Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015
\nAdelaide Festival Centre<\/p>\n
Steve Sheehan\u2019s Tristan and Isolde
\nwith Norma Knight
\nFestival Theatre Rehearsal Room
\nJune 16<\/p>\n
Naughty or Nice
\nRay Jessel
\nThe Space
\nJune 20<\/p>\n
Love Songs for Sir Les
\nBarry Humphries and Guests
\nFestival Theatre
\nJune 20.<\/p>\n
The Adelaide Cabaret Festival has closed shop and it is all smiles in the counting house. With 45 sold-out shows, and the best box office numbers in its 15 year history, the festival is stronger and more confident than ever.<\/p>\n
Steve Sheehan\u2019s Tristan and Isolde<\/em>, performed in the catacombs below the Festival Theatre, is an eccentric treasure. Accompanied by soprano Norma Knight, with random guest appearances by Arapahoe, the miniature horse, Sheehan delivers a series of quietly deadpan musical pranks. Liebestod<\/em>, Wagner\u2019s famous tragic aria from Tristan,<\/em> is sung in a bogus English translation worthy of Monty Python.<\/p>\n Carting his electric keyboard around the cramped backstage set, Sheehan plays excerpts from Liszt, Chopin, Satie and Bach, while telling non-sequitur jokes. Ms Knight, rising suddenly from the depths of the sofa, Jim Beam bottle in hand, bursts into arias from Puccini and Wagner, while Arapahoe makes another clip-clopping entrance. It is splendidly poised absurdist comedy and Sheehan walks a fine line between nonsense and wistful dreaminess.<\/p>\n Veteran lyricist, composer and comedy writer Ray Jessel had a celebrated sixty year career in music theatre and television, then he became a social media sensation after appearing on America\u2019s Got Talent<\/em>. His ditty What She\u2019s Got (The<\/em> Penis Song)<\/em> went viral and, at 85, he is most bemused.<\/p>\n His show Naughty or Nice<\/em> showcases bittersweet songs such as Whatever Happened to Melody<\/em> (written with partner, Cynthia Thompson) <\/em>along with sharp, funny, snappily-rhymed satires like I\u2019m<\/em> a Genius<\/em> (riffing off the fact that he has a frizzy corona of Einstein hair) Identity Theft<\/em> and the wickedly heretical send-up, That Old Kurt Weill Song<\/em>. Ray Jessel is a jewel.<\/p>\n Barry Humphries opened the festival with a Gala cameo as Dame Edna and concluded ingloriously with Sir Les Patterson. As times change, Les is more unreconstructed than ever, anarchically reminding the Cabaret-Festival-with-no -rules that satire is nobody\u2019s friend. The air is blue with jokes and, surrounded by the Les-ettes, he salivates his way through Help Me Make it Through the<\/em> Night <\/em>and Release Me<\/em>.<\/p>\n Among his associates, Ali McGregor performed a marvelous version of The<\/em> Man I Love<\/em>, The SongBirds sang close harmonies, Trevor Ashley channelled Shirley Bassey and Lady Rizo sang a torch song for the times, I<\/em> Google You<\/em>. Again, under Vanessa Scammell, the Adelaide Art Orchestra excelled.<\/p>\n Humphries has described his time as artistic director as \u201cone of the most joyous experiences of my professional life.\u201d Certainly, the audience response to him has been rapturous. For the 2016 and 2017 festivals, new co-directors have been announced – Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect. Both are brimming with talent and already familiar to festival fans. For cabaret in Adelaide, everything old is new again.<\/p>\n Murray Bramwell<\/p>\n \u201cNights of laughter leave festival on a firm footing\u201d, The Australian, June 23, 2015, p.15.<\/p>\n Postscript. On July 17, 2015, Ray Jessel died of natural causes at his home in Studio City, California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015 Adelaide Festival Centre Steve Sheehan\u2019s Tristan and Isolde with Norma Knight Festival Theatre Rehearsal Room June 16 Naughty or Nice Ray Jessel The Space June 20 Love Songs for Sir Les Barry Humphries and Guests Festival Theatre June 20. The Adelaide Cabaret Festival has closed shop and it is all smiles in the counting house. With 45 sold-out shows, and the best box office numbers in its 15 year history, the festival is stronger and more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-32","category-archive","category-cabaret"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}