Garden of Unearthly Delights - 18 February 2012
“Barry Morgan’s World of Organs” is a joyous and well put together show and the capacity audience loved every minute of it. Barry Morgan (aka Stephen Teakle) takes to the stage in a safari suit, wears his hair big and his smile even bigger. There are shades of Bob Downe, Liberace, Don Dunstan, and Mr Ed (the teeth!), and he plays his electronic organ like there is no tomorrow.
For one hour the audience is regaled with every ‘organ’ double entendre you can poke a stick at – it is always risqué and cringeworthy, but never offensive, and it sails innocently over the heads of the kids who are none the wiser and who laugh anyway. His ‘one-finger method’ of organ instruction tickled everyone’s fancy as he demonstrated its effect with a bit of audience participation in a ménage a quatre, and we heartily roared when he ‘went down’ on the pedals and played them with his hands!
In between sips of Campari, quick costume changes from a trouser safari suit to a smart Bermuda shorts outfit, he dazzles the audience with his digital dexterity at the Hammond Aurora Classic all captured on glorious technicolour ‘organ-cam’. Now this instrument is not to everyone’s taste –some even gag on it– but he makes it play the gamut of instruments from accordion to zither with apparent ease. It is no mean feat to arrange a program of thirty plus musical numbers–all with their own unique sounds and registrations–and toss them off with gay abandon! His routine is well polished –as is his organ– and he is clearly a very capable musician, but I suspect the audience would have appreciated a little more music and a little less patter!
Kym Clayton
When: 17 Feb to 18 Mar. Selected Dates
Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights - Umbrella Revolution
Bookings: www.adelaidefringe.com.au
