Philip Quast Uncut
A Meredith Shaw Production. The Dunstan
Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. June 10 2019
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Philip Quast. Photo; Kate Williams |
A whistling sounds. in the
darkness. Accompanist Anne-Maree McDonald sits silently at the piano and the
packed audience gazes expectantly at the stage. Philip Quast enters. Whistle
turns to song as his rich baritone voice gently sings the song of The Gipsy Rover. The rover has returned
to the Dunstan Playhouse where forty year ago he stood stark naked on the stage
as Adam in The Wakefield Mysteries.
Emotion takes hold as he pauses to remember old friends, dead friends and happy
times. And so he returns clothed in the glory of a stellar professional international
career as an actor, singer and entertainer on stage, film and television. His
one show chat Philip Quast - Uncut at
the Adelaide Cabaret Festival becomes a convivial time with an old mate,
relaxed, familiar and utterly charming and beguiling. Anecdotes leap from his
lips, recalling names that drop lovingly into his story, such as Nick Enright,
Bryn Terfel, Imelda Staunton and naturally enough, Stephen Sondheim. And there
are the names of some that are more discreetly left unsaid. He proudly, not
arrogantly, recounts the praise he received from the 92 year old Peter Brook
and the hilarious first name conversation with Prince Charles. And there is the
special tribute to his father, a one timehard working turkey farmer from
Tamworth. Sentiment that has swirled about the stage since he entered with his
favourite song swells with the mention of his aged father.
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| Philip Quast and Anne=Maree McDonald |
Interspersed throughout the
conversation are songs from a career that has seen Quast garner awards from
Australia to London and from the State Theatre of South Australia to the Royal
Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon. There are songs that have made him the toast
of the world of musicals. For seventeen years Quast filled young hearts with
wonder in the favourite children’s show, Playschool.
It’s not surprising then that Quast should ask an entire audience to rise from
their chairs and join in a rousing rendition of Wiggly Woo. Quast leaps onto a table below the stage to wiggle his
hips along with the crowd. There’s nothing precious about his show- and
especially not when he kisses an unsuspecting audience member on the mouth as
Georges in La Cage Aux Folles.
Uncut is a music theatre treat
and Quast its magical star. The audience of fans revel in his
playfulness, ready to submit to every command and embrace the occasion. Quast
and accompanist McDonald work hand in glove on a show that has a notional
running sheet but allows for diversion and ad lib for an audience that would
forgive this shining light of the musical stage anything . Quast endears himself
to his audience with a patriotic rendition of Adelaide’s The Home For Me from Enright’s On The Wallaby “and the local audience bursts into rapturous
applause.
Every song Quast sings is a hit,
from Sondheim’s Follies to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s King and I. But it is Javier’s suicide song from Les Miserable that brings the house down
and the audience to its feet. With his powerful emotion charged voice, Quast
does not disappoint. His power over the house is palpable, his charm
irrepressible and his talent indisputable. It is as if we have spent a
comfortable goss and gass afternoon with an old friend and at the end do not
wish to leave. At least not until our affable friend has invited us to join him
in one last Wiggly Woo. And we do!
