The Adelaide Festival Fringe really exceeded itself this year. More than 240 events were programmed in nooks and crannies all over Adelaide in a remarkable showcase of performing, visual and community arts. Much of the action was at the Living Arts Centre, the former Fowler’s Lion factory in Morphett Street which despite some well-meaning CEP sprucing still looked like a particoloured abattoir. However, regardless of the spartan venues and the inevitable difficulties of determining which part of the catacombs was which, the Fringe offered a programme which though spotty, was full of pleasant surprises.
Unfortunately, the business of finding the best truffles before they’re over and done with is nearly a full time job and those of us in the comps brigade were usually cutting a swathe through the main Festival as well.
Nevertheless, articles like this one at least give reviewers a final chance to pay some belated credit to events and performances of particular merit even if it does less than nothing to· tickle the box office receipts. With so many acts scheduled it is inevitable that a great deal of talent will be overlooked. Even punters with plenty of cash have only got so much time and energy to spend soaking up culture before they start to crave the chance of staying home to re-organise the spice jars or watch the most stupefying television programmes they can find.
And for those short of cash the cost of shows plus a few beers made more than a night or two at the Fringe prohibitive. The time has probably come to winnow the number of events at least enough to give all the participants a chance to be seen and maybe earn a bob or two as well. More double bills and concessions for multiple bookings would help but, recognising what a nightmare operating the Fringe box office must be, one is tentative about making suggestions that could make things even more byzantine than they are at present.
1986 saw the return of Fringe favourites from previous festivals and last year’s highly successful Festival of Fringe cabaret, as well as new groups from all around Australia and New Zealand. Productions, ranged from The One Extra Company’s The Shrew, a disquieting retelling of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew which director Kai Tai Chan located in sixteenth century Chinese society using footbinding as a central motif of gender tyranny. For many this lavish, ambitious study of The Shrew as foots bind was the Fringe highpoint.
Dramadillo, a trio from Auckland, also provided engaging theatre with their nimble narrative of The Odyssey. Actors Nick Blake and Juliet Monaghan and musical accompanist Arthur Ranford presented-the various episodes of Homer’s best seller with economy and wit, never lapsing into parody and achieving a clarity and seriousness which pleased wide audiences.
The Brisbane based dance group Zip – four iron men and their sixteen ironing boards gave a highly imaginative and unfussy performance of their Ironing Board Dance No. 9 which very readily clattered, fluttered and draped itself into the long term memory. We look forward to Zip returning – they have a neatness and intelligence in their work that promises much. The Fringe Cabaret remains the main crowd pleaser and the hordes gathered for Wendy Harmer and Maryanne Fahey’s Faking It for some terrific comedy of manners and bad manners, and for the much vaunted Castanets whose Archie and Jugband stage routines, though hyperactive, seemed remote and rather forced. I can’t really say that the Castanets clicked for me.
The Doug Anthony All Stars, on the other hand, moved like heat-seeking missiles to their targets with heartless parodies of songs popularised by Del Shannon, Nancy Sinatra and God help him, Lionel Ritchie. This unsavoury little Canberra group looks like biblebelt dairy farmers’ sons or those prefects who are expelled from boarding school that no-one wants to talk about. The Doug Anthonys stalked audiences like psychopaths at a bus stop and if you were sitting far enough away you loved them.
As offal through the hourglass so were the nights of Let The Blood Run Free presenting their hilarious form of unstanched hospital drama for the 12.30 graveyard shift. Laughter may be the best medicine but this show from Melbourne’s Last Laugh edged with brilliantly savage satire and performed with manic glee was about as comforting as an epidural with an ice pick.
Other comedy surprises included the talented and very offbeat Sydney film-makers’ Even Orchestra and Sunday Comics including Warwick Irwin as Spanner Portnoy, the fundamentally good bloke and the brilliant Paul Livingstone: as Flacco d’Paenus, 20th century everyperson with angst in his pants and curdled nostalgia in his heart. Sydney’s Funny Stories continued to glister with their new show Gold. If this weird slapstick is fools’ gold it’s certainly up to the standard of the other stuff.
Adelaide’s Black Diamond Comer reconvened as an a capella group, drew warm audiences with a set ranging from satiric parody to haunting South American revolutionary songs and Italian ballads. Meanwhile Pat Wilson, Christopher Prank and Adrian Barnes packed them in at Tooley’s with Been There, Sung That.
There are always shows you regret missing especially when there are so many time clashes. You must make arbitary decisions. I wish I’d seen Howard Slowly – he was certainly greatly admired by fellow comedians if not by audiences and reviewers and I’m sorry to have missed Vitalstatistix’ Weighing It Up and Handspan’s Smalls. But then maybe that’s the appeal of the Fringe as well as its frustration – there’s so much to over-indulge in yet you find it’s out of reach.
“Fringe Things” The Adelaide Review, No.25, April, 1986. p.9.