★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Latebloomers. Ukiyo at Gluttony. 10 Mar 2023
When you think of Scotland, it’s almost certain you think of icons such as tartan and kilts, stirring folk songs (such as Auld Lang Syne, The Bonnie Banks o’ Loch Lomond, and The Skye Boaty Song), highland dancing, single malt whisky, shortbread, deer hunting, the rugged highlands, the ‘shitty’ weather, and of course salmon fishing.
If you are actually a Scot, there’s bound to be many other images and issues that wash through your psyche, such as your ‘dislike’ for the English (which goes way back to the wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th and 14th Centuries, and more recently to the so-called Highland Clearances of the 19th Century), through to the desire for independence from Great Britain, and Brexit.
This show – Scotland! – covers most of the abovementioned territory in fifty-minutes of oh-so-funny madcap tomfoolery performed by three skilled artists. They are The Latebloomers, and not one of them is Scottish, but you wouldn’t know it. They hail from the UK, Sweden and Australia and they first met at the Jacques Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. They are exponents of physical theatre, clowning, and mime, and they are extremely good at it.
From the time you enter the venue, they can be seen lurking in the shadows pulling funny faces and gawking at the audience, almost baiting us to respond, which we do of course, by laughing, because they are immediately funny. The scene is set and on they come, a human tsunami of three, but with the energy and passion of three score and more!
They are dressed in tartan and one quite quickly answers the question: What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt? No spoilers here! And from this point on the pace is frantic and the smiles on our faces get wider and wider. Occasionally our smiles shift into worried looks as the trio look for ‘volunteers’ from the audience but that almost shifts to ‘pick me, pick me’!
A highlight of the show is their mimicry, and particularly the sounds they make (amplified through personal PA systems). They mime fly fishing, playing bagpipes (using stools as props!), birds of prey swooping down from the crags of Ben Whatever high above, fighting the English at Culloden, and the list goes on! It’s exhausting, and the volunteers from the audience are a hoot as well!
The person who sat alongside of me casually remarked just as the show was about to start that she had no idea what the show was about or what she was in for, and hoped that it would be OK: “ I have an hour to kill, so I’ve taken a chance”. She left thrilled, and laughing, as did I. This is true Fringe.
Kym Clayton
When: 10 to 19 Mar
Where: Ukiyo at Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Festival. Marrugeku. Dunstan Playhouse. 10 March 2023
Telling it like it is means knowing where the whole bad shit thing starts from.
The opening solo phrase of Jurrungu Ngan-ga [Straight Talk] establishes, with authoritative ease, an unperturbed and peaceful existence of indigenous human life, free expression and health.
The stage is bare and there is minimal lighting. The free run of spirit in a body writhing and vibrating at one with its environment is buoyed on through Sam Serruys, Paul Charlier and Rhyan Clapham - aka DOBBY’s tautly focused electronic score.
On this foundational phrase, Choreographer Dalisa Pigram and Director Rachael Swain form an entire history of cruel subjugation; of indigenous Australians and refugees both incarcerated and dying in custody.
Each phrase of the production is - one after another - of surveillance, capture, subjugation and punishment right throughout history.
None of this is imaginary.
Costumed in the thread and colour of the refugee by Andrew Treloar and framed subtly by Abdul-Rahman Abdullah’s jail-wall set with indigenous Australia, past and present, mediated through video projection, it is real history distilled through powerful expression of body in motion.
Dancers present with back to the audience, and we see faces on the screen, we see real, in time observation of harassment.
Innocent, it is not.
The overlay of colonial anachronisms - such as on pointe dance, sans pointe shoes – and the magnificent set of chandeliers descending, along with a break into theatre and confronting dialogue seal the heart felt goal of this work.
We’ve been told straight what the deal is.
Our response?
David O’Brien
When: 10 to 12 March
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★★
Interactive Theatre International. Royal Coach Motor Inn. 10 Mar 2023
I think I’ve found the best Fringe Show ever!
For a couple of reasons Confetti & Chaos is just a brilliantly excellent and totally scatty show to be part of. Oh yes, I said ‘part of’. The audience can become totally immersed in the action as it unfolds, if they wish, and on opening night many people so wished.
Suddenly, you have theatre provided by the people, for the people, and it can be a little dangerous. The scenario is simple; you attend the venue for Confetti & Chaos as a guest invited to the wedding reception of Stacy and Will. Her parents are Raymond and Lyn (an excellent performance from an actor we saw a few years ago as Mrs Fawlty in the other show). There’s a few others, including best man Ricky, who is something of a scene stealer, getting down to his underpants for the scene involving Abba’s Dancing Queen. Music tends to be a running gag through the show; and the completely appropriate wedding song is Elton John’s I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues.
“No other wedding invites such charming calamity and tenderness,” their press material says smugly, and for once it’s true. I can honestly say I have never attended a wedding reception which was so funny. The audience is involved from the get-go. It stands to reason that each night will be different, depending on the level of audience involvement, which determines just how close the whole show comes to teetering wildly on the edge. A huge shout out to the table front and centre who supplied some wonderful interjections.
This is the English organisation who bring us the Fawlty Towers The Dining Experience, so you can be sure you’re getting a reasonable quality product. Also, as part of a dining experience, a 3 course meal is provided in the ticket price. It’s not gourmet, but it’s perfectly adequate. The thing here is the actors are not constrained by the roles they are playing. Unlike in ‘Faulty Towers…’ their characters are not known, so they can take the humour and the narrative as far as they like, just so long as they’re able to return to the central storyline as required. Since they’re playing along with the audience this works a treat.
Alex Wheaton
When: 10 to 19 Mar
Where: Royal Coach Motor Inn
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Haus of Kong. Wonderland Spiegeltent. 9 Mar 2023
Wicked sequins, latex, glitter and so much hard core choreographic sass, this is indeed a world tour level show.
For all the fierce outer attitude, there’s a tremendous spirit of audience bonding. This is a show that’s as much as with the audience as it is for them. The audience understood this. There was such a strong feeling of actually being in the show.
Adelaide’s Kween Kong and interstate pals Spankie Jackzon and Hannah Conda know a thing or two about pacing the power of high energy show stopping dance numbers alongside sharp, deftly deployed self-deprecating humour. They are not trapped by established conventions of drag and drag performance. Hell no! They’re totally willing to subvert them in hilarious fashion. Substance of costume magic is subverted in order to highlight greater substance of character, spirit and gleeful comedic artfulness.
The wig pulling routine is absolutely priceless.
Everyone gets a star spot. Brilliant support dancers Marty and Adrian get to show off their chops without being upstaged by the stars of the night.
Show stopping high energy happy times. Totally recommended.
David O’Brien
When: 8 to 18 Mar
Where: Wonderland Festival Hub – Hindmsrsh Square – Wonderland Spiegeltent
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Coconuts. The Bally @ Gluttony. 8 Mar 2023
Languidly relaxed, Leela and Shaban are The Coconuts. They are so at ease on their tiny stage in a very tiny venue offering a comedy gig based on their Fijian/Indian/Lebanese identities. Brown.
If you’re going to get close and intimate with very touchy feely issues looking for humorous introspection and laughter, you better hope you have some kind of magic audience bonding spell happening. Leela and Shabana have totally got that.
They’re a comedy band. Three guitars and one small soft toy guitar. Caveat: A band with a near, yet restrained, vicious punk mouth belying expressed honey-soothing 60s-70s folk/pop rhyming lyrics and harmony.
The audience is hooked completely. Darkly funny, open observations of what it’s like being brown in a white world wash over with ease. You adore the presentation; the message sinks in because of that. You laugh.
Magnificent trap that is.
Taken to the heart, Leela and Shabana can get away with anything, and they do. With a warm intelligence to their humour, despite its rather savage and salacious bite, they delivered delightfully unforeseen comic outcomes on the night of this performance.
They turn the very racist notion of being a coconut and curry muncher inside out completely. They reframe, to hilariously tremendous effect, the stupidity of what equals a white to brown cultural identity graph in a brilliant piece of image projection. Donald Trump’s tan anybody?
They expose themselves for the inner ‘whiteness’ and cultural hangovers from Abrahamic/Judeo Christianity. They bend the white, brown, Indian nexus every way they can with deft comedic effect.
There’s a lot more besides that. It’s a bit R rated.
The Coconuts managed to make a small venue feel so much larger. They managed to embrace an audience in a discourse of difficulty with an articulated intimacy of spirit only finely crafted comedy can do. It’s a cliché I know. Don’t miss it.
David O’Brien
When: 7 to 19 Mar
Where: Gluttony – The Bally
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au