of the performing arts …

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March 27, 2022

Music Theatre: Girl From the North Country

This extraordinary mix of Conor McPherson’s masterly storytelling and his astute use of Bob Dylan songs has given the stage musical new heft and new meaning.

Written by Murray Bramwell

On that day in 2013, when plans were set in motion to create a theatre work using the songs of Bob Dylan, the planets were definitely in auspicious alignment. Because Girl From the North Country, which first opened in London in 2017, exceeds all expectations and seems to have created …

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February 21, 2022

Back to the Park: WOMADelaide 2022 Returns to Full Strength

Director Ian Scobie and Associate Director, Annette Tripodi talk to Murray Bramwell about reclaiming and re-setting Adelaide’s favourite music event – despite the challenges of COVID-19.

WOMADelaide is turning thirty and what a year to have a milestone birthday. From its inception in 1992, when it formed part of Rob Brookman’s Adelaide Festival, this vibrant, richly diverse music event has captured this city and brought visitors and rusted-on fans from all over the country.

Based in the CBD in Botanic …

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June 27, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Thank you, Alan, it was a good time

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

Alan Cumming is Not Acting His Age
Adelaide Festival Theatre.

June 26. Duration : 1 hr 20 mins.

It is the final night of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Alan Cumming bounds on to the stage in a slim-fitting grey suit jacket and black tie, matching grey shorts and black and white Converse sneakers. “I feel twitchy and bitchy and manic”, he sings, “Calm and collected and choking with panic /But alive, but alive, but alive.”

The song is from …

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June 26, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Mostly Marlene – Kim David Smith

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

This accomplished set may be mostly Marlene Dietrich – with mashings of Kylie and Madonna – but it is all Kim David Smith at his mercurial best.

Written by Murray Bramwell

Kim David Smith has been performing at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival for more than ten years. Back when he was still Kim Smith, he brought shows such as Misfit and Morphium Kabarett featuring his shape-shifting gremlin mix of nova pop, reptilian camp and – when he switched into persona …

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June 12, 2021

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: The Variety Gala

Filed under: 2021,Archive,Cabaret,Music

The opening night Variety Gala is a good chance to scratch and sniff the Cabaret Festival program. Raucously hosted by Hans, Adelaide’s own wunderkind, this year’s event is more off the leash than usual.

Written by Murray Bramwell

It’s that time again, the wintry middle of June and the Festival Centre opens up its venues (plus The Famous Spiegeltent) for fifteen nights of music, comedy and dysfunctional frolic. The Variety Gala, an institution since the festival began, not only lines …

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February 23, 2021

The Barefoot Review

WOMADelaide 2021: Re-inventing for the Pandemic

Murray Bramwell talks with Artistic Director, Ian Scobie about the challenges of planning a music festival during COVID.

The last time I interviewed Ian Scobie about WOMADelaide it was late January last year and Kangaroo Island was burning down. The bushfires -which engulfed huge sections of the country, sending serious smoke haze into the cities – were on everyone’s mind. Scobie’s company APA was running a national tour for the Italian composer, Ludovico Einaudi, …

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March 18, 2020

Adelaide Fringe – Truckload of Sky – The Lost Songs of David McComb

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Fringe,Music

Truckload of Sky – The Lost Songs of David McComb
The Friends of David McComb
Level 5, Union House,
The University of Adelaide.
RCC . March 12.

Formed in Perth in 1978, after morphing from a band called Dalsy and (name-for-a-day) Logic, The Triffids produced five studio albums, six EPs, six live recordings/ compilations and nine legendary cassettes including Dungeon and Son. Singles such as Wide Open Road and Bury Me Deep in Love became etched in the Australian …

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March 05, 2020

Adelaide Festival – Eight

Filed under: 2020,Archive,Festival,Music

Eight
by Michael van der Aa.
Featuring Kate Miller-Heidke, Livia van den Bercken,
Vakil Eelman
Hetzel Lecture Theatre, Institute Building
State Library of South Australia.
February 27. Until March 15.

When we talk about immersive experience increasingly we mean Virtual Reality. VR is not only the newest frontier, it the most mind-bending kingdom of them all. Netherlands composer and director, Michael van der Aa has gained prominence for his progress in merging music and visual experience to create art works …

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