★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Head First Acrobats. The Vault, Fool’s Paradise. 27 Feb 2024
Money, money, money. The audience is showered with the stuff – oh that it were real! Still, we’re easily distracted by other shiny things as the cowboys strut their stuff in this Railed wild west bar-room. To the sweet banjo grind of Hugo’s 99 Problems, a testosterone storm explodes on stage as the boys start drinking, carousing, fighting and producing some great acrobatic work.
This is the crew who also brought us Godz, and its ‘brother’ show does not disappoint. While Railed also features juggling, the spinning wheel and some fine acrobatics, it takes things up a notch and at the same time camps it up outrageously. There’s some very sexy horse action: an R-rated tryst with a unicorn (!) and a pommel horse exhibition that was worth the price of admission. The floor gymnastics, while a little hard to see on the raised stage, were executed with great timing, and a lot of laughs. There’s a bottles-on-the-bar routine that just has one waiting for the smashing of glass – and it doesn’t happen!
This show is knock-down drag-‘em-out funny. The slo-mo fight scene is a classic, while the card trick becomes a recurring motif between the aerial ropes, the see-saw, the chair tower and the flying knives. Yep, this has it all, including an outstandingly curated music soundtrack: Reignwolf’s Are You Satisfied; Ginuwine’s Pony and The Black Key’s Lonely Boy amongst them.
The laughs come thick and fast, but never obscure the remarkable physical talents of this cast; the combination of hilarity and skill is a killer – prepare to be slayed – or is that giving away the ending?
Arna Eyers-White
When: 27 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: The Vault, Fool’s Paradise
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Kingfisher at Gluttony. 25 Feb 2024
As the Neighbourhood Watch patroller stalks through the audience looking for a robber, then pauses to hold up a picture of his prey, one of the oldest children’s show tropes comes into play: “he’s behind you!”
And so begins Stuff. Jon and Jero wake up, find their house has been burgled and their stuff is gone. Sounding very like B1 and 2 as they express their shock and horror, they devise a plan (of sorts) to hunt down the robber and get their stuff back.
The script is based on disagreements and indecision (this way, that way?) which the young audience, to their delight, must adjudicate. Other characters pop in and out, with life-size cutouts taking Jon and Jer’s places respectively, which is entirely acceptable to all.
Amongst the physical comedy and improv, there is of course the mandatory fart joke; their butts (as opposed to their Australian bums) have been stolen, and they simply cannot fart until they get them back. Of course, when they do, all wind breaks loose.
Stuff is very interactive, and ideally suited to the <8 years old audience: it’s pitched just past playschool but with all the booger, bum and messy body innuendo beloved of that age group. They even invite some kids up to tell jokes:
“What did sushi A say to sushi B? Wasabi!”
The show could use some bedding in, as it’s still a little loose, and there are times when it treads a fine line on condescension; kids are often smarter than you think. Needless to say, the stuff is all hunted down, as is the robber because of course, “he’s behind you!”
Arna Eyers-White
When: 25 Feb to 3 March
Where: The Kingfisher at Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Future Cargo at Garden of Unearthly Delights. 21 Feb 2024
The Drivers Dog (with apologies to Bill Hayden)
A semi-trailer is idling in a grassy area at the rear of the Garden. Its cargo, a slab-sided shipping container. The driver (Tobias Manderson-Galvin) calms an unsettled dog whilst waiting to get on the highway. He’s nonplussed. Something’s not right. There’s a two-hour wait; something on the radio about a UFO is being reported nearby. He parks. He waits. Unbeknownst to him, the sides of the container roll up, and behind a backlit screen, the dancing silhouettes on the conveyor belt begin.
For this outdoor dance performance, the audience wears earphones and the audio and soundtrack is fed through a low strength transmitter. From the UK creative team of David Rosenberg and Frauke Requardt, Future Cargo examines something from what is possibly the very near future. Is this our ‘first contact’?
The dancers (Scott Elstermann, Chimene Steele-Prior and Felicity Boyd with Ruben Brown as dance captain) work to incredibly tight time margins, turning up ‘on stage’ time and again, moving in rigid and staccato fashion, then relaxed and sinuous, perhaps more human. That there were so few in the cast was a surprise; one is never waiting for an entrance. Exploring that which has stood the test of time, a sci-fi exploration of human interaction with aliens, the viewer is then left to consider whether the aliens take over and subsume humans or whether they are merely examined, mimicked and copied, then cast aside.
The piece is very well executed, and the choreography maintains the audience’s interest throughout. The headphones ensure that the experience is immersive, blocking out the noise from nearby Fringe shows and revellers. While Future Cargo is visually and aurally very satisfying, the narrative is all too familiar; there are no surprises here, and as both the dog and the truck driver are absorbed into the container, there’s a vague disappointment at the unsatisfying and cliched denouement. The performance is well delivered, but I realised later I had failed to find any real surprises.
Alex Wheaton
When: 21 Feb to 17 Mar
Where: Future Cargo at Garden of Unearthly Delights
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Sandi McMenamin. The Arch, Holden Street Theatres. 25 Feb 2024
Perchance it’s the gentlest show on Fringe 2024.
Sandi McMenamin, officially a living legend with an Adelaide Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award under her belt, tells of how it came to pass that she wrote that beloved paeon to our fair city, the song Adelaide, You’re a Lady.
It never occurs to most of us that composers might strike opposition when they come up with a new song but Sandi had to deal with paternal criticisms, not over her lyrics or even her tune, but the song’s tempo. Ever adaptable, she has evolved variations on the theme from waltz to rock - and she has performed the aforementioned song a zillion times now, all over the world.
This time, for her Fringe show, she has a video backdrop created by her long-term arts colleague, producer Walter Troelsen from Aarhus, Denmark.
It is a charming homage to our fair city. The audio-visual spectacle continues with vivid illustration to her The Sea Dragon Coast song which features the superb Fleurieu photography of Gary Juleff from Victor Harbor. Sandi leaves her piano for these songs and sings, standing beneath the screen. It is nicely done, with a nod of approval to Holden Street’s prodigy sound and lighting tech, Harry Ferguson.
Wearing her sparkling bling jacket and bling sneakers to match, Sandi casually narrates the stories behind her compositions taking the audience through reflections on London, Bahrain and Sweden as well as our sweet state. She demonstrates her digital dexterity with a whizzy piano medley and introduces from a musical created with the late Andrew Murrell, an exquisite musical plea for peace in our troubled world. Maybe we’ll see the whole show in a future Fringe, she hints.
She delivers a soothing hour of good spirit and unabashed love for this place she calls home.
In a 1400 show strong Fringe dominated by furious physicality, an afternoon sojourn with Sandi Mac is simply a tonic.
Samela Harris
When: 25 Feb to 10 Mar
Where: The Arch, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. 23 Feb 2024
Demagogue is a satirical play about the parlous state of politics. Although it is nominally set in an Australian setting, it could be anywhere in the world. Let’s face it, politics is pretty much the same anywhere in the world, at least as far as the day-to-day machinations and ‘spinning’ are concerned.
The action follows a couple – Chris (played by Spencer Scholz) and Kate (Samantha Riley) – who are political heavyweights who want to become even heavier heavyweights, but the antics of their daughter might end up scuttling their ambitions. She has been caught out for some petty vandalism at her school, but her motives might be a little murkier than first meets the eye. Chris and Kate engage in a lengthy and tortuous fast-paced discussion in which they dissect and analyse possible motives for the vandalism, and how they should respond as politicians and as parents. It quickly emerges that theirs is a loveless marriage (of convenience?) and their successes as politician (him) and campaign manager (her) far outweigh their effectiveness as parents.
The text of the play is dense, and the brisk pace is unrelenting. There is scarcely time to think about the pithy and cutting comments the couple make before they move on to the next idea. It makes parliamentary question time look tame by comparison. Scholz is quite commanding on stage, and uses his physical presence and strong clear voice to underline Chris’ dominating nature. By comparison, Riley plays Kate in a non-demonstrative way relying on the acerbic text to do its job. This works except when her diction falters (some sentences appear to have no consonants) or when she speaks upstage without compensating for the exacting acoustics of The Studio performance space.
Who is the demagogue? Is it him, or is it her? Perhaps both? Perhaps everyone in the political process?
Demagogue is Yes Minister on steroids.
Kym Clayton
When: 23 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: The Studio, Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au