★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Peter Goers. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 22 Feb 2025
He’s been doing it so long, he’s now an institution at the Adelaide Fringe. That’s a singularly quirky irony in a festival which is all about youth, experimentation, and cutting edges. Then again, Goers has cut the edge of tradition. His routine is now a routine.
But not a repetitious routine.
Somehow, from the edges of an elephantine memory and assiduously maintained diaries and notebooks, he can always come up with new old stuff with a canny eye on older audiences.
This show, with its epically catchy name, is his best and freshest yet.
This is not “arguably” so. This critic has seen and reviewed ‘em all. She’s a peerless authority.
Why is this one different? Well, it is more of a revue. It has three parts. The first is DeGoers Degustation, a stream of anecdotal and observational patter. Giggles and guffaws territory.
And, of course, he always looks schmick. He believes adamantly that performers should respect their audiences by dressing for the occasion, so he dons wild orange sneakers and a sleek and flattering pastel yellow jacket.
He’s into death notices these days. It’s a new source of radio shtick. Archival showbiz records are a standard. And his own interactions with the world.
This is where the brand-new material comes in. He has two closest buddies with whom he shares a Sunday arvo social hour or three. Now, the world gets to meet those buddies and discover why Goers loves them. He’s devised a cleverly crafted sketch which could be called "Three men and a box of Cheezels." It features Robin “Schmacka” Schmelzkopf, sometimes known as “the singing milkman” and Jonny Holds, who is also Goers’ long-term and talented stage manager. The scripting of the trio’s chatter has a dash of Mamet, a hint of Beckett, a whiff of Humphries, and shades of pure revue. Lovely timing, gloriously pregnant pauses and snappy crossed wires. Good work all three, especially brave Holds, the veteran backstager who is unused to the glare of the spotlight.
As a surefire rapid-fire grand finale to the Fringe show, seasoned actor Robert Cusenza (who is also performing in Goers' productions of The Christian Brothers and Romeo and Juliet in Fifteen Minutes) emerges from the auditorium to join Goers onstage for the famous old Abbott and Costello Who’s On First routine. It’s good. They’re good. Tears in the eyes laughter.
And it’s all over for this year. Long may the trilogy live on.
Samela Harris
When: 22 Feb to 23 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Editors Note: Samela has been friend and colleague of Goers these many years and swears she would be the first to tell him if his show stank.
★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. The Vault at Fool's Paradise. 21 Feb 2025
Elixir Revived is a story of medical mayhem and evil experiments. Our heroes are self-absorbed scientists searching for the ultimate elixir – one that unlocks the secret of life and all the risks and rewards that might go with that. Like much pharmaceutical research their is funded by big companies that are driven by the lure of big bucks, and so our protagonists are forced to experiment on themselves and to take risks.
As they try version after version of the elusive elixir they test their physical prowess to check their progress.
So far so good – the narrative seems as though we will be in for a display of increasingly difficult and fantastic gymnastic manoeuvres, but that doesn’t happen. In fact, what we see is a standard grab bag of circus tricks – nothing new.
Yes, the tricks are done well and with tongue-in-cheek humour, and with commanding strength athletic grace, and the troupe members are buff and fine manly specimens, but there is nothing exceptional going on. The narrative doesn’t really live up to its promise or hold it all together.
A fun show, but not the best comedic circus going around.
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 23 Mar
Where: The Vault at Fool's Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Octagon at Gluttony. 21 Feb 2025
Brought to you by SA’s own Gravity & Other Myths, The Mirror is an outstanding show, and demonstrates that circus can be sophisticated and challenging physical theatre.
What does one see when one looks in a mirror? We expect to see a perfect copy of ourselves, but perfection is illusory, and perhaps we really want to see something else - something more flattering, more exciting, or something that challenges what we believe to be true about ourselves.
The Mirror explores all these things through an exquisite display of gymnastic and circus skills which is firmly held together with classy choreography and a razor-sharp narrative that is sometimes sung and sometimes executed with the feel that it is being extemporised, but it’s not.
The whole thing evokes danger. It’s one thing to execute risky routines that feel ‘safe’, because they are performed so well, but its something quite different to inject a real sense of drama and vulnerability. The troupe does this so well, and it is always exciting and on-the-edge-of your-seat stuff. The action is played in variable lighting, which is visually exciting and adds to the sense of danger. (How can they be so accurate in what they do and be safe when surely, they can’t clearly see! But of course, they can. It’s clever illusion.)
A highlight of the generously long 70-minute show is the creation of a human bridge: it’s a display of brute strength, grace, poise and balance, and it evokes whoops and cheers from the audience. Another highlight is a mashup of an almost countless number of songs by a vocalist that cleverly scaffolds various physical routines and is all the while being projected on a screen – it’s one protracted hedonistic selfie, and its oh so entertainingly projected.
This is sophisticated physical theatre, and it comes with a warning – children must be accompanied by an adult. Yes, there’s a reasonably amount of buff flesh, it’s cheeky (pun intended) and provocative, but always tasteful and inoffensive.
This is Fringe at its best!
Kym Clayton
When: 21 Feb to 23 Mar
Where: The Octagon at Gluttony
Bookings: gluttony.net.au
★★★
Adelaide Fringe Festival. The Warehouse Theatre. 22 Feb 2025
I Can Have a Darkside Too is actor/writer/musician/ventriloquist Glenn Wallis’s first solo show as actor/writer. It comes in just under 40 minutes and it is both humorous and disturbing as it explores themes of grief, suicide, mental health, and self-efficacy.
Nate, played by Wallis, is a children’s entertainer who is commissioned by schools to deliver ‘fun’ lessons on stranger danger and the like. But he has personal demons that surface and interfere with his state of mind and how he approaches his work. In fact he’s dangerous. The text delves deeper into Nate’s thought processes and his less than pleasant memories of his childhood and his relationship with his mother who has recently passed away under tragic circumstances. The mirror into Nate’s disturbed psyche is through a sock puppet called Emmett that Nate controls.
Emmett is foul mouthed and brutal in what he says, and he upsets Nate’s equilibrium at every turn, but the audience lap it up. There are plenty of chuckles and the dialogue frequently lands its punches, but there are also many occasions where the gag lines need to be more incisive and even crueller than they are.
Wallis’s physicality is impressive. There is not much of the stage that he doesn’t use and at times the sock puppet seems larger than life and behaves like a rat cunning street fighter. It distracts us from Wallis’s emerging ventriloquist skills.
The show has an impressive soundtrack with various voice overs that Wallis uses to perfection.
This show merits further development and making a return visit to Fringe.
Kym Clayton
When: 22 Feb
Where: The Warehouse Theatre
Bookings: Closed
State Theatre Company South Australia. Dunstan Playhouse. 12 Feb 2025
Oh joy.
What a brilliant start to 2025 in the Adelaide Theatre.
What a wonderful buzz percolating through a departing audience.
Housework is a hit.
Emily Steel shines forth as a bright new playwright with this pertinent play profiling the machinations of Australian politics.
Yes, there’s nothing domestic about this housework. It is House of Parliament.
Steel has slipped beneath our political news cycles and explored the hows and, especially the whys of those seeking careers in politics. To this end, she has created an almost perfect cast of characters who profile the inner sanctum machinations of Canberra. Their careers revolve around a newly elected federal MP and her determination to get her policies moving through the system. Yes, she has a feminist agenda. But let’s not say “feminist”.
Her team seeks for her the support of a senior minister in Canberra and her seasoned Chief of Staff, a tense and cynical, perchance battle-scarred, veteran of those hallowed halls has the connections. There are layers and histories which surge to the surface as part of the learning curve of the super-keen new junior staffer, Kelly. Steel has cleverly potted the dramas and vulnerabilities of the capital's soft underbelly with a delicious wry wit. It is a very funny play. And yet, it does not hold back on the truth-telling. It is a skilful satire on that old Westminster system we hold so dear.
It plays its own pun on its title with the prelude scene of the Sunitra Martinelli as the cleaner giving thorough spit and polish to Ailsa Paterson’s expansive set. This is dominated by a huge revolvable meeting table and backgrounded by a pillar-lined “corridor of power”, down which darting figures may hint at the pressure cooker rush of Parliamentary life. Multi-purpose, effective and, under Nigel Levings' inimitable lighting, it also is of very pleasing aesthetic. It brings another production-values star to this fabulous show.
It was commissioned by the wonderful Mitchel Butel as State Artistic Director. What a sterling stamp he leaves on the quality of modern Australian theatre. As they say in the classics, he can pick’em.
Herein, he lifts playwright Emily Steel into the glow of audience headlights as, perhaps a new David Williamson.
And, with Shannon Rush risen as an enlightened and perceptive director with a thrilling program ahead, he leaves Adelaide so much the better. And Australia.
This play has legs. Its political theme follows the zeitgeist of Utopia with a streak of Clarke and Dawe and Gilles and a dash of Yes Minister.
It is clever, funny and finely wrought. A splendour of box ticking,
It is political without fear or favour.
And, of course, it features not only a deliciously quirky percussive musical embellishment by Andrew Howard, but some award-worthy performances.
The ever-elegant Renato Musolino finds that fine line between complacency and deviousness in the political-power-games powerhouse with his portrayal of “call me Paul” in the Federal Ministry.
There’s wonderful veracity in the scene in which everyone is eating dumplings. Really eating, And Musolino is a cheek-bulging phenomenon. There are many pithy touches to this work.
Susie Youssef plays the new MP, at first galling in her ineptitude and then, as Susie develops the character with her excellent comic timing, she emerges as ever more endearing and credible. It is a nice profile of the novice political animal. Then playing the new MP's career foundation chief of staff, Emily Taheny, gives nothing less than a tour de force performance with some absolutely torrential dialogue delivery. Phew. One was surprised she did not score a burst of spontaneous audience applause on opening night. Then again, Housework features a number of applaud-worthy moments both in performances and message. Franca Lafosse is a heavenly innocent abroad as the junior staffer while Benn Welford presents a rather moving portrayal depicting the actual predicament of those who become political media advisors. Oh yes, Emily Steel has not held back. She’s done her homework in those shadowy back rooms and has thrown a few home truths out into the theatrical limelight.
Hence, the satisfaction at the cultural and intellectual feast of this new theatre work which comes complete with a few wee kickers at the end.
Five stars and then some.
Samela Harris
When: 12 to 22 Feb
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: my.statetheatrecompany.com.au