Co-artistic directors Ali McGregor and Eddie Perfect hosted this year’s gala and (lucky us!) did a few songs and dances themselves. McGregor’s take on Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet” was hilarious, partly because of her asides to the audience and especially because of her shiny red unitard. Perfect’s original rock ’n’ roll composition about weeing in the bath was also laugh-out-loud-worthy.

Showcased in the gala were: Berlin’s Die Roten Punkte, who proved that a song can be super hard-core even when played with only three notes; New York’s Amy G, who shows you have to be brilliant on roller skates to appear ridiculously clumsy; Miss Behave’s Gameshow, where the Peppa Pig theme song is pitted against Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”; and Tripod, who performed an ode to “Johnny” Farnham and sang it beautifully.

The show was all-ages, but best-suited for three to 10-year-olds. Any younger and it’d be difficult to keep them off the stage; any older and you run the risk of them refusing to enjoy themselves because they’re obviously too old to join the rest of the kids shaking their booties on the dance floor.

What “all ages” and “family” also means is that parents get to join in the fun, too, and sample what’s on for the rest of the Cabaret Festival. Hopefully, ticket sales to some of these artists’ adult shows will rise.

The Cabaret Festival’s been doing the Festival Gala, or the Variety Gala, for years and this is a wonderful take on the regular event. It’s an encouraging way to reach a new generation of cabaret-goers because it’s probably the only show in which lewd jokes aren’t in high demand. I hope it comes back to the Festival again and again.

There was one performance only of the Family Gala during the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which continues until June 25.

See all InDaily’s Cabaret Festival stories and reviews here.