Pol Roger Backstage Club.
Hosted by Libby Donovan. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Adelaide Festival Centre. June 16. 2018
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Host of the Pol Roger Backstage Club Libby O' Donovan |
On the Saturday night of each of
the three weekends of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the crowd shuffles in to
their tables for a night of cabaret variety at the Pol Roger Backstage Club.
The two hour show, hosted on the weekend by the amazing and irrepressible Libby
Donovan promised a night of phenomenal highlights from the festival, prizes for
lucky audience members and surprises to thrill and delight. And on this night
of nights the late night show did not disappoint.
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| Mikelangelo |
The night opened with
Mikelangelo’s deep voiced performance of All
of Me from his show, Eastern BlocElvis. Mikelangelo, well-known for his
troupe, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea
Gentleman, a collection of quirky musicians with an Eastern European
flavour, gives his audience a taste of Yugoslavian Elvis, with a rich baritone
sound, a quiffed hairstyle and a double dose of Balkan bravura.
The delight of the night is catching
up with acts that you can’t see during the festival, because of concurrent time
clashes. I am amazed by guitarist Jamie Macdowell and vocal gymnast Tom Thum of
Them There Eyes. In an unbelievable
display of vocal sound effects, reminiscent of the Umbilical Bothers, Thum creates
a vocal chord orchestra of miked sound effects from the glottal to the gliding
sliding, falling rising gymnastics of the human vocal chords and chambers.
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| Carole Sturtzel and Becky Cole |
In a frenzied, fabulous rock’n
roll rendition of Wanda Jackson’s Rockabilly Fever, Libby O’ Donovan, with
wife, Becky Cole and Cole’s mother, the amazing queen of country music, Carol
Sturtzel, sent the temperature soaring and the roof rising with talent to
burn. From downtown New York, the
unique, bordering on the bizarre darling of shock, Joey Arias is one of a kind,
none of another with a voice that squeals, sighs and strains the soul. This is
the cabaret of the underground, the unusual and the mesmerizing.
It’s prize time and lucky Leonie
from Port Lincoln scores a magnum of Pol Roger champagne when she produces her
ticket to Libby O’Donovan’s Kate Leigh- The Worst Woman in Sydney for
the following night. And she deserves it. She travels to Adelaide every year for the festival and has
bought tickets to sixteen shows. Now that’s true fandom and deserving of the night’s
prize.
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| Tim Minchin |
And after the prize comes the
surprise that only the mid-festival audience will see – Tim Minchin in town to
do a solo spot at the Backstage Club and a double act with the festival
director and artist extraordinaire, Ali McGregor and her gut-spilling rendition of
Radiohead’s Creep. Minchin then blows
the audience away with his thumping, bumping, swiping swinging piano key
pounding rendition of his damnation of his LA experience I’m Leaving LA. What better way to close the night in the early
hours than with a genuine Aussie accented rendition of Etta James's At Last by host, singing sensation and fired up comedienne, O’
Donovan. Leave them laughing and they’ll always come back for more.
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| Ali McGregor |
So, if you are ever in town at
Cabaret Festival time, make sure you make it to the Backstage Club for a fast top
of the town talent night of cabaret carousing to chase the blues away..
