Local arts needs local journalism. Donate to InReview today.
InReview
SA arts and culture news in brief: Adelaide Festival’s 2021 economic impact, the return of a gravity-defying performance at Her Maj, unique contemporary artworks up for auction, local arts sector lists its ‘big-picture’ priorities, the Ern Malley affair brought to life, and Ida Sophia carries the weight of regret.
Commentary
There is much to miss when the annual Fringe frenzy ends in Adelaide. The disappearance of star ratings is not one of them.
Adelaide Fringe
After wowing audiences with their Adelaide Festival spectacular The Pulse, local company Gravity & Other Myths has announced a surprise ‘renegade’ Fringe season of another new show featuring eight acrobats and a five-piece jazz band.
Adelaide Fringe
Cabaret duo Sophie Smyth and Ryan Smedley draw on their own life experiences in an irreverent, award-winning Fringe show that seeks to debunk some of the myths about people with Asperger’s syndrome – including that they’re not funny.
Adelaide Fringe
Former Adelaide Fringe chair turned producer David Minear is set to present an open-air, all-Adelaide tribute to Bruce Springsteen – complete with rock musicians and a 15-piece classical orchestra.
Adelaide Fringe
Inspired by the drag brunch phenomenon in New York and London, Smashed is a daylight Fringe experience that is definitely for adults only.
Tracy Crisp takes storytelling to new heights with this poignant solo performance about the way we imbue treasured objects with our memories and the heartbreaking power they wield to help us grieve and, ultimately, heal. ★★★★★
Ask a group of people to define what it means to be Australian and you’ll undoubtedly receive a wide range of responses. In Celebrating Australia, the CircoBats performers throw their energies into expressing identity through the joy of human movement. ★★★½
This delightfully thought-provoking, interactive show, conceived by Adelaide star of stage and screen Tilda Cobham-Hervey, is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. Or maybe a bit like something… But actually, no, nothing like it at all… ★★★★
With just five days of Fringe to go, here are some of the four and five-star shows our reviewers recommend – plus an extra special performance you won’t want to miss.
Adelaide Fringe
Singer, songwriter and actor Elaine Crombie puts her heart, soul and spirit on the stage in Janet’s Vagrant Love.
Adelaide Fringe
Touch, in all its forms, is essential to human connection. Gravity & Other Myths’ new Fringe show I Want to Touch You explores this idea in a warm-hearted and thought-provoking performance. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
A satirical Fringe show by The Chaser’s Charles Firth and The Shovel’s James Schloeffel will take you on a trip through wild COVID conspiracy theories and show you how to make your own Pete Evans BioCharger.
Adelaide Fringe
Set against the horrors of the anti-gay purges in Chechnya, Patrick Livesey’s Adelaide Fringe show asks difficult questions about the responsibilities we feel for people we’ve never met.
We’re told to bring an object to this art exhibition, which ostensibly looks like a room full of junk assembled around an ATM but sees us leave feeling richer than when did before entering. ★★★★½
In-between stomping riffs and blistering blues licks, Nathan Cavaleri opened up with his Adelaide Fringe audience about childhood stardom and defeating the demons of a very dark period of his life to return to the stage. ★★★½
This intense monologue about first love and white privilege struggles to overcome a fundamental flaw in its conception. ★★½
Andi Snelling is a multi-talented, highly skilled performer who knows how to use theatricality – and roller skates – to explore what it is to be human. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Grit and dystopia replace glitz and glamour in this close-up and raw physical theatre act by Melbourne-based company After Dark. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
There’s nothing quite as funny as quality humour coming from a straight face, and Adelaide’s own Sam Simmons has it nailed. ★★★★
Love moves in mysterious ways in this two-woman show featuring plenty of silliness, handfuls of confetti and more than a few red noses. ★★★
Yasemin Sabuncu is chronically ill, but refuses to be chill about it in this defiant tale of survival and the power of Keanu Reeves. ★★★ ½
Tex Perkins is known for his Cruel Sea and Beasts of Bourbon catalogue, but a stunning Adelaide Fringe performance with ARIA-award-winning guitarist Matt Walker proves – once again – the musician is not a one-trick pony. ★★★★★
This family-friendly show is a fusion of art and science in which audiences are guaranteed to learn new words while witnessing fun scientific experiments involving fireballs, explosions and a breakfast cereal blower. ★★★★
Hughman could be the happiest place in the world right now. With unbridled joy, Hugh Sheridan raises the bar, lifts spirits and serves up unadulterated fun. ★★★★★
Audiences will most likely know Phil Stack as the bassist for Australian pop rock band Thirsty Merc, but he has stepped out from that success to command a stage of his own. ★★★★ ½
Prinnie Stevens’ show recognises talented women of colour who communicated their suffering through song. In her own soulful way, she harnesses their blues music to present a powerful sampler of personal stories and larger themes. ★★★★ ½
Be open to being challenged, be open to having the conversation. Bred creates a safe space between audience and performers where ideas and emotions are unpacked and connections are made. ★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Bum-rubbing, squid genitals and doll-decapitation; it sounds like the recipe for a very niche sex tape but is in fact the list of ingredients for a heart-warming solo show with a charming, child-like quality. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Lost in Translation is a raucous, strangely artistic show featuring scripts from well-known early 2000s films that have been run through an online translator – not just once, but at least a dozen times. ★★★ ½
Drenched in jokes delivered at breakneck speed and peppered with philosophical pondering, this ABC journalist turned comedian’s unconventional genesis story is worth a listen. ★★★ ½
Fans of Nick Cave, get ready to trade in the piano for some ukuleles as Come Sail Your Ships… Again hits the Grace Emily. ★★★★
An all-female comedy gala featuring fresh stand-up material from some of the nation’s best comedians provides an hour of sheer fun. ★★★★ ½
Adventure Rooms Adelaide plunges players into a nightmarish world inspired by everything horror with the terrifyingly fun new escape room The Abandoned Cabin. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Petit Circus invites young Fringe-goers and their families to step into a kitchen for an evening of chaos, fun and laughter with the new food-inspired circus show Bon Appetit. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
History rubs shoulders with ghost stories in this unnervingly atmospheric tour of one of Adelaide’s oldest and most macabre structures. ★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Fun, cheeky and not as risqué as their show title indicates, these magicians bring genuine charm to magic tricks you may have seen before but which are nonetheless impressive. ★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Cheeky, flamboyant and sexy-as-hell, Rouge will have you laughing, swooning and making plans to run away to the circus. ★★★★★
London-based company Agent November Escape Rooms brings the excitement of escape rooms into your home with two adventures that plunge players into the thrilling world of spies and espionage.
The danceable rhythm of Willie Brown’s ‘Ragged and Dirty’ was a great way for Cal Williams Jr’s trio to usher in a delightful performance of Mississippi blues songs. They hooked the full audience right there and kept them hooked. ★★★★★
Get comfortable, loosen your inhibitions and open up to Club Briefs International for a ride through debaucherous drag, gasp-worthy circus acts and sleek cabaret – with a carousel of costume changes, no less. ★★★ ½
To freeze or not to freeze: is that the question? It’s hard to know how Erin Fowler ultimately feels about motherhood in this hybrid physical performance. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Lobethal, Encounter Bay, the Burnside Village Shopping Centre – no stone goes unturned as Peter Goers takes to the stage with an ode to South Australia. ★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Hidden in a dark, sprawling basement on Angas Street are four rooms that challenge the senses to imagine the startling possibilities of what the future may plate up. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe organisers say the festival’s ‘magic vibe’ will be very much alive as it opens today with 21,000 performances across 31 days and nights. One casualty of border restrictions, however, is cabaret singer Ali McGregor’s season of shows.
Why the COVID-19 hiatus was a gift for Fringe veteran Michael Simic.
A young Australian man visiting Moscow hooks up with a Russian tourist guide but it emerges that each has his own secrets and agenda, as playwright Angus Cameron’s wryly engaging thriller takes us through a labyrinth of misrepresentation. ★★★★ ½
After infant Tom pushed a little girl because he didn’t want to be hugged, “he became That Boy”, his mother recalls, “and I became That Mother.” Martha Lott powerfully describes the lonely challenges of parenting a turbulent child when everyone else has given up. ★★★★
Dream Boat: Party on the Popeye has been given the okay from SA Health to host boozing and grooving simultaneously while floating down Karrawirra Parri River Torrens.
Comedian, singer and TV personality Paul McDermott returns to Adelaide Fringe with two new shows – one of which sees him dive into the artform he’s spent years mocking.
This double bill of plays from SA creators aims to lift up Australia’s ‘lucky country’ veneer to reveal the complex, often dark, mess writhing beneath.
Festival fans can start planning their ‘Mad March’ calendar in earnest from today, with the Garden of Unearthly Delights revealing its full line-up and the printed 2021 Adelaide Fringe guide also now available.
