Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 21 Jul 2025
I love seeing young people confidently performing in the spotlight, owning the stage as if they've been doing it since they were born. Yet, as I left the Dunstan Playhouse filled with joy, I also felt frustrated and angry.
Class of Cabaret 2025, presented by the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and centrED at Adelaide Festival Centre, was a spectacular showcase of talent, colour, story, and soul. Eight of the sixteen young performers from this year’s cohort took to the stage in the 5pm show I attended—if even one of them doesn’t become a household name, then we as a state have failed them. Spectacularly.
Each student wrote and performed their own material (let’s just sit with that for a moment—wrote and performed—mentored by cabaret dynamos Millicent Sarre and Mark Oates, musically directed by Ciara Ferguson, and steered capably by director Brock Roberts and vocal coach Rosie Hosking.
After a rousing opening with Proud, by Heather Small (arrangement by MD Ciara Ferguson), “Seb” took us on a rollicking, hilarious excursion into the Australian Italian reverence for food that included a cannoli-flavoured rewrite of Proud Mary that made me laugh and followed it with My Way, sang his way—bold, cheeky, and wonderfully sincere.
Then there was Charlotte’s sharing of her existential crisis of having her birthday land on Christmas Day—a delicate, bittersweet slice of cabaret wrapped in tinsel and delivered with poise.
Angel’s sass-meets-soul treatise on parental boundaries, complete with original lyrics and a soaring presence injected a distinctly youthfully rebellious tone with a significant afternote: yes, she loves you—but she needs space. And possibly a national tour.
Dynamic Canadian Australian, Jack arrived with a big bang and his superb take on his “own myopic metaphysical view” of the world, nihilism, Trump and everything! Proclaiming himself “an absurdist” because he “forges his meaning from nonsense” he belted through Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life with infectious fervour. And he was funny! Very, very funny!
The set up for Gracie’s “autobiographical account of growing up with a sole father parent from age 9” began with examining a book entitled “Girlhood 101,” citing everything from body image, diet, menstruation and friendships as predictable speedhumps—that her bald forty-year-old English father would need to deal with! Her account of bra shopping with Dad was hilarious! Gracie’s dénouement defining family was deeply moving. My, what a voice!
The room’s temperature shifted with Ceridwen’s deeply personal, poetic climate crisis anthem, a call to action beyond the rhetoric by a very powerful presence on stage. Ceridwen’s generation has heard enough from Boomers and Gen Xers. Message received!
Ethan then gave us a slow, honest unpacking of masculinity through his own lived lens. This young person found a safe space, as so many kids do, in theatre and, in describing his experience, questions societal values around narrow notions of masculinity. Ethan’s stunning, honest rendition of Cyndy Lauper’s True Colours brought the audience and his fellow performers to tears.
Just when we thought we’d never laugh again, Ella arrived! This young performer oozes presence and pizzazz, qualities rare to find in one so young. Yet Ella’s clever scripting of her experience of learning to drive, complete with a hilarious account of negotiating the infamous Brittania roundabout, became a clever and effective metaphor for her tendency to overthink, revealing vulnerability not far below her confidence and sass. Ella’s rendition of I Will Survive was goosebump-inducing to say the least. This kid can sing!
As I mentioned, the show opened with Heather Small’s Proud and closed with the student-written anthem Euphoria.” I defy anyone to sit through these two numbers and not feel something stir in their chest.
Now. To pivot. Here’s the kicker—and where I swap my theatre glasses for my cranky taxpayer hat. These kids—these electrifying, stage ready, self-aware young performers—will likely have to leave South Australia to find work in their chosen field. Why? Because for all the shiny brochures branding us the “Festival State,” we remain a part-time patron of the arts.
Minister for the Arts Andrea Michaels recently announced $80 million for the Arts over ten years. $8 million a year across the whole sector. I’m all for a good footy match, basketball game, or car race but when even the Minister herself acknowledges the arts contribute over $1.8 billion annually to our economy, you’ve got to ask, where’s the logic?
Talent is here. Passion is here. Stories are ready to be told. The career pathways? Long-term investment? Still coming soon... maybe.
Class of Cabaret continues to be one of the most vital, exhilarating, heartwarming events on our arts calendar. And I’ll be there, in the foyer cheering but wondering why the kids have to go to Melbourne or London to become who they already are.
Bravo, Class of Cabaret 2025. You are the reason we keep the lights on.
John Doherty
When: Closed
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed
Solus Productions. Holden Street Theatres. 26 Jun 2025
It is a one-hander which has been performed by some of the country’s most celebrated actors - a play which has been seen as “a poignant and poetic satire”.
It is clearly a tough challenge, here undertaken by two of the state’s most cerebral thespians, Marc Clement under Tony Knight’s direction.
They present it as a salute to the late Australian playwright Jack Hibberd, he of the classic play Dimboola. Hibberd was deemed a great progressive of the late 70s and a writer who elevated the larrikin spirit of Australians.
Here he is depicting an old rogue called Monk O’Neill who has retreated to a comfy humpy in the donga where he is gasping his last in a realm of memories and fantasies. Think Joyce with a nod to Beckett.
The play is Monk's stream of consciousness expressed in a torrent of definitively Australian vernacular.
He’s not a nice old man. He is repugnant.
As depicted by Clement, he is so husky as to be at times unintelligible.
He is horny, arrogant and noisily breathless.
It is an exhausting-to-watch performance of coughing towards the grave. He has a lot to say on the way, a lifetime of urges and grudges and reflections on a better life and personal brutality.
Once he was cultured and urbane. Fine dining belongs in his past. But now he is a vegetarian sucking on home-grown tomatoes. His dentures drool at the thought of good food, he says. You can't extract sunshine from a cucumber, he postulates. There is wit and lyricism as well as vulgarity in his rapid-fire ponderings.
His pointless days are defined by the ironic demands of the alarm clock plus moods of the sun. And, comically, the perversity of prostate peeing. He is very open about his bodily functions, but the pee scenes bring the much-needed relief - of laughter.
For this critic, who is ancient enough to have known two actual Australian recluses, the depicted psychopathology of Monk O’Neill rings true to type. Indeed, Hibberd was a medic as well as a playwright. Displaced and dying lost souls were not so rare.
But whether this work is still one to celebrate, one is unsure. Marc Clements is an actor of expert nuance, a master of emotional subtlety, and one feels this epic grotesquerie is not meant for him, however much the role may have been championed by leading actors of the past. He’s good. His athleticism is good, his droll vignettes at the shack window are amusing, his depiction of loathsome heartlessness truly makes one turn away… but the hoarseness of his gasping verbosity is an exhausting soundscape in itself.
One gives eleven out of ten to Knight for always keeping the respectful candle burning on the serious side of theatre culture and, indeed, this work has been performed all over the world, including in translation. One concludes that, of yore, such sick old recluses were international everymen of sorts.
It is to be noted that there is an extensive glossary of translated Ockerisms with the program for this production which claims to have been “updated". And one moots that its old misogyny and disjointed desperations have enough threads of dramatic influence to fill a thesis making it thus good grist for students.
One notes also that the set of corrugated iron, rocks, flags, blown leaves and dead gardens is a piece de resistance of design. It is a rich and busy eyeful. And, the atmospheric overtones of mortality’s day and night are expertly wrought by Richard Parkhill’s perceptive lighting. There are fine production values all round. And, blessedly, the theatre is not cold so the audience has physical comfort in the arms of this rather discomforting piece of period Australiana.
Samela Harris
When: 26 Jun to 8 Jul
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: holdenstreettheatres.com.au
Marie Clark Musical Theatre. Arts Theatre. 21 Jun 2025
Was there ever a more beautiful, uplifting and exquisitely-toned music emanating from the orchestra pit of the Arts Theatre! Conductor Serene Cann with a nine-piece orchestra is currently performing Frank Wildhorn’s jazzy score for the musical Bonnie and Clyde. It has a 1930s ring, a Duke Ellington spirit, and shades of American bluegrass.
And it is peerlessly played under Cann’s baton.
So the Marie Clark mob is off to a flying start with this production. No wonder the Saturday matinee house was so good.
They were in for a terrific show with a terrific cast.
Its huge, glossy program reveals the mighty team of volunteers who rallied with all manner of expertise to mount such an ambitious, big-cast, musical bio-drama.
From the spectacular murderous opening with the two protagonists shot to bits in their notorious 1934 Ford Deluxe V-8, the show soars along with brilliantly expedited violence and some touching tales of love and loss and Depression-era deprivation in America’s South. As devised by Ivan Menchell with its lyrics by Don Black, it embellishes the criminal couple’s tale with a bit of fictionalisation but sustains a healthy true-crime mood.
The sets are eminently serviceable and the set changes are smoothly executed.
The onstage car is masked and the tale begins at the beginning with Bonnie and Clyde depicted in childhood, thus providing family and cultural context. Able juniors from an alternating child cast deliver the Picture Show opening number in confident talent show over-sing style. The score enables this, albeit the long vowels are mercifully more muted from the adult cast. It is not a competition. It is a musical and an otherwise creditable directorial debut by one Lucy Trewin.
Kristian Latella really grows on one in his role as Clyde Barrow. One looks forward to seeing more of his work. Ava-Rose Askew is an absolute winner as the ravishing redhead, Bonnie Parker. She is funny, simpatico and can sing up a storm.
Then there is Caroline Fioravanti who gives a sublime performance, powerful and heartbreaking, as sister-in-law, Blanche Barrow. Lovely voice, too. David MacGillivray can be depended upon as a strong stage presence and here is another fine, generous performance. Then there are the myriad other good players: Zachary Baseby as the lovelorn cop, Rodney Hrvatin as the revivalist preacher, Claire Birbeck as Mother Parker, Merci Thompson as Cumie Barrow, Ben Todd, Dawn Ross, Jamie Wright, Jarrad Prest, Tom Moore, and Darcie Yelland-Wark. The cast is numerous and all of good quality and focused.
Thanks to choreographer Deborah Joy Proeve, there’s a great big showstopper dance routine, and thanks to teams of costumiers, there are myriad effective period costumes, especially those upon Bonnie and Clyde.
The accents are good. The lighting is good. The sound is good.
And good onto the power of Marie Clark which seems to be operating at a wonderful peak of enthusiasm, support and ability.
Quick sticks, Adelaide audiences. Fire up and see a murderously beaut. show.
Samela Harris
When: 20 to 28 Jun
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: mcmt.net.au
Cabaret Festival. Banquet Room. 20 Jun 2025
“Why don’t we do it in the road?” belts Virginia Gay, emerging from a dark corner of the room, opening the Birthday Party on the penultimate night of the 2025 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the 25th anniversary of what has slotted so comfortably into the lexicon of Adelaide festivals. The Beatles’ classic is subverted pretty quickly; why don’t we do it in the crowd? Why don’t we do it on the stage?
The end is nigh, the passions are high, and this late-night crowd is so ready for this celebration. Gay is in her element, cosseting the audience, telling jokes, being just that tad raunchy.
The opening night Gala was a glitter and glitz affair at Her Majesty’s, giving us a taste of what was to come, in the nicest possible way. This night looked back, giving a nod to the artists who had made this festival a success.
Gillian Cosgriff, host of last weekend’s There Is Nothing Like A Game, was up first, throwing a burst of nostalgia at the baby grand with the theme to the children’s TV series Around The Twist. Cosgriff is very funny and can turn on a dime with ad lib repartee. She’s become a regular at the festival and is always welcome.
A quick game of audience participation ‘what’s that dance’, and we’re on to Libby O’Donovan. I first saw her perform as an ingenue at her graduating concert and she was good then. Now, she’s just bloody brilliant. James Brown’s It’s a Man’s, Man’s World was in good hands here, O’Donovan has matured int a powerhouse and really should be a household name. Her version of Etta James At Last, sung in a full strine Australian accent, as befits a Broken Hill girl, should be seen by everyone who bemoans the Atlantic accent in song. Just hilarious.
After a Sweet Transvestite from Gay which owed more to Peggy Lee than Rocky Horror, and a brief but essentially pointless La Clique appearance, Michelle Monaghan had the audience in singalong mode with 4 Non-Blondes’ What’s Going On. Sobering to think the song came out in 1992 (for those playing at home, that’s 33 years ago), but it does explain how the range of generations in the crowd knew the words!
This night, and tomorrow’s closer, is Virginia Gay’s swansong. She’s been at the helm of this festival for the past two years and needed to spend some time acknowledging those who were on this journey with her. And fair enough. But it was time of course to hand over, and she did so, introducing the 2026 Cabaret Festival Artistic Director, Rueben Kaye who of course had a show at this year’s festival. You have to ease them in.
Rather than close with a big bang, Gay chose to close with the poignant We Raise Our Cups from the musical Hadestown; a fitting goodnight for the 25th Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 20 to 21 Jun
Where: Banquet Room
Bookings: Closed
Cabaret Festival. Dunstan Playhouse. 19 Jun 2025
The album Trio, released in 1987, was the much-anticipated collaboration between three of country music’s greatest artists of the time: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt. Various issues, such as recording contracts and commitments to other projects resulted in the album being recorded over almost a decade. The album is a beautifully curated mix of original and traditional songs, and some quite stunning covers.
In homage to these powerhouses and the platinum album, Fanny Lumsden, Jess Hitchcock and Alice Keath have come together to perform the songs from the album (and a little more). With a backline of local session musicians, the trio took on the challenge with great enthusiasm. Opening with the album’s first track The Pain of Loving You, the musicianship gathered on the stage quickly became evident as the multi-instrumentalist backline of mandolin, fiddle, acoustic and electric guitars, pedal steel and bowed upright bass promised early and delivered for the entire performance.
As with the original trio, these three are successful artists in their own right; they’ve worked together on these numbers, and for the first part of the show they are quite tight and on track. It gets a bit loose towards the end, but this is a one-off and they don’t have the luxury of take after take to get it right.
That said, there are some real stand-out moments. Phil Spector’s To Know Him Is To Love Him is tight and joyous, a real crowd pleaser, and Randy Newman’s Feels Like Home (which was released on Trio 11 in 1999) brings the house down. Led by Jess Hitchcock at the grand piano, it is poignant and powerful and, along with a beautiful rendition of High Sierra, we are reminded of what a tragedy it is that Linda Ronstadt has lost that magnificent voice.
Also from the sophomore album (which was released in 1999) is a rendition of Neil Young’s After the Goldrush. Since Prelude’s 1974 recording showed how a close-knit vocal harmony could elevate this song, whenever three or more voices gather, they tend to have a go at this. Trio are no exception and carry it well; a small niggle was that the sound mix pulled up the pedal steel and double bass (bowing) a little high, drowning out some if the quite delicate vocal harmonies.
There is a generosity of spirit amongst these three artists, as indeed is evident with the original artists, with each acknowledging the other’s skills, particularly as they pull out their instruments to accompany some of the songs; banjo, guitar, piano and zither all make an appearance.
There's a sense of almost-but-not-quite about this production. It lacks a narrative; while there is some patter between songs about the making of the albums, there could be so much more to this story, elevating it above the concert format. These three artists have led remarkable lives, and some of the things that were going on in their lives during the making of the first album would have added to understanding some of the song choices that made it onto this first pressing.
Lumsden reads from notes far too much, and when the performers aren’t holding their instruments they physically seem a little lost, staring at the backline during solos, unsure of what to do with their bodies.
As a one off, it is a most entertaining show albeit a little under cooked for what should be a premium cabaret performance. But the singing is what it’s about for many, and the trio don’t disappoint, with a closer of Waltz Across Texas Tonight. And kudos to the backline; a stellar performance.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 Jun
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: Closed