There’s a feast of fun happening in the city and beyond this weekend, including the opening of Adelaide’s queer arts and culture festival, the annual Christmas Pageant, food and footy showcase The Big Picnic, music festivals in the Barossa and Clare valleys, and much more.

Feast Festival

Adelaide’s two-week celebration of queer arts and culture kicks off tomorrow night with the annual pride march which begins at Rymill Park and ends at the new Feast Festival home and site of the opening-night party – the Feast Cluster in the Lions Arts Centre. Other weekend events include Libby O’Donovan’s Songs Only a Mother Could Love, Dr Gertrude Glossip’s West End walking tour (see InDaily preview), and a Peter Goers interview with 80-year-old drag artist Roger Shepard.

Christmas Pageant

The other big parade on Saturday is, of course, the annual Christmas Pageant, which boasts dozens of floats and more than 170 “moving performance sets” featuring fairytale characters, clowns, bands, dancers and the big white-bearded chap himself. The pageant starts at 9.30am on the corner of South Terrace and King William Street and there have been slight changes to the route due to the works in Victoria Square, so make sure you check it out online.

The Big Picnic / Fork on the Road

Supporting the Hutt Street Centre, The Big Picnic will take place at Park 17 in the South Parklands (corner Greenhill and Beaumont roads) on Sunday, with picnic games – croquet, bocce and the like – the annual TouchWine touch footy competition, live music and kids’ activities. Fork on the Road is also part of the action, with around 30 vendors expected to converge on the park.

Maggie Stone

Kris McQuade, “top dog” on the TV show Wentworth, plays an equally hard-bitten character in the State Theatre Company of SA’s new production Maggie Stone. The play tells the story of unsympathetic loans officer Maggie and one of her clients, an African refugee who is struggling to support herself and her children after the murder of her husband. (Read InDaily’s preview here.) Preview performances start from tonight (November 8) at the Space Theatre.

I Met Hindley Street

The wonderfully named Australian Bureau of Worthiness is telling the tales of the people who inhabit Hindley Street – “temporarily, industriously, residentially or boozily” – in a series of performances described as part documentary, part theatre and part exhibition. Members of the bureau have spent three weeks conducting interviews on the street, and are presenting their performance/exhibition from November 7-10 at a temporary space on the corner of Bank and Hindley Streets.

Blues in the Barossa

Forty blues bands and artists over two stages, food, wine tasting, a pop-up art gallery, craft market and kids’ entertainment are on the program for the three-day Blues in the Barossa event at Seppeltsfield Winery. Acts include The Mojo Webb Band, The Silveradoes, and The Blue Katz.

Clare Valley Carnival of Music

A Candlelight Celtic Concert celebrating the cultural and historic links between the Clare Valley and County Clare in Ireland will launch the Carnival of Music tonight (November 8) at the Courthouse Cultural Centre in Auburn. Entertainment on Saturday will include singer-songwriter Eric Bogle, blues singer Fiona Boyes, the “Russian Gypsy cabaret” sounds of the Volya Russian Ensemble, and drummer Bortier Okoe. There will be indoor and outdoor stages, plus food and arts and craft stalls.

Orphans

Bluefruit Theatre’s production of British playwright Dennis Kelly’s psychological thriller Orphans opens at the Bakehouse Theatre tomorrow. Exploring the conflict between blood ties and moral responsibility, the play touches on issues such as violent crime, racism and stranger danger (see InDaily preview). Season continues until November 23.

Tok Basuki’s River Branch, Water & Environment art prize finalist.

Sustainability Saturday

As part of the Fleurieu Art Prize, Signal Point Gallery in Goolwa is hosting a series of public artist talks, forums and panel discussions on the theme of water and sustainability from midday on Saturday. The gallery is also showing a sustainability-themed sculpture exhibition titled Fleurieu Sculpt 13, featuring the work of 20 SA artists. The work of Fleurieu Art Prize finalists and some Water and Environment Prize finalists is on show at wineries and galleries throughout the region until November 25.

Playboy of the Western World

John Millington Synge’s Irish comedy The Playboy of the Western World was apparently considered so  subversive when it premiered in 1907 that it sparked riots in Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.  It seems unlikely the Independent Theatre’s production will provoke quite the same response when it opens tonight (November 8) at Norwood’s Odeon Theatre, by director Rob Croser says “its wildly anarchic black humour still makes you gasp”. The play is showing until November 16.

Eurofest

More than 100 European cars from all over the country are expected to converge on Birdwood on Sunday for at the National Motor Museum’s Eurofest.  Organisers say they expect “small, hard-revving four-cylinder engines, shrieking inline sixes, to screaming V8s, big lazy V12s and everything else in between”.  Gates open for public viewing from 11am.

On screen

See InDaily’s reviews of the latest films screening in Adelaide:

Thor: The Dark World
The Counselor
Captain Phillips
About Time
Mystery Road
2 Guns
Diana
Gravity
Rush
Tim Winton’s The Turning