Organised Pandemonium. The Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Vagabond. 18 Feb 2015
Organised Pandemonium indeed! Adelaide, meet Las Vegas, in this world premiere disco-circus extravaganza! Craig Ilott directed the award-winning glitz shows 'Smoke and Mirrors' and 'La Clique Royale' and he has outdone himself here. Disco is re-imagined with an impossible array of laser lights and shimmering sequins, and the beats are pounded out with the savagery of a high tech nightclub.
Ilott has assembled an impossibly talented cast combining singing and circus with burlesque and vaudeville. Crooner Brendan Maclean from 'The Great Gatsby' issues a dancing version of Gordon Lightfoot's '70s ballad, 'If You Could Read My Mind' that would have him turning in his grave. Wait a minute, he's not even dead! And while the disco tunes are flying out the door, he reverses things by slowing down The Bee Gees' 'Stayin' Alive' with a ukulele into a thought-provoking anthem to show biz.
Let's be frank about this, there was a hint of sexual liberation about the show. Stephen Williams wowed them on the aerial straps and Mirko Köckenberger dressed and undressed upside down on a stack of suitcases. The girls loved these guys when their ripples were revealed as the clobber was shed. Smiling Craig Reid bulged his tights in all the wrong places, looking more like an adolescent and unlikely cartoon hero, but he's not known as 'the incredible hula boy' for nothing; one, two, four, eight, more, so many he transformed into a human slinky!
Emma Goh defied gravity more than once high above the runway in dreamy tableaus that accompanied many of the songs. Perle Noire's strip tease won me over, but it suddenly became an African tribal affair with shimmering buttocks and swirling nipple tassels. Yabba dabba do! Gosh, Chaska Halliday and Rechelle Mansour showed they aren't just chorus girls with a sizzling "Turn The Beat Around.' The accomplished Joe
Accaria hid behind sunglasses way up back and mixed his live percussion with favourite songs. There was no expense spared for the outrageous costumes or anything else for that matter.
And then there was Marcia Hines. Decades as a pop and disco diva, she was the first black woman in 'Jesus Christ Superstar,' inducted in the ARIA Hall of Fame, and passed on her wisdom on 'Australian Idol.' Trussed up in a shimmering tight dress of gold lame, she was a paradigm of dignity and beauty, giving the audience the disco soul they came to see and hear.
This is a must-see show of non-stop stunning amazement. Double bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 13 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: The Garden of Unearthly Delights - The Vagabond
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
