Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2017<\/p>\n
Brel \u2013 The Immortal Troubadour
\nDunstan Playhouse
\nAdelaide Festival Centre
\nJune 18.<\/p>\n
It is nearly forty years since Belgian-born, French singer songwriter Jacques Brel left the world. But as this tribute gala, devised by Adelaide Cabaret Festival co-director Ali McGregor attests, he is an immortal troubadour and the more time passes, the better his songs sound. It is currently apt to note his influence on David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, but his songs have been interpreted (and mauled) by singers as disparate as Sinatra, Nina Simone, Judy Collins, Shirley Bassey, Scott Walker, John Denver and Rod McKuen.<\/p>\n
Brel himself sold millions of albums and appeared in ten movies. With his gaunt face, soulful eyes and punk romantic demeanour, he embodied the whole pop existentialist gamut from Piaf and Jean Paul Belmondo to Serge Gainsbourg and Johnny Halliday. Even now, he connects French New Wave with the New Romanticism and the latest hipster chic. Watching the moody black-and-white video footage which opens Ali McGregor\u2019s production – Brel hunched over a cigarette, grinning boyishly, reflecting solemnly, calling out stupidity wherever he see it. We are reminded that he is still the thinking person\u2019s croissante.<\/p>\n
La Valse a Mille Temps<\/em>, the crazy carousel song, vibrantly delivered in English translation by McGregor, sets the pace for the evening. With Musical Director Charly Zastrou at the piano, the band (bass, drums, violin, saxophone and reeds) conjures the swirling rhythms as they gather pace – full tilt, a mile a minute, for Jacques Brel\u2019s signature tune, The Waltz with a Thousand Beats.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could be for just one hour \u2026 \u201c – the words of Brel\u2019s Jackie (La<\/em> Chanson de Jacky<\/em>) a Walter Mitty fantasy of being a charismatic singer. It is performed by cabaret vocalist, Dusty Limits, but the phrasing is tricky and Mort Shuman\u2019s translation sounds clunky these days. In his later, more assured, contribution Le Moribund<\/em> (The Dying Man) Dusty Limits hits the mark with Brel\u2019s melancholy ballad of farewell.<\/p>\n Les Bourgeois<\/em>, Brel\u2019s excoriating serve against middle class complacency, is given exhilarating intensity in Michaela Burger\u2019s stunning version, snarling the French cadences as she prowls the stage. Similarly Johanna Allen\u2019s pensive reading of La Chanson Des<\/em> Vieux Amants,<\/em> with Charly Zastriu excellent on piano, is a highlight of the evening.<\/p>\n Also capturing Brel\u2019s more contemplative mood (and his own premonition of early death perhaps) is The Old Folks (Les Vieux<\/em>) a study of ageing while the clock ticks. The terrific Kim David Smith, in Clark Kent glasses (well away from his mercurial Morphium Kabarett persona) is admirably restrained, navigating Brel\u2019s phrasing and insistent metronomes with perfect timing.<\/p>\n More problematic perhaps, is the contribution from the prodigiously talented, hyper-manic Meow Meow. Her first item is the blackly matter-of-fact Au Suivant<\/em>, Brel\u2019s vignette of a young virgin soldier lining up \u2013 \u201c In the portable brothel of an army on campaign\/ Au suivant, au suivant,\/ Next one, next one\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Quite appropriately, in Meow Meow\u2019s interpretation, this loveless ritual is told as much from the sex worker\u2019s wretched perspective, as the disillusioned young man. It is a grimly comic song about the travesty of love. It cannot be melodramatic. But it also can\u2019t be too flip, and in this instance, Meow Meow lets the slapstick take over.<\/p>\n With her later number \u2013 Brel\u2019s most famous signature perhaps \u2013 Ne<\/em> Me Quitte Pas (If You Go Away<\/em>) \u2013 Meow really goes over the top. It is like a pitch invasion or a photo-bombing in black fright wig. The house lights come up and she recruits three members of the audience to drape themselves around her, serving as a microphone holder, a human plinth, and generally providing surrogate audience discomfort \u2013 all while Meow demolishes any semblance of nuance from the ballad.<\/p>\n It becomes parody, of course, and yes, that\u2019s funny and would be fine in Meow Meow\u2019s own show where she can – and brilliantly does \u2013 shape the moods and contrasts over a variety of songs.<\/p>\n But this Brel vehicle is not robust enough to easily contain quite such a level of gate-crashing focus plunder. Brel – The Immortal<\/em> Troubadour<\/em> does all the things the Adelaide Cabaret Festival does well \u2013 it\u2019s a one-off performance, with excellent production details, and natty d\u00e9cor from designer Kathryn Sproul. It is an impromptu gathering of festival artists, a tad under-rehearsed, flying by their wits and providing something special and unique.<\/p>\n To round off what has been an interestingly crowded Brel hour, festival co-director Eddie Perfect appears – rasping the grimy, demi-monde lyrics of Amsterdam<\/em>. Ali McGregor concludes, with If We Only<\/em> Have Love<\/em>; the composer at his least cynical and most hopeful.<\/p>\n \u201cJacques Brel is alive and well and visiting Adelaide.\u201d Daily Review, June 22, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2017 Brel \u2013 The Immortal Troubadour Dunstan Playhouse Adelaide Festival Centre June 18. It is nearly forty years since Belgian-born, French singer songwriter Jacques Brel left the world. But as this tribute gala, devised by Adelaide Cabaret Festival co-director Ali McGregor attests, he is an immortal troubadour and the more time passes, the better his songs sound. It is currently apt to note his influence on David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, but his songs have been interpreted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,5,9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-37","category-archive","category-cabaret","category-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774","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=2774"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2775,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2774\/revisions\/2775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraybramwell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}