Presented by The Adelaide Cabaret Festival
Reviewed 24 June 2017
The gala opened with a stunning medley of revolution songs led by festival directors Eddie Perfect and Ali McGregor including Children of the Revolution, Sunday Bloody Sunday and Killing in the Name. Perfect and McGregor were joined onstage by the Class of Cabaret Graduates, Simon Hall, Amanda Harrison, Chelsea Renton-Gibb and Melissa Langton.
This amazing number set the scene for an impressive night, jam-packed with stellar entertainment from a number of very fine performers.
The cast of Strange Bedfellows had the audience laughing out loud with their song The Clitoris is the Devils Doorbell, followed by Harrison, Renton-Gibb and Langton who provided a powerful and sassy rendition of My Body from the musical The Life.
Rueben Kaye gave a stunning performance complete with a dramatic entrance of smoke and audience blinding lights. Unfortunately the blinding lights stayed on for the whole performance forcing a large number of audience members to cover their eyes for the entire number.
The impressive line up just kept coming with the rich and beautiful voice of Catherine Alcorn, Cameron Goodall singing Sound of Falling Stars while the legendary Michael Feinstein brought down the house with his rendition of 50 Percent from Ballroom the Musical.
Only Peter and Bambi seemed oddly out of place with their bogan magic act.
Aptly decorated like a construction site (making light of the interruptions due to the Festival Centre renovations) there was some very Bansky style live painting occurring on the set during most of the performance, giving a unique point of interest.
The Cabaret Icon award was given to the absent Deborah Byrne during a short speaking interlude where it was also announced that Perfect would be stepping down as Cabaret Festival Artistic Director leaving McGregor to take on 2018 alone.
The final number The Light from Perfect’s new score for King Kong featured the incredible talents of Lady Rizzo, Harrison, Renton-Gibb, Langton, Hall and Kaye with fantastic support from a tight and talented band.
It was the perfect ending to another fantastic Adelaide Cabaret Festival. How very lucky we are to have this line up of talented legends all on one stage at the same time in Adelaide.
Reviewed by Ceri Hutton
Twitter: @Ceri_Hutton
Rating (out of 5): 4.5
Season ended – one night only
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