Feast Festival

Adelaide’s queer arts and culture festival kicks off this weekend, with the annual Pride March on Saturday to be followed by an opening night street party in Hyde Street featuring a line-up including electronic soul duo Electric Fields and folk-pop group the Bec Gollan Trio. Feast Festival continues until November 26 with a program of live performance, visual art, film and community events. Other weekend highlights include Diamonds are for Trevor, featuring cabaret singer Trevor Ashley and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra performing the hits of Shirley Bassey tonight and Saturday night at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Read more about the festival in this InDaily interview with Feast producer Margie Fischer, and see the full program here.

On the Terrace – North Terrace

Chamber Music Adelaide’s free On the Terrace event is on this Sunday, with chamber musicians in solos, duos, trios and quartets performing a series of short recitals at the Art Gallery of South Australia, South Australian Museum, State Library of SA and the Migration Museum. Music lovers can stroll between the venues from 11am until 4pm to hear performers including members of the Kegelstatt Ensemble, Soundstream New Music, and Ensemble Galante. Program  here.

Handpicked Festival – Langhorne Creek

Matt Corby, Jet, San Cisco (pictured above), The Jezabels and South Australian acts Coconut Kids and The Winter Gypsy are amount the musicians who will play at this year’s Handpicked Festival at Lake Breeze Winery, Langhorne Creek, on Saturday. The boutique festival also includes stalls selling a range of local arts, crafts, jewellery and homewares, food trucks and bars. Coach services are available to and from Lake Breeze Winery. Details here.

Gaol Blues Festival – Adelaide Gaol

Sixteen bands will perform across two stages at the Gaol Blues Festival tomorrow (Saturday) at the Adelaide Gaol at Thebarton. The line-up includes Dreamboogie, Zkye Blue, Isaiah B Brunt, Gumbo Ya! Ya! and Fleurieu Bluesbreakers. Running from 11.30am until midnight, the festival will also feature food inspired by the American South and SA craft beer, cider and wine. Further details and tickets here.

British Film Festival – Palace Nova Eastend

This year’s British Film Festival features a selection of films ranging from romances and book adaptations, to music documentaries and thrillers. It also includes a retrospective program of British mysteries, including four Agatha Christie classics. See the full program here. The festival continues at Palace Nova Eastend until November 15.

The Carnival of Lost Souls – Space Theatre

Described as a “circus noir” spectacle, this touring production blends musical theatre, cabaret and circus to tells a tragic tale of unrequited love and loss set in a Victorian-era circus. The Carnival of Lost Souls features acrobats, aerial artists, jugglers, illusionists, burlesque performers and carnival characters, combined with Victorian Gothic and Steampunk-inspired costuming and stage design. There are just two performances, tonight and Saturday night, at the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Space Theatre.

80s Mania – Entertainment Centre

Take a trip back to the ’80s with this touring show headlined by Paul Young, Go West, The Cutting Crew, Wang Chung and Taylor Dayne. It’s on at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre next Wednesday (November 15), with doors open from 7pm and meet-and-greet opportunities with the musicians before the show begins at 8pm.

The Seventies Hitmakers – The Gov

If the ’70s is more your era, Abstract Entertainment is also presenting this show next Wednesday night at the Governor Hindmarsh, bringing together three British pop groups from the 1970s: Racey (“Lay Your Love On Me”, “Some Girls”, “Runaround Sue”), The Rubettes (“Sugar Baby Love”, ” Baby I Know”) and Paper Lace (“Billy Don’t be a Hero”, “The Night Chicago Died”).

The Conspirators – Holden Street Theatres

In a fictional country, the dictator Olah has finally been overthrown – but in a warped plan to prevent his return, the advisers to the prime minister stage their own fake conspiracy to overthrow the new government. The Conspirators was the first play writer and former dissident Václav Havel wrote after the Czech government banned his work, and is described by Adelaide’s Red Pheonix Theatre as “laugh-out-loud comedy with an occasional whipping”. The final performance is at Holden Street on Saturday.

Unsound Adelaide

Unsound Adelaide during the Adelaide Festival. Photo: Tony Lewis

You might remember Unsound Adelaide from the Adelaide Festivals of a few years ago – now it’s back as a stand-alone event taking place over three days and nights from next Friday (November 18). The line-up of experimental and electronic music acts playing at the Thebarton Theatre includes Australian audio-visual artist Robin Fox, American performers Pharmakon, Holly Herndon and Wolf Eyes, and eight-person electrolatino band Senor Coconut, which reinterprets ’70s and ’80s classics from Kraftwerk instrumentals to Sade, Prince and Michael Jackson. The full program (available here) also includes shows at Fowlers Live, a talks program and a sound installation at the Botanic Gardens.

Cirque Du Soleil’s Toruk – The First Flight – Entertainment Centre

Inspired by James Cameron’s sci-fi film Avatar, this Cirque du Soleil show transports audiences to the planet of Pandora where a natural catastrophe threatens to destroy the “tree of souls”. Cirque promises a “riveting fusion of cutting-edge visuals, puppetry and stagecraft buoyed by a soaring cinematic score”, with reviews from elsewhere suggest there is more emphasis on narrative and less on acrobatic feats than in previous productions. Toruk – The First Flight will be at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre from November 16-19.

Tarnanthi

The Art Gallery of SA’s Tarnanthi exhibition, which continues until January 28, features more than 40 new commissions, including the Kulata Tjuta (Many Spears) installation comprising more than 550 kulata hanging in a cloud formation above hand-carved piti (wooden bowls). Adelaide Festival Centre is also still showing the work of more than 90 Indigenous artists in its Tarnanthi satellite exhibition, Our Mob, in its Artspace Gallery and Dunstan Playhouse foyer until December 2.

Paolo Sebastian X – Art Gallery of SA

This exhibition celebrates the 10th anniversary of South Australian designer Paul Vasileff’s celebrated couture label Paolo Sebastian, with hand-crafted gowns from the past on show alongside the gallery’s collection of historic European art. Paolo Sebastian X is in galleries 12–16 until December 10, with free entry.

After Utopia – Samstag Museum

After Utopia: Revisiting the Ideal in Asian Contemporary Art features moving image, installation, painting and sculpture by artists from South-East Asian countries including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Read more about the exhibition in this CityMag interview. It will be at the Samstag until December 1.

On screen

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

Murder on the Orient Express
Thor: Ragnorak
The Snowman
Blade Runner 2049