Young Talent Time. 50th
Anniversary Reunion Special. Creative
director. Beven Addinsall. Technical director Ben Alcott. Musical Director Greg Mills. Produced by Dennis Smith. Hosted by Johnny Young with Jane Scali, Lorena
Novoa, Karen Knowles, Nicole Cooper ,Steve Zammit, Beven Addinsall, Joey Dee,
Philip Gould and the Young Talent Time Band. Festival Theatre. Adelaide Cabaret
Festival. Adelaide Festival Centre. June 19 2021
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Where have all the Young Talent
Time kids gone, long time passing? Don’t
worry. They’re here. A packed Festival Theatre audience turned out to turn back
time and celebrate fifty years since they sat glued to Johnny Young’s Young
Talent Team right there on their TV screen. On the large screen at the back of
the stage the clapper board read Episode
1. 23-4-71. And onto the stage strode a grey-haired jovial host. Fifty
years on, Johnny Young still smiles with that twinkle in the eye and the
youthful appeal of everyone’s favourite grandfather. One by one he introduces some
of the former members of his show that for twelve years entertained and
inspired a devoted following. Each alumni entered the stage to the rapturous
applause of the excited audience - Steven Zammit, Jane Scali, Joey Dee, Karen
Knowles, Beven Addinsall, Philip Gould, Lorena Novoa and Nicole Cooper.
So, how do the youngsters of
yesteryear stand up fifty years on? Fabulously! Steven Zammit’s Sway With Me set the mood for a relaxed
and easy evening of familiar song. Tonight was a night of happy reminiscence
when the occasional technical glitch, breathy vocal or awkward key could be
forgiven and quickly forgotten. These stars of years ago are top troupers still
and with the backing of musical director and former talent Greg Mills and his
big sound Young Talent Time band they delivered a high octane programme of foot
tapping, hand clapping and arm swaying numbers from their popular repertoire.
Old songs and new kept the audience enthralled. Too many to single out, some
deserve mention, notably Karen Knowles’s rendition of Wiradjiri songwriter, Min
Mia’s Nungeena Tya (Mother Earth) and
Judith Durham’s I am Australian. An
image of the young Beven Addinsall on
the screen appeared in a duet with the older Addinsall on stage, singing How Great Thou Art. Nicole Cooper and
Lorena Novoa performed a fun medley of popular Abba songs. Jane Scali and
Philip Gould revived their Young Talent Time performance of We’re A Couple of Swells, the Judy
Gareland and Fred Astaire classic from Easter
Parade. Knowles and Zammit joined their young selves on screen with a duet of Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns and Addinsall, Zammit
and Dee performed their version of Mack The
Knife, Style and elegance sway in Jane Scali’s smooth rendition
and choreography of John Miles’s Music
Lyrics. It is a song for the company when she sings Music is my Life.
A special surprise is Johnny
Young’s bracket with Greg Mills teasing out Young’s songwriting career with The Boxer for Lionel Rose and The Real Thing for Ronnie Burns. The
host with the most still has a voice that can sell a song and raise a cheer
before a full company closes the first act with a wholesomeWe Are Family. Technical Director hypes the audience with a
merchandise pitch before the interval and a rehearsal of audience participation to open
the second half with “”And Now Here’s Johnny Young.” It’s the full TV studio
cry.
The full company numbers grab the
gusto of the night and bring the audience to an ovation of adulation as the
past coalesces with the present. Addinsall at the piano plays the opening bars
of Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over
Troubled Water as the company enters for a gentle arrangement before a
grand finale with a hip shaking outburst of Bill Haley and the Comet’s’ Rock Around The Clock. It just goes to
show that the old favourites, sung by artists who have matured but never lost
their touch can still shake, rattle and roll the audience. The trip down memory
lane is a loving and forgiving friend and for a night of celebration, nostalgia
and fun that some might wish would never end audiences could believe that youth
is perennial and talent eternal. Young Talent Time 50th. AnniversarySpecial was the reunion we had to
have.
