Variety Gala
June 5.
Bernadette Peters
June 6
Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre.
Bookings BASS 131 246. Cabaret Festival until June 20.

This year sees the Adelaide Cabaret Festival putting on the Ritz. In his gold lame jacket Artistic Director, David Campbell is looking anything but shy as he and his co-producer wife, Lisa Campbell step out on the Adelaide Festival Centre’s opening night red carpet. Now it’s time to see whether his program is going to cut a rug as well.

The opening night Variety Gala is a good place to sample the fortnight’s fare and, with seventeen acts all giving us a taste on a toothpick, some familiar trends emerge. There are plenty of dames – from Argentina, the excellent Barbara Luna; from Hernando’s Hideaway, the versatile Ali McGregor; and from New York, the legendary Julie Wilson, commanding the stage as she has since 1938.

There are also some blokes who’d like to be dames – Steven Brinberg’s uncanny Barbra providing a new notion of The Way We Were, Trevor Ashley (with help from Virginia Gay) giving us Marilyn and Jane from Little Rock and Nick Christou, via Frances Faye, showing us just how to shimmy like his Sister Kate. Compere Julia Morris provided the very funny links, Bob Downe put on a slouch hat for some outrageous World War Bob and Phil Scott exhumed Liberace for dazzling keyboard versions of There’s a Place For Us. Meanwhile, new talents Sheridan Harbridge, Hayden Tee and, top of the bill, Hugh Sheridan, all proved that there definitely was a place for them as well.

Also making a surprise appearance at the Gala was music theatre star Bernadette Peters, whose Saturday night show was a brilliant reminder that, in a festival of showbiz channeling and tribute acts, she is a true Broadway original. From her opening belter, Let Me Entertain You, she did just that.

Capably supported by the Adelaide Art Orchestra under the direction of her musical director, Marvin Laird, Miss Peters showed her virtuosity across every page of the Great American Songbook and on to its most accomplished appendices. From Rodgers and Hammerstein came (an enchanting) Some Enchanted Evening and There’s Nothing Like a Dame, from Carousel came When I Marry Mr Snow, from Disney, When You Wish Upon a Star and, from the public domain, a haunting version of Shenandoah, accompanied by John Hastwell on harmonica .

But it was her tribute to Stephen Sondheim which won the night. As one of his great interpreters, she went into the woods for No-one is Alone and Children Will Listen, into the park with George for Move On – and also sang selections from Company, Sweeney Todd and Gypsy. Her stage presence was a delight, her performance splendid. For an encore she sang I Honestly Love You – and we honestly did.

Murray Bramwell

The Australian, June 8, 2009.