Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2007

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival is one of the biggest events on Australia's theatrical calendar. AussieTheatre.com's TROY DODDS previews the 2007 event, which is full of fabulous shows and highlights....

Amazing, really, that Adelaide plays host to the biggest showcase of cabaret in the country. This is despite the fact that Melbourne and Sydney are Australia's theatrical hubs, and that Sydney has proven its love for cabaret through the now defunct Sydney Cabaret Convention. Every year, South Australian locals rejoice in the brilliant talent on show, while Sydney-siders and Melbournians make the pilgrimage to Adelaide for an event that is very much secured on Australia's artistic calendar.

There's highlights galore across this year's festival, one of which will be the debut musical from cabaret star Eddie Perfect (pictured right), who has captured a strong audience thanks to his solo shows Angry Eddie and Drink Pepsi, Bitch. Shane Warne: The Musical is part of the Nearly Ready! series of workshop showings of musicals in development. Perfect has teamed with Toby Schmitz to create the show, a celebration of Shane Warne’s life and career set to song. Motivated by the the on-field heroics as much as the extra-curricular activities of the infamous spin-bowler (text messages not spared) the legend becomes lyrical.

There's little doubt that older music theatre fans - and plenty of young ones as well - will be flocking to see Julie Anthony and Simon Gallaher at the Festival Theatre on June 10. Over 20 years had passed since Julie and Simon sang their first duet together, during that time they have remained the best of friends and they have come together at last for this national tour. They perform some of their favourite solos and duets from the classics through to contemporary numbers and the hit songs from the musicals of Richard Rodgers and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Perhaps the biggest event of the Festival is the appearance of the legendary Michael Feinstein, confirming that the Festival well and truly has a commitment to international stas. Four-time Grammy Award nominee Feinstein will be joined for one night only by the Adelaide Art Orchestra Big Band to perform his favourite songs by George Gershwin. Having worked as Ira Gerswin’s assistant for several years in his early career, Feinstein is widely recognised as one of the foremost experts and interpreters of Gershwin’s music and brings a unique perspective through his own musical genius.

Feinstein started playing piano by ear when he was just five. After spending some of his youth playing at weddings, parties and piano bars, he moved to Los Angeles when he was 20. In 1977 he was introduced to Ira Gershwin and became his assistant for six years granting Feinstein access to numerous unpublished songs, which he has since performed and recorded.

It wouldn't be a Cabaret Festival without Paul Capsis and the unique performer will present a series of shows from June 13.Backed by a superb band headed by Alister Spence on piano, Paul not only has an uncanny talent for channeling divas such as Janis Joplin and Mahalia Jackson, but can also shift the mood with his interpretation of modern classics by Paul Kelly, Lou Reed and Kate Bush. He’s won a Green Room Award for Best Cabaret Artist and two Helpmann Awards.

If a Cabaret Festival isn't a Cabaret Festival without Paul Capsis (pictured left), then it certainly isn'tone without Phil Scott. Scott is bringing his show My Long Awaited Comeback to the Festival. In 1982 Phil co-wrote with Luke Hardy the musical Safety in Numbers which was produced at the Q Theatre, The Ensemble Theatre and The Hole in the Wall, Perth.

In 1984 he co-wrote and appeared in the popular musical entertainment Zen and Now at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. At the same time he began working with Max Gillies on his long running shows A Night of National Reconciliation and The Gillies Summit. This led to a decade of programs for ABC Television, where Phillip appeared as a comedian, and worked as a writer, composer and musical arranger. He has gone on to become one of the country's most recognised writers and cabaret performers.

I Wish You Love, on June 22 and 23, takes its inspiration from experiences of diversity, love, temptation and a world of differences in taste, style, culture and background. Isabelle Georges and Frédérik Steenbrink's performance will include some of the most exquisite work of Brel, Gainsbourg, Sondheim and an unpublished song written for Isabelle by Maury Yeston. I Wish You Love is about embracing the extraordinary and above all, finding warmth and tenderness through music in an ever-changing world.

The Festival also provides an opportunity join one of Britain’s most prolific and multitalented musical theatre practitioners, Jeremy Sams, for an evening of song and stories from his widely varied career. Jeremy will be joined by some very special guests, including our own musical theatre legend Philip Quast, straight from playing Peron in Evita on the West End.

Michael Dalley’s outrageous social satire sold out its premiere Melbourne season and went on to win the 2004 Green Room Award for Best Original Songs in Cabaret, and now it's heading to Adelaide. Vaudeville X (pictured right) is a merciless lampooning, through music and song, of Australian society; a satirical lament for the passing of latter-day Medici, Paul Keating, and the heady days when the ARTS RULED OK? Three immaculate musical theatre performers conduct a cultural autopsy on intellectuals, right and left-wingers and lovers of highbrow Art, with equal parts vitriol and vivisection. A show full of energy and tomfoolery with songs that keep the barbs sharp and pointy. Vaudeville X has evolved considerably since its sell-out season in 2004; the 2007 edition incorporates new material that keeps the barbs sharp and pointy.

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival runs from June 8-23. For a full schedule of the many shows being presented, logon to www.adelaidecabaret.com.