Fest Adelaide 2018 Preview Issue

Your FREE Festival Guide

Festival Preview

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2018 Previews | City Guide | Venue Map

Director George Sully

Editor-in-Chief Rosamund West

Adelaide Editor Laura Desmond

Designer Silvia Razakova

Sales Executive Helen Ciarla

Production Manager Sarah Donley

Cover Illustration Xenia Latii

Writing Team Justin Boden, Alexis Buxton-Collins, Hannah Connell, Joe Hay, Connor Jervis-Hay, Letti Koutsouliotas-Ewing, Jess Martin, Kylie Maslen, Ben Venables, Nadia Younes Top Picks writers Comedy: Kylie Maslen Theatre: Letti Koutsouliotas-Ewing Music: Connor Jervis-Hay Cabaret: Letti Koutsouliotas-Ewing Kids: Jess Martin

Radge Media Publisher Sophie Kyle Media Sales Manager Sandy Park Bookkeeping & Accounts Rebecca Sweeney

Contact fest-mag.com hello@fest-mag.com @festmag

Published by Radge Media Limited., c/o BDO Advisory SA Pty, Level 7, 420 King William St, Adelaide SA 5000, ABN 82609560817. Registered in UK 1.9 Techcube, Summerhall, 1 Summerhall, Edinburgh, Scotland EH9 1PL. Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but we cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate.

Show times and prices are subject to changes – always check with the venue. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by Lane Print & Post, Camden Park SA 5038. Distributed by passingout.com.au

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Contents Fest: Coming to Australia

Know what you like but not who you like? Try our thematic selector

We’re new here, but this isn’t our first rodeo

30 Intersecting Comedy with Feminism We speak to Fringe artists using comedy as a vehicle for social change

If you like festivals, you might need to stay in Adelaide all year

Music 42 The Pursuit of Happiness We meet Perfume Genius ahead of his Adelaide Festival show

Theatre

A Traveller’s Guide to Adelaide

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The important stuff: public transport, supermarket hours, craft beer

54 Bennelong Bangarra Dance Theatre reclaim Indigenous history through movement this Adelaide Festival

58 The Audience as Director

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Elder Park

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Grainger Studio

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Her Majesty’s Theatre

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Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden

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State Library of South Australia

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The Palais

Festival & Fringe venues, where to eat, visual art tips, and even stuff to do outside Adelaide E AC

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“No trip to South Australia is complete without picking up a carton of this liquid gold”

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DE 18 48 96 QU HINDLE Y STREET 31 is so iconic in South 12 in 1915, is aigh’s Chocolates, established The Balfour’s Frog Cake ET NFE LL STREET TE 103 as11a Heritage Icon in Australia’s oldest family-owned choco- GRE Australia that it was listed 5 VIL E STREET CURRI BARTELS late maker. Their luscious, smooth choc- 2001 by the NationalTrust of South Australia.

TheROAD LE TE B PIRIE STREET olate is44 a result of over one hundred years of 4 fondant-covered treat first hit the shelves in 1922 70 RR 1 98 AC patience and love. Beehive Corner, the iconic and 7the recipe hasn’t changed since.

E 95 REE T building on the corner of Rundle Mall and King FLINDERS ST LIN STREET T 109 53 Haigh’s WilliamFRANK Street, has been flagship WAKEFIE LD STREE 10the 5 T store since 1922, although now the 13 SA great WAKEFIELD STREE GROTE STREET has expanded into the eastern states with a T E E total of 15 stores Australia wide.

16 ANGAS STR 13 STREET No smoko is complete without the classic GOUGER Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee. A tradie favourite, this CARRINGTON STREET T T STREE WRIGH SA staple outsells Coca Cola almost two to one, claimed to be the only place in the worldHALIFAX STREET to doSTURT so! NoSTREET trip to South Australia is complete Menz FruChocs are the only chocolate treat without picking up a carton of this liquid gold. made in South Australia with its own Apprecia-

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South Australia has122 a vibrant 2 15 foodie culture including a number of fantastic food icons that are on any SA bucket list!

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City Guide & Venue Map

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Fourth wall schmourth wall. We examine the rise of interactive Fringe shows

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A new dazzling opera for children at the Adelaide Festival will have you seeing sounds

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The Festival State

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Comedy

Welcome to Fest

You’re holding in your hands the first ever edition of Fest in Adelaide, jam-packed with juicy festival recommendations and in-depth interviews about the Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Festival and WOMADelaide. We are beyond excited to share it with you!

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delaide is a true festival city, and we’ve been bowled over by the vibrant, collaborative energy both inside your amazing venues and out. The art, the food, the people – this magazine has been powered by Adelaide’s unique cultural buzz.

But did you know Fest is an established magazine at the Edinburgh festivals, some 16,000km away in chilly Scotland?

Edinburgh audiences – like yourselves – can find the size of the mammoth Fringe and Festival programmes overwhelming. Back in 2002, dedicated festival media was thin on the ground in Scotland’s capital. It seemed only national newspapers were printing reviews and only the festivals themselves provided show listings. Two students – Dan Lerner and now-Guardian journalist Helen Pidd – saw a gap in the market for a fresh, young editorial voice that could better serve festival audiences, and launched Fest Magazine as a university paper.

How do you stand out in the madness of the Edinburgh Fringe? Sam Friedman, the magazine’s publisher for almost a decade, recalls the early motivations: “What we wanted was to provide not only listings information, but also a reputable source of arts criticism. From the off there was a real emphasis on recruiting the best possible writers.”

Our incumbent Edinburgh editor, Evan Beswick, has kept this ethos to the present day. “We aim to be knowledgeable, authoritative and highly critical.

We’re committed to the idea that arts journalism is an important critical friend to arts production.”

Fest’s scale and journalistic reputation thus grew steadily over the years, to become the biggest and

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one of the most trusted free guides to the Edinburgh festivals. And Beswick upholds the continuing importance of discourse around the arts: “Fest is, if nothing else, committed to being part of a critical conversation about performing arts and the types of cultural relationships they sustain and subvert. We recognise a responsibility in being open to questions of diversity and privilege – both for those with performers’ passes as well as reviewer ones.”

We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Fest to South Australia, drawing together some of the best local journalistic talent – including our new Adelaide editor Laura Desmond.

“We are lucky here in Adelaide to have the second largest fringe festival in the world and some of the most highly respected music, arts, and culture festivals in Australia,” says Desmond. “This is your chance to challenge your limits together; laugh, cringe, cry, but most of all, grow. My aim and hope for Fest Magazine in its incarnation in Adelaide is to provide a palatable, functional guide to the shows we think are going to blow the socks off audiences this year.

“Adelaide has incredible festival venues, chilled outdoor hangout spots, world-class restaurants and a swathe of beautiful people who work hard to bring the festivals to life year after year. Fest is the perfect platform to show Adelaide off on a world stage – pun most definitely intended. Enjoy the selection of interviews, reviews and recommendations we’ve put together and please – throw yourself into the season! Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy!” ✏︎ George Sully

Credit: Claude Raschella

Introduction

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o mark the official opening of the Adelaide Fringe Festival for 2018, Senior Custodian of Ceremony Karl ‘Winda’ Telfer and Yellaka will lead Tindo Utpurndee, the Sunset Ceremony.

This special ceremony recognises the living culture of the First Nations and pays respect to the spirit of the land.

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Adelaide Fringe Opening Ceremony Sunset Ceremony

Tindo Utpurndee is an ancient story which speaks of spirit and the sharing of light between people. The ceremony will be held on the South Australian Museum lawns at 8pm on Friday 16 February. Following Tindo Utpurndee will be the first display of the Parade of Light on North Terrace. An unforgettable start to the festival season.

Acknowledgement of Country Fest acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this nation and we pay our respects to ancestors and Elders, past and present. We also acknowledge the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region and that their cultural and heritage beliefs are still as important to the living Kaurna people today. Fest is committed to honouring Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ unique cultural and spiritual relationships to the land, waters and seas and their rich contribution to society.

The Festival State Not just a license plate tagline

Adelaide Festival of Arts (2-18 Mar)

The Adelaide Festival of Arts has been a jewel in Adelaide’s festival crown for 58 years. The Festival plays host to productions from all over the world, including a number of Australian premieres and Adelaide exclusive performances. The Adelaide Festival’s varied, curated program includes theatre, dance, music, visual art and opera and is enjoyed in a range of venues across the city and outer surrounds, including outdoor performances along the picturesque River Torrens. The Adelaide Festival also produces Writers’ Week (3-8 Mar), a free and mostly open-air event which incorporates readings, open discussions and school visits. Writers’ Week encourages literary discussions between people of all ages and backgrounds, and presents a space for sharing ideas.

Credit: Bill Doyle

WOMADelaide (9-12 Mar)

Adelaide Fringe North Terrace Projections

Adelaide Fringe Festival (16 Feb-18 Mar)

The Adelaide Fringe Festival is the largest festival in Adelaide, the biggest ticket-selling festival in Australia, and the second-largest arts festival on the planet after the Edinburgh Fringe. Originally a free event to support small artists on the outside of the Adelaide Festival, the Adelaide Fringe and its open-access model have grown to be a main summer event. Each year, swathes of artists from every corner of the globe flock to the Fringe to perform over four weeks. Facing sweltering Adelaide temperatures and unseasonal rains, the show goes on in venues across Adelaide’s city centre and the entire state.

The World of Music and Dance (WOMAD) Festival is a mammoth four-day event held in Adelaide’s stunning Botanic Park. With hours of live music from all over the world every day, engaging talks from some of the top minds through The Planet Talks, stalls and food from the Global Village, and interactive installations to delight young and old, WOMADelaide is famously diverse and inclusive. WOMAD festivals have been held all over the world since 1982, with the Adelaide chapter launching in 1992. WOMADelaide alone has hosted over 750 artists and groups from over 100 countries.

WOMADelaide

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Meow Meow

Adelaide Cabaret Festival Adelaide Guitar Festival (8-23 Jun)

(9-12 Aug)

Established in 2001, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival is hosted by the Adelaide Festival Centre and presents classic and contemporary acts from Australia and abroad. The two-week event dominates the winter season of the Adelaide festivals calendar, starting on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June and is the largest cabaret festival in Australia.

The biennial Adelaide Guitar Festival is the most substantial guitar festival in the Southern Hemisphere and also has partnerships with two Spanish guitar festivals; the Córdoba Guitar Festival and the Seville Guitar Festival. The main festival is held in August, and in addition to this, three supported events are held over July and August; Guitars in Bars (13-29 Jul), the Adelaide Guitar Festival Winter School (16-20 Jul) and Resonance (28 Jul-10 Aug).

SALA Festival (1-31 Aug)

The South Australian Living Arts (SALA) Festival exclusively presents South Australian visual artists every August in venues across the state. Launched in 1998, it remains an open-access festival promoting inclusivity, spanning all visual art mediums and all levels of proficiency.

Adelaide Film Festival (Oct)

The Adelaide Film Festival was launched in 2002 as a biennial festival in March, but has since progressed to be an annual festival in October. The Film Festival highlights all manner of filmmaking including animation, documentary and fiction. The program includes director Q&A sessions, interactive activities and a number of premiere screenings. One of the boldest and most innovative film festivals in Australia.

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Photo: Claudio Raschella, Design: Andrea Lauer of Risen from the Thread

Features

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OZAsia

Feast Festival (10-25 Nov)

Adelaide’s queer arts and culture festival, Feast is the final event in the annual Adelaide calendar held in November. Beginning in 1996, Feast turned 21 in 2017, and is now the third largest LGBTQI+ festival in Australia, programming artists from all over the world.

OzAsia Festival (26 Oct-11 Nov)

The OzAsia Festival celebrates the culture, food and history of Australia’s geographical neighbours.

Launched in 2007, the festival begins with the Moon Lantern Festival on the River Torrens; a breathtaking display of traditional and modern lanterns, led by the 40 metre long Hong Kong Dragon. Visual and performing artists from across Asia are celebrated over the festival in several world and Adelaide premiere performances and exhibitions.

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DreamBIG

DreamBIG Children’s Festival (May 2019)

Formerly known as the Come Out Children’s Festival, the DreamBIG Children’s Festival has had over two million young participants since its inception in 1974. The biennial festival includes a dedicated schools program encouraging events and performances in schools across the state, and the free Big Family Weekend – a range of arts activities held in Elder Park and other venues in Adelaide.

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A Traveller’s Guide to Adelaide in Festival Season

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Cheap Shows

Getting Around

Public transport is fairly uncomplicated: pick up a MetroCard from a convenience store and you’ll be able to catch trains, buses and trams all over the greater metropolitan area. You can even catch a direct bus from the airport to the city centre for a regular fare. If you don’t want to walk around the city, City Bikes and the proliferation of pedicabs should make for tempting options. There are also the default options of cabs and share-rides. Trams are free within the CBD and there are two free bus loops around the city and North Adelaide.

Supermarket Hours

Supermarket trading hours in Adelaide are fairly constrained, and even in the city the supermarkets are closed by 9pm on weekdays and 5pm on weekends. If you’re wanting to stock up on the basics and it’s outside those hours, it pays to wander along Hutt Street where the IGA supermarkets are open until 10pm every night. Walk to the end and you’ll find Hutt Street Cellars, which stocks a decent selection of booze and is also open as late as midnight on weekends.

Make sure you sign up for the Adelaide Fringe newsletter. Each day they’ll announce HalfTIX specials to a generous list of shows, but be quick – these prices are only available from midday to 3pm. Be sure to engage with any artists you see flyering their shows. With a bit of luck, or if you play up an accent, they might offer you free or discounted tickets in exchange for word-of-mouth.

Cultural Attractions

The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, which also doubles as a Fringe venue, is well worth a look in at any time of the year. Same goes for the Art Gallery of South Australia, which will be featuring a Biennial exhibition from 3 March. Cricket fans can check out the four-day test match at the Adelaide Oval in late February, and for the first week in March the city will play host to the Adelaide 500.

Cheeky Brews

Craft beer lovers will find themselves well served if they’re willing to venture out of the CBD. The Wheatsheaf Hotel and Pirate Life Brewing can be found in the suburb of Thebarton, the Big Shed Brewing Company is located down by the port, and Prancing Pony is just an hour’s drive up the freeway.

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Performers and artists flock to Adelaide from all over the world for the festival season, but it’s the outof-town audiences that make the city a truly international destination.

Here’s a handy guide to Adelaide for those making the pilgrimage

Comedy Top Picks The Fringe isn’t the Fringe without some laughs – let Fest sort the wheat from the comedy chaff

Abandoman’s Rob Broderick – The Musical in my Mind The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 7.15pm, 16 Feb-4 Mar, not 19, 26 Feb, $25-38

Credit: Tony Virgo

Rob Broderick, eminent comedy rap freestyler, promises a show that is ‘two parts Drake, one part Disney’. Breaking from his Fringe mainstay group Abandoman, Broderick returns to Adelaide from Ireland with his one-man show of introspective musical comedy for hip-hop and improv lovers alike.

The Phatcave Gluttony, 11.35pm, various dates

Comedy

between 16 Feb-17 Mar, $22-27

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An Adelaide Fringe institution. This late night comedy showcase on Fridays and Saturdays is hosted by Mickey D – comedy veteran and crowd worker extraordinaire. The line-up changes every night and has hosted some of the biggest names in local and international comedy such as Dave Hughes, Wil Anderson, Eddie Ifft and Fiona O’Loughlin.

The Travelling Sisters – Toupé Royal Croquet Club, 7.45pm, 16 Feb - 2 Mar, not 19, 20, 26, 27 Feb, $20-28

These Gaulier-trained lasses from Brisbane sing, dance, and clown their way across worldwide stages creating sketch madness full of weird and wonderful characters.

Their comedy knows no bounds as they effortlessly breeze between ‘the idiotic and the profound’.

Also playing Stirling Fringe on 3, 4, and 6 Mar.

Eleanor Conway’s Walk of Shame The Belgian Beer Cafe Oostende, times vary, 16-25 Feb, $15-25

Self-proclaimed ‘ferocious clubber and party girl’ Eleanor Conway has tried her hand at music journalism, hardcore porn, and plenty of Tinder.

Now sober, she’s trying to find moderation and meaning. Having sold out across the UK and Europe, Walk of Shame is a show about sex, sobriety and Sambuca.

Top Picks

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Scientology The Musical Gluttony, 10.15pm, 16 Feb-4 Mar,

Josh Glanc: Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chamedian Royal Croquet Club, 7.45pm, 3-17 Mar, not 5, 6, 13, $21-28

Melbourne comic Josh Glanc returns to Adelaide after winning Best Comedy awards at both Adelaide Fringe and Perth Fringe World in 2017 for Manfül. One-man sketch character comedy, Glanc’s style is surreal, frenetic, satirical and charmingly dweeby. Also plays Stirling Fringe on 10 Mar.

After sell-out shows at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe, George Glass are back in the City of Churches to make friends and influence people in Scientology The Musical. The fivepiece comedy-rock band invite you to test your resilience while having a damn good time.

Demi Lardner – I Love Skeleton The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 9.30pm, 6-18 Mar, not 12, $20-28

A member of the illustrious Raw Comedy alumni, Demi Lardner has gone on to win awards including Directors’ Choice at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Her offbeat and surreal standup will appeal to fans of Sam Simmons and Aunty Donna, the latter of which she has often collaborated with.

Trygve Wakenshaw & Barnie Duncan: Different Party The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 8.15pm, 16 Feb-18 Mar, not Mon, $30-38

For fans of The Office, two brilliant New Zealand comics take you inside the drudgery of Ruck’s Leather Interiors – a fictional but relatable business.Trygve Wakenshaw (Kraken) and Barnie Duncan (Calypso Nights) use their unmatched background in clowning to create a wacky hour that’s scant on dialogue but high on slapstick and heart.

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Credit: Theresa Harrison

not 19, 26 Feb, $17-27

Falling Down the Mystic Hole Fest speaks to Queenie Bon Bon about respecting holes, bodies, yourself and each other

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elcome to the Mystic Hole: A Presentation About Being in your Body and in Other People’s is a comedic, educational performance designed to push the boundaries of society and change relationships between people. Queenie Bon Bon tackles this issue with a storytelling exploration. “Storytelling is a really powerful and beautiful way for me to talk to people and unpack things in a really non abrasive way,” she says, “I find that is really effective.”

Welcome to the Mystic Hole… is not a tell-all guide or a set of rules to be followed. Instead, Bon Bon describes the show as “a nice little journey about how we exist in our bodies and how we exist in other people’s bodies and what that might mean.

“It explores how we look after our bodies and those around us and how people around us care for us,” striking a balance between self respect and respect for others. “It is also unpacking the things that we are taught about our bodies and what it means to navigate those feelings.”

Bon Bon works as a sex worker in Melbourne, but the show “is not like ‘the story of sex work,’” rather, it is an accessible and relatable story.

“This is more of a thematic adventure about how I have chronic fatigue and about how we work, but

also as I get older that I am reflecting on how we navigate our journeys.”

Her sex work history places Bon Bon in a unique position to discuss these journeys and internal navigations. “I’ve been a sex worker for a long time so [the show] is a curated version of the curiosities from my internal monologue at my workplace, but suddenly now I’m speaking it to an audience.”

The show aims to present a personal experience to audiences and curating almost a shared experience in regards to self respect and acknowledgement of one’s body. “The body is often a really unsafe place to be and paying attention to it is often really detrimental to being able to carry on in a functional way, so there really is this need to be somewhat disembodied,” she says.

“I don’t think I have found what is empowering, but I’m more able to navigate things like what consent feels like or what is a genuine response to my sadness or exhaustion.” ✏︎ Jess Martin SHOW:

VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Welcome to the Mystic Hole: A Presentation About Being in your Body and in Other People’s Nexus Arts times vary, 16-24 Feb, not weekdays $17-22

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atching an idiot vomiting at 9pm on a Wednesday W night outside Hungry Jack’s. He proceeded to stand up, slip over in his own chunder, then spring across Rundle Street traffic, verbally abusing a busker, and yet still managed to catch the 373 bus to Marion. A Hungry Jack’s CLASSIC.

hen the Christian protesters descended on The W Garden of Unearthly Delights a few years back. I thought it was a joke and they were flyering for a show, highly entertaining stuff. I thought it was a great… five stars.

T he time in the Colonel Light Gardens when I was sitting on a park bench, boyishly swinging my legs eating a sandwich. A bit of sandwich dropped off and out of nowhere 6000 pigeons swooped in to fight over it. I was in mid arc of swing with my foot and I accidentally kicked one pigeon in the side of the head where it spasmed and died in front of me and a bunch of toddlers.

verheard in a café on Frome Street from an over O compensating bloke threatened by the proximity of ‘queer’ Fringe performers.

Bloke: “Yeah mate, can I have one of those bloody coffees with the froth on top? I dunno what it’s called.”

Waiter: “A cappuccino?”

Bloke: “Yeah, whatever! Also I’ll have the bowl with that hot wet shit with meat in it!”

Waiter: “Soup?”

Bloke: “Yeah shut up!!! I’m not gay!”

Sam Simmons

T he 2009–ish Clipsal weekend. Let me set the scene.

The Adelaide Arts Festival has also just opened and Soundwave is thumping. The Adelaide Hilton Hotel is completely booked out with high rollers; Kiss, Metallica, Anthrax, Casey Stoner, Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, Nick Cave. At the breakfast buffet, Neil Finn hides a rasher of bacon in Metallica frontman James Hetfield’s vegan omelette and a massive bloody buffet war ensues.

L ast year’s closure of a dodgy Asian food court at the back of the Central Market. It’s where I go to reminisce about the time in 2007 when I stacked my polystyrene plate at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet so full, that it snapped in half and molten hot beef and black bean plopped onto my foot while I was wearing thongs. The webbing of my little toe half melted and fused with the toe next to it, like a really shit part-Aquaman guy.

y all-time favourite worst Adelaide Fringe moment.

M The woman who managed to accidentally pierce an entire bamboo satay skewer through her FOOT in The Garden of Unearthly Delights late one night.

We gathered and watched her drunken best friend pull it out like the bogan sword in the stone. She held it aloft her head and we all knelt down before her. Total Adelaide Fringe royalty. Long live queen FruChoc.

SHOW:

VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Sam Simmons - RADICAL WOMEN OF LATIN AMERICAN ART, 1960-1985 The Garden of Unearthly Delights 8.15-9.15pm, 5- 18 Mar $29-42

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An Adelaide Fringe veteran, comedian Sam Simmons revisits his highest lowlights from his extended career

Features

My Favourite Worst Adelaide Fringe Moments

Behold

the Wonders of the Universe Challenging high flyers isn’t unusual for Adelaide’s George Glass Productions, who bring their Edinburgh Fringe show Scientology The Musical home. Fest chats to Alister McMichael about the controversial topic

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fter their previous success with Abbott! The Musical!, it’s no wonder the George Glass team was interested in approaching the subject of religion, and in particular, the Church of Scientology. But why does Scientology carry this intrigue? “Most other religions began so long ago that the origins, messages and stories of the religion have to be accepted as fact simply because factual history is not available,” explains McMichael. What’s interesting with Scientology is its relative infancy.

“We have the records and video evidence of the religion’s conception and its growth. It’s just mind-blowing to see that the religion is still considered a religion and not seen for what it really is – a cult,” he asserts.

Don’t expect a show full of easy marks, though.

McMichael, with Nic Conway, Braden Hamilton and Daniel Murnane have done their research to make sure this show has integrity. “In Edinburgh we had a few ex-Scientologists from the United States see the show and they appreciated some of the deeper jokes that take an understanding of the church to hit home.”

Infamously known for going through rubbish and blackmailing naysayers, are the group worried about potential backlash from the Church?

“We definitely know that some Scientologists do come to see our show, they are not exactly hard to spot. They’re very focused and attentive during the whole show with very stern looks on their face. So far, nothing’s happened.”

Music is a key tool used by the group to get some riskier jokes through to the audience. “Putting

comedy into music is a fantastic way to complement both art forms. The blow of a risky joke is softened by a catchy chorus, and we find that people are more attentive to the music,” says McMichael. The musicians are the actors, which brings an organic flow to the overall show. “The experience becomes a bit more elastic and fun rather than rigid and soulless.”

“ It’s just mind-blowing to see that the religion is still considered a religion and not seen for what it really is – a cult” If you’re worried about your possible Personality Test Results, George Glass have the answer.

“Through a simple process called Auditing, using a nifty little gadget called an E-Meter which is not just a current detector attached to two Campbell’s soup cans with the labels ripped off, we can help you identify problem areas and rid you of suppressive people in your life like your friends and family. It’s the least we could do,” promises McMichael. ✏︎ Laura Desmond VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Gluttony 10.15pm, 16 Feb-4 Mar, not Mondays $22-27

Adelaide’s Comedy Haven

Although the iconic Frome Street building is gone, the spirit of local comedy has moved with Rhino Room to their new location on Pirie Street

stablished in 1998, Rhino Room began as an offshoot of Urban Cow Studio, providing a venue for emerging performing artists in the same way Urban Cow provides an opportunity for emerging visual artists. The venue is the year-round home of Adelaide Comedy, the locally-run platform for early career comedians. Within the Adelaide comedy scene, the Rhino Room family are well known. Open Mic nights held every Monday keep fresh faces in the spin, and they offer support and performance opportunities for all. Their weekly shows heavily feature locals, but also pull interstate comics like Rhys Nicholson.

Although the annual program is packed with laughs all year, the festival season sees Rhino Room really break into its stride.

The Rhino Room Late Show is hosted by Adelaide local Craig Egan and is the longest-running comedy late show during the Fringe season. Hitting its 16th year in 2018, the show is known for bringing together local festival favourites and big name stars, giving great appeal for audiences.

It’s not rare to have Adelaide up-and-comers

open for international acts such as Stephen K. Amos, or watch Wil Anderson from the side of the stage.

Their stage is a great equaliser – no matter the level of experience.

This year’s program includes Justin Matson who was recently named ‘NYC’s Funniest New Comedian’.

Matson will be making his Fringe debut with Fatter Than You Think, making light of his body image issues of his past. Closer to home, Chloe Black from Tasmania discusses her recent gender transition in Transistor Sister, and Shane Dundas, one half of the Umbilical Brothers, takes on a stage alone in Believe. Amos Gill is back on home turf with Where Have I Been All Your Life, and the funniest teens around can be found at the Class Clowns SA Final.

In May of 2017, the iconic Frome Street home of Rhino Room was demolished and the future was looking bleak. An enormous crowd funding campaign was launched, and Adelaide’s ‘spiritual home of comedy’ was successfully moved over to their new home at 131 Pirie Street for a whole new chapter in a long history of making Adelaide laugh. ✏︎ Laura Desmond

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Taking Chances With comedic taste so personal, and comedic style so varied, it sometimes takes time to find the right comedian for you. Which of these rising stars is your type?

The Prodigy: Lauren Pattison If you’re trying to find a comedian who is going places, then look no further than Lauren Pattison.

A little over a year ago she was a promising young standup with a few solid routines. Then came her unstoppable success at the Edinburgh Fringe with The Gladiator: Nick Cody debut Lady Muck. Now she’s tipped to become a Nick Cody has a gruff and masculine presence, a lit- household name, following in the footsteps of her tle like his friend Jim Jefferies and American comedi- mentor Katherine Ryan. In common with fellow an Bill Burr – both of whom Cody has supported comedians from the North East of England, Sarah on tour. He’s less polemical than those two, unless Millican and Ross Noble, Pattison is an engaging you’re vegan; then you’ll experience the full extent storyteller. She also shares with them a determined of Cody’s ire. In a sense, Cody is the kind of comic ambition. If the predictions come to pass, Pattison who is sometimes out of fashion at a festival. He will soon be a globetrotting, arena-filling TV star. deals in straightforward standup without any decThough she doesn’t seem the type to let all this hype orative theme. He does hit his stride as a storyteller go to her head. Nominated for Best Newcomer, with alpha male tales, such as the time he once saw Edinburgh Fringe 2017; also plays The Austral Hotel off a bear. But as much of an unreconstructed car27 Feb-4 Mar. Lauren Pattison: Lady Muck, East Terrace nivore as Cody is, his standup is warm, relaxed and Continental, 7.00pm, 6-18 Mar, not 12, $15-25 effortless – revealing a softer side underneath the armour. Nick Cody: Loose Unit, Fowler’s Live, 8.15pm, The Artist: Elf Lyons 15-17 Mar, $22-25 Should a comedy adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake be recommended to ballet lovers or not? As Lyons dons a shark’s head, parrot costume and crocodile glove puppets this version might not be for everyone. Her ability to take risks and glory in the performance with obsessive commitment is what has marked Lyons out as a comedian rapidly gaining notice – and over a short space of time. Swan was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award 2017.

Elf Lyons: Swan, The Producers, 7.30pm, 3-18 Mar, not

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Credit: Anneliese Nappa

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Tom Walker: Honk Honk Honk Honk Honk, The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 9.45pm, 16 Feb-18 Mar, not Mon, $18-25

The Healer: Marcel Lucont Arrogant, nonchalant, a flaneur: Marcel Lucont is the last person you’d expect to lead a group therapy session. Yet in between sips of wine and readings from his memoir – ‘Moi’ – Lucont is ready to offer his perspective on your problems in his latest show.

Marcel is the creation of comedian Alexis Dubus, and despite the exaggerated gallic traits, his character has sometimes caught people off guard. He once received a one-star review from a critic who thought Marcel was a real person that spent the show being surly to the audience out of sheer arrogance. An embarrassing mistake for the reviewer, but one many could have made given the sincerity with which Dubus performs as Marcel. Marcel Lucont’s Whine List, The Howling Owl, 7.00pm, 6-17 Mar, not 12, $21-26

The Innovator: Zoë Coombs Marr An award-winning comedian is usually seen as a safe bet, but that isn’t what you always want during a festival atmosphere. With Zoë Coombs Marr though, you never quite know what you’re getting – such is the innovation and surprise of her multilayered shows. For the past six years she’s been in character as Dave, a foul and narrow-minded standup. In her new show, she’s going to be Zoë Coombs Marr. If this peels back the layers of her comedy, or adds more to it, being herself looks an intriguing change of direction. Winner of the Best Show award, Melbourne Comedy Festival 2016.

Zoë Coombs Marr: Bossy Bottom, The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 9.30pm, 7-13 Mar, $24-32 ✏︎ Ben Venables

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The Inventor: Tom Walker Revivals of the oldest forms of comedy grow each year.

With artists such as Trygve Wakenshaw mime has become fashionable. If your comedic type is towards the physical, you may find that Tom Walker, with his arsenal of props, is your kind of clown. He has a knack for improv too, winning a place on Whose Line is it Anyway? Inventive is perhaps the best label we can attach to a performer who is hard to categorise.

Onstage, he sometimes has an innocent quality with shades of a delightful children’s entertainer; other times his persona becomes quite deranged and he keeps a tally of audience walkouts. In 2016 Walker won the Best Newcomer award at Melbourne Comedy Festival.

Intersecting Comedy with Feminism The #MeToo and #TimesUp campaigns have flooded the entertainment industry and social media feeds of late. Fest speaks to the artists working tirelessly in the space where comedy and feminism work together as a vehicle for social change

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or women working in comedy who have been combining the political and personal with humour for years, the movements and conversations they are creating are not only urgent and important, but provide an opportunity to contribute to the fight.

For the Fringe Wives Club, the trio behind Glittery Clittery: a conSENSUAL Party, comedy is the best weapon in their arsenal. “We’ve all got a belief in comedy being a conversation starter,” Tessa Waters explains. “Comedy draws people in, makes people safe,” adds Vicky Falconer-Pritchard, “and

The Fringe Wives Club – Victoria Falconer-Pritchard, Tessa Waters and Rowena Hutson

we operate in the thin line between laughing and provoking change.”

When asked about their favourite artists working in this space, all three Fringe Wives bubble over with enthusiasm, yelling the names of their heroes down the phone. “Zoë Coombs Marr is totally trailblazing in terms of bringing new conversations and new ideas,” Waters says. “It’s a really exciting time to be making this kind of work.”

Coombs Marr, best known for her Barry Award-winning hit Trigger Warning and its precur-

don’t have a choice about how I am perceived, but it is up to me how I choose to use that.”

In Dave and Trigger Warning, Coombs Marr performed as a male comedian, Dave, complete with neckbeard. The subversive shows began “in response to real frustrations about the standup environment.”

Ironically, the success of playing a male hack comedian has given Coombs Marr more confidence to be herself than ever.

“ We dress provocatively, we embrace our bodies, and we say we look fucking good because we do”

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“I’m in a privileged position now where I can speak as myself,” she elaborates. “I started standup as a teenager, but for the last six years I’ve only been Dave. Now I’m coming back to a place of being myself, and seeing if that is possible.”

Stripping away the faÇade and embracing her own body still gives Coombs Marr the opportunity to speak to her frustrations and her life. “There’s heaps of gay sex jokes,” she quips.

Both the Fringe Wives Club and Ava Bogle of The Passion Project also explore female embodiment within their work. For Glittery Clittery, the group made a decision to use costuming as an entrance.

“Historically we expect women in sequins to be seen and not heard,” Rowena Hutson (Fringe Wives Club) Zoe Coombs Marr remarks, “so to be silly and gross means people get to sor Dave, is premiering her new show, Bossy Bottom, see the realness of our bodies.” at the Adelaide Fringe. While Coombs Marr “never “Our bodies, as women, are objectified from the set out to make feminist comedy,” she acknowledges beginning, so women using their bodies to regain that being a woman on stage is an inherently politi- that power and to communicate is in line with femcal statement. inism and body autonomy,” Waters continues. “We “I’m not trying to make something that’s overtly dress provocatively, we embrace our bodies, and we political in any way,” she asserts. “Of course it will say we look fucking good because we do.” come up because that’s what interests me, but the The Pleasure Project explicitly examines female most political and conceptual way of doing this sexuality and it’s a topic that Bogle feels strongly show is just to stand on stage and be myself and be about. “Women are taught that sex isn’t for us, it’s funny. That feels political in itself. for men,” she says. “Virginity is lost, given away. It’s “Being a woman changes the way people see not about your pleasure. Women haven’t learned to your comedy; who it’s coming from is as important value it for themselves.” as the joke itself. I feel like I am politicised as a queer To break through the ingrained misogyny and woman on stage, particularly on a comedy stage. I stereotypes that we all carry, Bogle uses otherworld-

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ly characters to look at sexuality from an outside perspective. The aliens in her show “ask ‘why’ about a lot of things – why body shame, why can’t women always have orgasms, how can we be so screwed up about sex when sex is one of the main things we were put here to do?”

Ultimately, all the artists agree with Waters: “Being who you are, saying what you feel, and having autonomy over that is an act of rebellion.” But they also acknowledge the responsibility to create a safe space for everyone in the audience; be they men, women, or non-binary.

Coombs Marr states that “a space that is safe for people is often maligned [by using derogatory terms such as] ‘precious snowflakes’ or ‘politically correct toned-down humour’ – but that’s totally wrong. Comedy has always been a safe space for straight white men who can always speak to their perspective, and cuts off others from being able to do that. The challenge of creating a safe space for the [whole] audience is greater. My material is so blue and fucked up, but [it proves] that you can be edgy without making ableist jokes or making people with trans bodies feel uncomfortable. Safe does not equal shit.”

Falconer-Pritchard from the Fringe Wives Club agrees. “Feminism means you are standing for all forms of equality. We’re not just fighting one fight, we’re making space for equality more generally. We want the show to be fun and inclusive, and if you come out of it a bit more informed, that’s great.”

Hutson adds that comedy as a genre “has a really rich history of being deeply political and subversive.” For the Fringe Wives Club, that means looking beyond “straight white lady feminism” to carry a political message that “we’ve worked really hard to make sure is intersectional.”

For Bogle, “comedy is [a more] effective vessel for social commentary than a lecture. The show is really funny. It’s not just me being angry, it’s a real joy.”

Whether through aliens, music and dance, sequin-covered and champagne-fuelled cosmic feminism, or even the ultimate political act of standing on stage as your raw self, these three shows offer a chance to laugh together through rallying cries and subversive humour. They create a space where everyone in the audience feels welcome, and everyone leaves feeling a little more empowered. “The monster has to come out so we can slay it,” says Bogle.

The monster may be present this festival season, but these artists are doing their part to make sure it’s not around for the next generation of comics following in their path. ✏︎ Kylie Maslen

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Ava Bogle in The Pleasure Project

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Glittery Clittery: a ConSENSUAL Party The Garden of Unearthly Delights 9.45-10.45pm, 16 Feb-18 Mar, not Mon $25-30 The Pleasure Project Crown & Anchor Hotel times vary, various dates between 27 Feb-18 Mar $15-20 Zoë Coombs Marr - Bossy Bottom The Garden of Unearthly Delights 9.30-10.30pm, 7-13 Mar $24-32

Music Top Picks Adelaide’s summer music menu isn’t limited to WOMADelaide – here’s our playlist of the best of the Fringe and Festival

Too Many Zooz The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 7.00pm, 16 Feb, $40

Credit: Andy Phillipson

With more energy than the Energizer Bunny, Too Many Zooz will be performing one night only at The Garden of Unearthly Delights.

From humble beginnings in the New York subway, the boys have performed with Beyoncé on her album Lemonade and at the Henry Wood Prom Concerts in the Royal Albert Hall.

Choir of Man Gluttony, times vary, 16 Feb-18

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This all-singing, all-dancing nine man a cappella group, created by the minds behind The Magnets and the Soweto Gospel Choir, bring their fresh new show to Adelaide after a successful run in Edinburgh last year.

Reminiscent of a UK pub gig (bar included), this feel-good night out is full of classic rock songs and singalong anthems.

Adam Page The Wheatsheaf Hotel, 7.30pm, various dates between 21 Feb-14 Mar, $15-20

Repeat Best Music Award winner and Adelaide local Adam Page brings another world class act to this year’s Adelaide Fringe after last year’s YouTunes. Combining his multi-instrumentalism and improvisation talents with a loop pedal, each performance is utterly unique.

Page’s talents have seen him perform on stages across the world.

Ukulele Death Squad Grace Emily Hotel, times vary, various dates between 18 Feb-18 Mar, $18-20

Off the back of sell-out runs at both the Adelaide and Edinburgh Fringes in 2017, the uke group is back to unleash their unique style of music with a brand new high-energy show. The four-piece destroys all expectations, demonstrating the potential of the ukulele when played by masters.

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Jackson Vs Jackson between 16-25 Feb, $30-40

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Credit:Alice Healy

Local Adelaide powerhouse choir the Gospo Collective return with their latest project, Jackson Vs Jackson, following their hit show Gospolation in 2017. Headed by the exuberant Charmaine Jones-Devasagayam, this talented roster of singers and musicians celebrate of the music of both Michael and Janet Jackson.

Various venues, times vary, various dates between 6-18 Mar, see events for prices

The Adelaide Festival is once again taking over the Torrens riverbank with The Palais and its line up of national and international artists. Check out Mount Kimble and their woozy electronica, while Lior’s performance is sure to be intimate and emotional. Local boys Art vs Science will have The Palais rocking into the wee hours and The Cat Empire’s Harry James Angus will be bringing the brass.

Gawurra The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 7.00pm, 15 Mar, $30-35

Gawurra Gaykamangu’s genuine and emotional voice has taken him all the way from Milingimbi in the NorthernTerritory to the national stage having received recognition at the ARIA Awards. Following his sold out national tour, multi-award-winning vocalist Gawurra proves that language is no barrier when it comes to conveying emotion through music.

human requiem Ridley Centre, Adelaide Showground [Adelaide Festival], times vary, 1418 Mar, not 15, $40-99

On its 150th anniversary, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem is reborn with this interactive performance at the Adelaide Festival.

Songs of death, celebration of life, and mortality bring audiences together with joy and understanding. Move about the space with the Runfunkchor Berlin ensemble and experience an old favourite in a new light.

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Gluttony, times vary, various dates

In Analysis Science and the arts come together at new Fringe venue The Lab – we talk to Australian cabaret, theatre and comedy performers candidly tackling the universal issue of mental health Damon Smith and Adam Coadin in Mental As Everything

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n the Queen’s Theatre in the city’s West End is one of this year’s newly concocted performance venues, among the usual ratified favourites, playing host to 13 performances this festival season.

The Lab is the brainchild of two minds already thoroughly established in their respective fields of stage and music production. Matthew Briggs, a producer and artistic director, and Colin Griffin, sound engineer and production manager of local independent theatre company Under The Microscope, collaborated to create an inclusive space celebrating Australian musicians, composers, playwrights and performers.

Perhaps what is most notable about this bold venture is its founding ethos around creating a safe space for an open dialogue about mental health.

For Briggs, his extensive background in science and theatre unveiled the similarities between these seemingly contrasting fields, and led him to create a space which combines the two.

“In scientific research, you use both creativity and logic for experimental design. It is the same for the arts. You use both your creativity and logic to create a world for your audience,” says Briggs, and to quote Albert Einstein, “the greatest scientists are artists as well.”

Five seasoned performers of theatre and cabaret – Josh Belperio, Laura Franklin, Carly Mattiazzo, Stewart McMillan and Damon Smith – use their respective shows and comedy as a form of therapy. It’s apparent that for these outspoken artists, the stage is a platform through which debilitating mental ailments such as trauma, depression, anxiety and obsessive-compul-

sive disorder (OCD) can be dissected, understood, accepted, and in some cases, even celebrated.

For Damon Smith – writer and co-performer of his autobiographical comedy cabaret show, Mental As Everything – this celebration of disordered difference of people with OCD and Tourette’s syndrome through musical performance is “so important to get people to understand where people like myself come from.”

Smith is an established singer-songwriter and composer and has produced music for TV and short films, but delving into sharing intimate stories of personal difficulties with mental health is new territory. He is, however, not alone in his performance of witty soul-bearing; Smith is joined by band member Adam Coad. Together, this “anxious cohort” line up a series of original odes to their terrible brain-beasts.

Finding solace within trauma is Melbourne cabaret performer Carla Mattiazzo, who is returning with her revival of THAT’S LIFE. Having only a glimmer of knowledge about the show’s contents, Mattiazzo opened up about becoming “one half of an orphan” after the disappearance of her mother just before her 30th birthday and the events that followed. “[The show is] actually very therapeutic for me.

It allows me to move forward myself with the situation,” says Mattiazzo.

Of course, this isn’t without some difficulties, but Mattiazzo is confident in her revival of the script because “the shows that hit [you] the most are the most authentic to the person that’s up there delivering it.”

Josh Belperio similarly explores his trauma history through cabaret in this second season of

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The Elephant of My Heart Storytelling Show Written & Performed

by Jessica Clements Directed by Susy Puckett

‘The Bally’ at Gluttony, Rundle Rd, Rymill/Murlawirrapurka Park 17th & 18th Feb at 1.30pm 23rd Feb at 4pm 24th & 25th Feb at 1.30pm www.adelaidefringe.com.au

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his ‘dramedy’ performance Scarred For Life. After a near-fatal bike riding accident, Belperio recounts his hospitalisation and recovery, which is rife with embarrassing stories about parading around in entirely see-through underwear and urinating into bottles in front of his boyfriend.

“ The shows that hit [you] the most are the most authentic to the person that’s up there delivering it” - Carla Mattiazzo

There is, of course, the enduring harsh reality behind the humour. Laura Franklin’s Smells Like Teen Spirit serves this sobering truth in her theatre performance about at-risk youths within the youth justice system. Setting the show in the 1990s, Franklin aims to draw parallels between the mistreatment of children then and today. The 30 year difference is anything but a barrier, as Franklin asks, “Why is it still such a big reality for so many kids today and why is the majority of society still ignoring it?”

It is evident with the eclecticism of performances that mental health can be analysed and processed in many different ways. The Lab is presenting performances of humour-laden debilitation through real-life experiences performed by people brave enough to survive their demons and even braver still to bare all in front of an often privileged audience. ✏︎ Letti Koutsouliotas-Ewing

After a recommendation by his psychologist to talk about his trauma, Belperio decided to take it one step further by taking his trauma to the stage and “tell it to a room full of strangers” in his cabaret debut in 2017. Evidently, musicians handle things a little differently from other people.

Of course, an important part of mental health discourse is the systems behind it. While they can greatly assist, sometimes navigating therapy can be a battle of its own. Enter Stewart McMillan with his comedy theatre production Allen. It is a satirical take on modern-day psychiatry that details the practices of sadistic psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Roberts.

Allen is the crux of McMillan’s ‘death trilogy’ series.

McMillan’s three productions have had a collective focus on mental health within a comedy setting, which raises the burning question: is mental health funny?

“I don’t think mental health is necessarily funny, but I think situations and the way it’s dealt with can be funny,” McMillan says.

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Mental As Everything times vary, 2-4 Mar $25-28 THAT’S LIFE 7pm-7.30pm, 9-11 Mar $32-35 Scarred For Life times vary, 23-24 Feb, 2-4 Mar $25-28 Allen times vary, 6-10 Mar, not 9 $20-25 Smells Like Teen Spirit times vary, various dates between 22 Feb-11 Mar $23-28

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Scarred For Life

Adelaide – Making Live Music Great Again Adelaide has been experiencing a live music renaissance over the last eight years. Musical consultant and activist Joe Hay describes the background of live music in the city and tells the story behind its resurgence

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ver recent years, Adelaide has transformed the way it supports musicians by helping build careers and creating new ways for people to enjoy live music. The state’s reforms have set standards around the country and are influencing cities around the world – it’s no wonder the UN decided to name Adelaide a UNESCO City of Music.

Until around 2010, there were some pretty conservative rules and regulations surrounding live music promotion and event organisation. Pokie machine laws and new residential high-rise buildings in Adelaide’s CBD were adding to this, making it difficult to hold a live music event in a traditional venue, let alone considering anything out-of-thebox and exciting.

Around this time the government kicked off its vibrant city agenda, empowering young creatives and entrepreneurs and sparking a quest to make Adelaide an exciting place to live and work. By putting faith in Adelaide’s young creatives and entrepreneurs, and bringing them into the policymaking circle, the government facilitated the co-operative culture transformation that the city now enjoys – including small bars, food trucks, street art and a locally-made focus.

It didn’t take long before the issues affecting live music were on the table and the Martin Elbourne Residency was established. The Residency was

Joe Hay

asked to engage the music industry and develop a blueprint that would support South Australian live music and musicians.

Although Adelaide has always punched well above its weight in regards to musical talent, the Residency revealed a lack of well-connected industry machinery necessary to gain significant national and international exposure and career opportunities.

As a result, new initiatives were introduced that increased funding, skills development and opportunities to build careers here and overseas. With a growing demand for new kinds of entertainment thanks to the vibrant city agenda, the government continued to reform planning and liquor licensing regulations to make it easier to play live music in more and new types of locations.

In 2017, I was asked by ABC Radio if this SA music ‘renaissance’ story was all just hype and whether the current live music scene could ever hope to compete with the ‘halcyon days’ of the 1960s and 1970s.

My answer was, “It’s better now than ever.”

The 1960s and 70s music scene was definitely groundbreaking, but today, no matter what your background or age, anyone can get out and be a part of it. Artists are drawing influence from every genre and era and on any given night there will be a scene, gig or performance that suits or challenges any musical taste. The 60s and 70s were definitely

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also taking their success overseas, building exposure and experience and developing careers in one of the toughest industries in the world.

“ Adelaide has always punched well above its weight in regards to musical talent” Way before European cities were talking about ‘night mayors’, Adelaide was reforming its planning and liquor licensing laws and changing the way it supports its artists and creative entrepreneurs. The results speak for themselves, not only in the number of new small bars, the strength of the live music scene or the tourism awards, but in the creation of a professional musical environment in which people feel supported taking risks, changing careers or going it in new directions. Adelaide has become a hive of activity across an ever increasing range of endeavours and the festival season is the perfect time to get out and experience this renaissance first hand.

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important music decades, but today’s scene is far more inclusive and a lot more diverse.

No matter how you like to experience your music, Adelaide has you covered. From larger venues like the Thebarton Theatre and The Gov, to the midsized Fowler’s Live, Rocket Bar, Fat Controller and Jive, to smaller venues such as La Boheme, the Blue Bee Room and Ancient World, there’s room for every style. Adelaide pubs are still a great place to catch a band, and any day of the week you’ll be able to see a gig at the Exeter, the Crown & Anchor, the Ed Castle, the Wheatsheaf or the Grace Emily. Recent changes to Adelaide’s building code now allow music to be played in non-traditional venues like cafes, book stores and even laundromats.

With great weather and demand for new experiences, Adelaide has seen a growth in locally curated festivals. Large and mid-sized festivals can be found in the state’s wineries, forests and beaches, and mini festivals pop up in people’s homes, backyards and in the gaps between buildings.

You’d be hard pressed to find a major festival this summer that didn’t have a South Australian act on its poster, and these days Adelaide musicians are all over national radio. South Australian artists are

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The Pursuit of Happiness Ahead of his Adelaide Festival performance at The Palais, Perfume Genius tells Fest about trying to feel happiness and rebelling against himself on latest album No Shape

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ike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, is known to bare his soul in his music but once a tortured artist has expelled all their demons, can they ever achieve real happiness?

‘Let all them voices slip away,’ sings Hadreas on Slip Away, the lead single from latest album No Shape.

The track is indicative of Hadreas’ new writing style and, seemingly, his current state of mind. “I was writing more in the moment about how I feel or how I wanted to feel, as opposed to going over old stories of things that have already happened to me,” he says.

Hadreas’ first two albums as Perfume Genius, Learning and Put Your Back N 2 It, introduced us to some of his deepest, darkest secrets: battling drug and alcohol addiction, teenage sexual abuse and struggling with his sexuality. But 2014’s Too Bright really felt like Hadreas’ coming out; his departure from lo-fi piano-playing singer-songwriter to fully fledged queer icon.

Hadreas has never shied away from his sexuality and he openly deals with queer issues in his music. “I can’t get too mad about constantly talking about my sexuality because if I didn’t want to then I probably shouldn’t have made three albums about it,” he says.

But that’s not to say you must be queer to identify with his music. “Some people think listening to a queer artist means something about their sexuality, and sometimes

it does and it can then be a really powerful thing, but you don’t have to qualify before you like my music.”

“ I can’t get too mad about constantly talking about my sexuality because if I didn’t want to then I probably shouldn’t have made three albums about it” Hadreas’ music is heart-wrenchingly honest, and on each album we’ve listened to him processing different issues in his life – with Too Bright feeling like the moment he finally unleashed all that lingering internal anger. Now that he’s shed that skin, on No Shape he was able to explore more positive themes. “I never really get happy, but I’m really trying to,” he says. “There’s a lot of rebelling against my own self and my own brain in some of the songs.”

Despite his previous material dealing with darker issues thematically, there has always been an underly-

ing sense of hope in Hadreas’ writing; a desire to reach the light at the end of the tunnel. With his life in a much less tumultuous state nowadays, he had to make a conscious effort to tackle new ground musically and emotionally for his latest effort and it appears he has finally come to terms with his own contentment.

Hadreas’ boyfriend Alan Wyffels is the somewhat unsung hero of Perfume Genius. The pair first met during a period when Hadreas had relapsed and Wyffels helped him get sober again. They have now been together eight years and live a very normal, peaceful life together in Tacoma, Washington with their dog. But Wyffels is much more than just Hadreas’ muse, if you could even call him that in the first place.

Wyffels, a classically trained musician, has seen Hadreas through every step of the making of his last three albums – every album apart from Learning – and has lent a helping hand on each one along the way.

No Shape’s closing track Alan is dedicated to Wyfells.

‘Did you notice / We sleep through the night / Did you notice, babe / Everything is alright?’ sings Hadreas, the sheer simplicity of his words beautifully highlighting the feeling of comfort and, ultimately, happiness.

Hadreas worked with Dutch photography duo Inez and Vinoodh on the artwork for No Shape, which sees him facing away from the camera looking upon a picturesque landscape. “When we were doing all the

pictures, I thought for certain we would use the one that was a more traditional portrait and I even had to fight my label after for this one,” he says. “I felt like it fit with the songs, having this warmer energy but then underneath there’s always some discomfort.”

Interestingly, Too Bright is the only Perfume Genius album to use a portrait shot on the artwork, while both Learning and Put Your Back N 2 It used images where faces are masked or covered up in one way or another.

“I think for [Too Bright] having that picture felt really rebellious. It felt more defiant to be on the cover of that one, the way that it was,” he says.

There is a sense that Hadreas really does struggle to allow himself to be happy, but it seems that in many ways, he is also his own worst enemy. Although he takes steps towards a more positive, uplifting sound on No Shape, there are still plenty of cracks to be found underneath the surface and those demons appear to still be there, even if they aren’t as obvious as they once were.

Whether Hadreas will ever be able to reach that light at the end of the tunnel is uncertain, but he’ll certainly never stop trying. ✏ Nadia Younes VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

The Palais [Adelaide Festival] 8pm, Thu 8 Mar $49

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“The Proms was probably my favourite performance of my life – I had a great time,” he recalls.

Leo P started learning music with his father. The clarinet was the first instrument he learned, and grew up playing alongside his father on the accordion. Then he noticed the saxophone. “John Coltrane was a huge influence for me. I thought the sax was amazing, it’s such a cool instrument.” When he picked up a saxophone, Leo P moved into jazz.

Too Many Zooz have been playing “Jazz is the only form of music where sax is the main instrument, or the front instrument, and in the New York City Subway leading the band. That was why I started learning systems for the last five years. sax,” he explains.

Struggling to work within the confines of structured Saxophone player and frontman teaching, he broke off and started to experiment. “I Leo P chats to Fest about their formed my own style in the Subway and kinda just did my own thing.” one-off show in Adelaide Trumpet player Doe had a similar background oo Many Zooz create a style of music which is not in formal music lessons, but has a different taste in easily summed up. The trio - Leo P on baritone music. “Matt listens to a lot of hip-hop which defisax, Matt Doe on trumpet and the King of Sludge nitely influences Too Many Zooz,” says Leo. Doe and on percussion - combine influences to create a sound Leo P met at the Manhattan School of Music and which is part jazz, part hip-hop and part ‘sludge’. The began playing together. tempo is fast, the energy is high and their instrumental The percussionist, the King of Sludge, is far more skills are off the charts. mysterious. “I know he played in a punk band for a “We make music which is a combination of a lot while, but he’s pretty mysterious. Maybe he learned to of different genres and styles that were popularised in play drums in Africa? I could be making that up.”

America,” says Leo P. “It was a form of music that was The show itself is promised to be a night to rememcreated via the Subway of NYC for the people and by ber. “It’s a really high energy show combining DJ sets the people.” with our small ensemble. It has ups and downs, and It wasn’t long before they were getting noticed, the excitement of electronic music but the organic recorded, and uploaded. “We played there for four or nature of a small jazz trio. It’s really unique and goes to five months without any real recognition but half a a lot of different places. I’m so excited to come back to year to a year in we started to get an online following.”

Australia.” ✏︎ Laura Desmond These earlier videos can still be found online, but more recent uploads include Leo P on stage at the Royal VENUE: The Garden of Unearthly Delights Albert Hall for the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, TIME: 7pm, 16 Feb aka The Proms.

TICKETS: $40

T

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From the Subway to the Stage

Leo P, the King of Sludge and Matt Doe

Cabaret Top Picks It’s such a drag choosing the best cabaret shows to see at the Adelaide Fringe - let us save you the trouble

A Night at the Musicals The Garden of Unearthly Delights, 9.35pm, 16 Feb-18 Mar, not Mons, Tues, $28-38

Credit: Alexis Desaulniers-Lea Photography

Credit: Pete Lee

UK drag artist legend Jonny Woo and operatic queen Le Gateau Chocolat return with their award-winning repertoire of adulterated show tunes in A Night at the Musicals.

Armed with Woo’s performance artistry and Chocolat’s renowned baritonal bravado, these two queens will belt out your favourite musical numbers with titillating stage antics and unapologetic lycra.

Help! I Think I Might Be Fabulous Royal Croquet Club, 6.15pm, various dates between 16 Feb-18

Gluttony, 8pm, 16-25 Feb, not 19,

Cabaret

$15-25

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Melbourne cabaret force Tash York graces The Bally at Gluttony with her one-woman show Adulting about the innumerable responsibilities of being a grown-up (whatever that means!). A satire on the often-demonised younger generations, York brings hilarity to the reality of winging it in an age of total economic dilapidation.

Because who knows how to do their taxes anyway?

Mar, $20-28

A queer coming-of-age for all ages, Help! is UK drag darling Alfie Ordinary’s journey through self-acceptance and sexuality. Detailing his time at Madame LeCoq’s Preparatory School for Fabulous Boys, Alfie assists his reluctant schoolmate, John, in finding his own fabulousness through hilarious renditions of pop classics. Also at Stirling Fringe on 9 Mar. Credit: Scott Chalmers

Adulting

Ugly Duckling RAJOPOLIS at Raj House, 7.45pm, 6-18 Mar, not 12, $28-35

Topics such as body image and dysmorphia are explored in this charming and risqué cabaret show starring the human embodiment of an image-obsessed ugly duckling.

Aussie actor Karla Hillam and multi-award-winning cabaret director Spanky team up to bring vanity-riddled Duckie to life through this ‘pop cabaret’, which includes hits by Lorde and Julia Michaels.

Top Picks

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Iconic – A Brief History of Drag Gluttony, 11.10pm, 6-17 Mar, not 7,

GINGZILLA: Glamonster VS The World Gluttony, 9.40pm, 27 Feb-18 Mar, not 5 Mar, $20-30

Gingzilla is the foxy, red-headed and bearded seven-foot-tall ‘glamonster’, and this year she is taking on the world as well as the stage with GINGZILLA: Glamonster vs the World. Large and in charge, Gingzilla will traverse a 1950s drivein movie theatre with a backdrop of monstrously dated pop culture references to question the nature of progress and gender norms.

Following sold-out performances around the UK, prepare to tuck yourselves in for a whirlwind journey through drag history with talented new-wave queen Velma Celli. A triple-threat performer, Celli details all aspects of what makes drag performance and artistry iconic – through dance, acting and music.

This is essential history of LGBTIQA++ culture and is not to be missed.

Diffusion: The movies in my mind RAJOPOLIS at Raj House, 10.45pm, 21 Feb-3 Mar, not 25-28 Feb, $15-25

Cazeleon’s world is not one hindered by any sort of binary. Taking her political artistry from the grass roots of Melbourne and East London to international audiences, Cazeleon is a gender-fluid cabaret chameleon challenging gender norms through cinema in this world premiere.

Two Brunettes & A Gay – God Save The Queens!

Gluttony, 9.15pm, 16 Feb-4 Mar, not 19, 26 Feb, $12-22

Two Brunettes & A Gay return this year after a wildly successful 2017 season, this time hailing pop-royalty icons such as Madonna and Tina Turner. Adelaide talents Aaron, Celeste and Deanna will have you roaring with their invented genre of ‘CABAGAY’ – a cabaret extravaganza of drag excellence with a modern twist, but just as many sequins.

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Credit: Claudio Rashella

12, 14, $20-26.50

Theatre Top Picks The Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe have world-class theatre programs – we've whittled them down to these highlights

Borders by Henry Naylor Holden Street Theatres, times vary, 13 Feb-18 Mar, not 19, 26 Feb, 5, 12 Mar, $17-28

Credit: Rosalind Furlong

Playwright Henry Naylor is well known for his hard-hitting Arabian Nightmares trilogy, in which disquietingly evocative performances are balanced against vivid monologues in order to tug at the soul and provoke the mind. Borders is sure to lend the same blend of boldness and subtlety to its exploration of refugees and the Syria crisis.

Dion

19 weeks Adina Apartment Hotel Adelaide Treasury, 8pm, various dates between

Theatre

27 Feb-17 Mar, $30

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19 weeks sought out an extended season in 2017 after its initial run quickly sold out. A true story of one woman’s decision to terminate her unborn child after it had been diagnosed with Down's syndrome, this is a memorable show that brings humanity and nuance to a confrontational topic.

Credit: Sia Duff

vary, 23 Feb-9 Mar, not 26 Feb, 5 Mar, $35-49

A (literal) backseat car ride takes you into a world of surrealism, voyeurism and heartbreak. Experimental theatre with queer undertones, and transported from its home in North Melbourne, Dion looks set to take intrepid punters on a roaming experience that will afford plenty of surprises and cast familiar territory in a fresh light. Meet on the steps to Raj House.

In The Club Odeon Theatre [Adelaide Festival], times vary, 27 Feb-18 Mar, not 4, 11, 12 Mar, $34-66

Credit: Pier Carthew

Credit: Sia Duff

RAJOPOLIS at Raj House, times

In this era of ongoing reckoning, Adelaide’s State Theatre Company have recruited master playwright Patricia Cornelius to pen a vital, excoriating exploration of violence against women within Australian football clubs. This is necessary confrontation; see it and be challenged.

Top Picks

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Kings of War Adelaide Festival Centre [Adelaide Festival], times vary, 10-13 Mar, $30-129

We Are Ian Gluttony, 9:50pm, 16 Feb-18 Mar,

socially [un]acceptable

not 19, 26 Feb, 5 Mar, $20-28

Think Thatcher, revisited, but told through the lens of Trainspotting-era rave culture and depicted by three performers who are not Ian, but who know Ian, and are here to recreate his glory days.

This ’technicolour trip’ (and cult Edinburgh hit) promises to be a bright and bold experience that draws both stark and fun parallels between past and present.

Various venues, times vary, 15 Feb-11 Mar, not 19, 26 Feb, 3-7 Mar, $10-20

Fest editor Laura Desmond brings her one-woman show home after touring Edinburgh and Melbourne in 2017. This confronting performance ‘takes the audience on a voyage through the musings of a woman fighting social pressure, discovering self-worth and understanding what it means to have ownership of your own body’.

Flesh & Bone Holden Street Theatres, times vary, various dates between 13 Feb-18 Mar, $18-28

This East London council estate narrative certainly struck a chord in Edinburgh last year, where it collected a number of five star reviews and a handful of awards. Think Shakespeare meets gruff London geezers, all told with the political bite of protest; we loved its “glorious, rolling swagger” in 2017.

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Credit: Jan Versweyveld

Shakespeare: remixed. After last year’s triumphant Roman Tragedies, avant-garde theatre-makersToneelgroep Amsterdam again reshuffle the Bard by merging five plays (Richard III, Henry V, Henry VI Part I, II and III) into a dark, urgent study of power. Set on a colossal stage backed by HD cinema screens, Kings of War’s scope is broad and contemporary.

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19, $15-20

Proud Indigenous woman Stephanie Tisdell is ‘heartbreakingly honest and unfailingly funny’ as she provides an insider’s guide to what it’s like being an outsider. Identity Steft discusses heritage, what it means to be sorry, and the merits of white guilt vs overt racism.

Live from Tandanya, 9.15pm, 21-25 Feb, $15-20

The ‘Nunga from Down Under’ is back following a sold-out 2017 Adelaide Fringe season with his show Aboriginal Gigolo.

His quick wit, boisterous personality and ‘magical Aboriginal fusion’ is a delight to watch. Also performing at Morello Community Centre on 2 Mar and The British Hotel Port Adelaide on 16 Mar.

Tindo Utpurndee South Australian Museum lawns, 8pm, 16 Feb, FREE

The Coorong, 23-25 Feb, $100-150

For an unforgettable cultural experience, join the Tal-Kin-Jeri Dance Group on a three day camp on the Coorong, approximately three hours’ drive south of Adelaide. This immersive trip includes workshops, tours, and ceremony dance featuring six dance groups – all in a stunning coastal setting. Saturday day and three day tickets available.

Credit: Claude Raschella

Dupang Festival

The official launch of the Adelaide Fringe begins with Tindo Utpurndee, the sunset ceremony on the South Australian Museum lawns on North Terrace.

Led by Senior Custodian of Ceremony Karl ‘Winda’ Telfer and Yellaka, Tindo Utpurndee speaks of spirit and the sharing of light.

Bennelong Adelaide Festival Centre [Adelaide Festival], times vary, 15-18 Mar, $45-89

Bangarra DanceTheatre return to Adelaide after four years to tell the story of Woollarawarre Bennelong – a senior Wongal man of the Eora nation who served as an interlocutor between the Eora and the British.

The show reinterprets his compelling history through dance and sound, paying tribute to a major force in Australia’s past.

fest-mag.com

Gluttony, 8.20pm, 16-25 Feb, not

Joshua Warrior – Aboriginal Gigolo

Credit: Colleen Strangways

Identity Steft

Top Picks

Indigenous Top Picks

Heart Beats A stereotypical heart patient isn’t a young, fit circus performer, but Marianna Joslin is breaking the mould and sharing her inspiring story through Fallot (FÄ-’LŌ)

Theatre

“ It’s been this lifelong experience of understanding the deeper and deeper layers of how that affected me”

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Joslin has teamed up with Company 2, the team behind Cantina and Scotch & Soda, for their ‘most innovative theatrical venture yet.’ “They were really excited about the concept and also current research by the HeartMath Institute into how the heart actually thinks faster than the brain at certain times and is our emotional regulator more than we recognise,” says Joslin.

Within Fallot Joslin shows her physical recovery, which has been physically well managed,

Credit: PhotoCarnivalCinema

B

eating 10,000 times a day, we live to the rhythm of our heart and depend on it every second. Connected to our physical and emotional state, if this astounding organ falters it can flip our entire being upside down.

Joslin has battled against the odds since being diagnosed with a rare congenital heart condition, tetralogy of fallot, at six years old. As a child she struggled walking up a hill, but after undergoing openheart surgeries, a heart valve transplant and intensive medical support, she’s soared to great heights.

‘A circus performance with a cabaret twist’, Fallot (FÄ-’LŌ) explores ‘our relationship with our heart and thus, self.’ Through acrobatics, the production follows Joslin’s journey of being ‘cut open, sewn back together, transplanted and transformed,’ but more broadly it’s about “exploring the heart as an organ and as the centre of our body and how that affects us,” she explains.

Marianna Joslin

but mentally she’s struggled. “I had six months of nightmares each time I had surgery. I had a whole year of basically a phantom surgery when I was 21.”

This psychological aspect of sickness is sometimes forgotten. “For me it’s been this lifelong experience of understanding the deeper and deeper layers of how that affected me.”

The emotion conveyed in Fallot, and Joslin’s experience, is not unique. “People really connect to it and that’s the thing I want the most. What else is the point if we’re not sharing our stories to understand more about ourselves, the world and each other?”

Heart Foundation SA Chief Executive Officer Imelda Lynch is a big supporter of Joslin too, understanding both the complexity of her condition and the power Fallot has “to inspire others to overcome their own obstacles, get active and chase after their dreams.” ✏︎ Hannah Connell VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Royal Croquet Club 8pm, 16-25 Feb, not Mon, Tues $20-28

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Credit: Daniel Boud

Beau Dean Riley Smith in Bennelong

The Power of

Dance

Stephen Page, artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, has taken on the role of historian for another year in the Adelaide Festival premiere of Bennelong

“I

Theatre

t’s just great that we could be a part of a festival with Bennelong because Bangarra does one work a year,” says Page. “Because we cross over Indigenous [dance] and present it in this contemporary stylistic way – or creative way – it’s good to be involved in a festival circuit.”

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Aside from Bangarra's youth and outreach educational dance programs, it has been four years since the company performed in Adelaide with their 2014 regional tour of Kinship. Bangarra’s means of education, however, stretches beyond that of facilitating student and teacher programs. Now coming up to their 30th year in 2019, they are widely recognised as world-class performers of their craft, using traditional Indigenous and contemporary dance techniques as a platform to enlighten and enrich audiences the world over.

On carrying the responsibility of cultural and artistic educator atop his official title, Page asserts, “we’re always telling [our story] from our Black

perspective whether it’s narrative driven, whether it’s historically driven, whether it’s today’s contemporary social Black issues [or] whether it’s traditionally mythological stories.”

There is a continued importance in Page’s retelling of Bennelong’s life in this well known first contact story, presented by Bangarra’s 18 Indigenous Australian dancers. The production details the life of Aboriginal Eora man, Woollarawarre Bennelong, in this eponymous homage to not only his life and legacy, but also to Aboriginal culture, past and present.

Indeed, Page’s adaptation certainly differs from history books, which are synonymous with the erasure of Indigenous people’s history and overwritten by the colonial perspective. A quick search into these accounts accessible to the curious reader and Bennelong is asserted as an important figurehead of cultural intermediation between his clan and British occupiers. However, in many accounts, he is even labelled a ‘friend’ of his English captors in an insinuation of willing indoctrination into Western systems. This latter part is a narrative regularly touted to normalise the forcible assimilation of Indigenous peoples, and one that Page rejects.

“They are looking at the exterior of Bennelong,” asserts Page. “I don’t worry about the White exterior, I wanna know the heart of him.” Bennelong’s life has been mostly shrouded with ambiguity surrounding the complexities of a man made to toe the line between senior man of his own people and displaced cultural envoy. What Page aims to bring in his artistic adaptation of this significant historical figure is the inner truth so often lost to history.

“ A couple of decades ago I wasn’t ready to tell Bennelong's story, I wasn’t experienced enough to tell his story” Page explains that for him, finding the heart of Bennelong was possible with the “cultural experiences” he has had with elders illuminating traditional knowledge of spirit and connection. The story of this expected leader of his people began before the first fleet arrived.

“He’s very potent in his story,” says Page, alluding to not just the notable events that followed his encul-

turation but also to his life preceding his capture. “He had five names so he must have been a leader within his own people.”

The consideration behind taking on this momentous piece of Aboriginal history was an approach that Page says has always been a challenging story to portray. “A couple of decades ago I wasn’t ready to tell his story, I wasn’t experienced enough to tell his story,” says Page. “We were able to do this now because we are a much stronger, tough-goanna-skin company to pay respect and homage to that character and to present his story on stage.”

Innumerable literary accounts of the interpretations of who this enigmatic character was, and the ambiguity of his later relationships with his own clan imparts a certain quandary as to the depiction of Bennelong. However, Bangarra uses a medium that far predates written language itself – the visceral language of dance and storytelling.

Bennelong has been spectacularly received since its premiere in June last year, but the resounding reception is but a part of the social change Page continually hopes to incite: “The resilient race of First Nations people in contemporary society – they are reawakened… Aboriginal first nation people around the world are going to now start to reclaim this consciousness. This is all we’re doing through Bennelong, and he’s helped us through his story to do that.” ✏︎

Letti Koutsouliotas-Ewing

SHOW: VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Bennelong Adelaide Festival Centre [Adelaide Festival] times vary, 15-18 Mar $45-89

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An Eora man of the Wangal tribe, Bennelong was abducted in 1789 on the orders of Governor Arthur Phillip shortly after the fleet’s arrival in Sydney Cove, New South Wales. It is one of the first accounts of attempted assimilation by colonialist occupiers. The mimicking of this Western society, Page says, proved almost poisonous. What became of Bennelong after his initial indoctrination into Western civilisation remains a divisive argument. On one hand, Page expresses the “loss [of] his spirit and his connection of his own culture” and on the other there is an acknowledgment of a learned man in his own culture as well as another – the first English-speaking Indigenous Australian, cultural envoy of two civilisations, and first Indigenous literary author with penned accounts of his voyage to and from Europe.

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Locker Room Talk

What can we expect from In The Club?

"It will be a pretty confrontational and provocative piece of theatre in terms of its intimate impact.

While it will look very aesthetically pleasing, the subject matter is dark and difficult and I hope there is a really exciting balance to be found in that.”

In The Club deals with sexual assault – what is your motivation and approach to depicting such a confrontational subject?

"The trigger point for me was reading Night Games by Anna Krien and feeling anger towards the system that enables men to act this way. The approach essentially is to trust the words [playwright] Patricia Cornelius has put on the page. There are very few things that are visually represented on stage that are confronting. It is mostly the words you hear and the images they conjure up. It is a really nuanced exploration of the fine lines and grey areas of behaviour that we desperately need to unpack.”

Do you expect any backlash for putting the spotlight directly on sports culture?

"I think you would have to be crazy to say we don’t have a problem within our community about the lines of behaviour between men and women, and we are just trying to contribute to that debate.

It is theatre’s job to provoke and occasionally upset, so if there were backlash I guess I would see that as part of generating debate. I hope that audiences are moved and changed by the stories of three compelling women. Men have had dominance over the microphone for a very long time in this subject matter in particular.”

What is it like working with the State Theatre Company ensemble cast and developing theatre specifically for them to perform?

"It is like a dream come true to be honest. Working with them has been one of the richest creative Patricia Cornelius is known for dealing unflinch- experiences I’ve had in my life. It has made me more ingly with very contentious topics. Is that why you’ve open as a director and created a really democratic chosen to work with her on In The Club? room, and out of that comes really rigorous and well "Cornelius pulls no punches, so it is both her realised work. It is what every creative space should ability to confront issues head on but also to do that be, safe and respectful, but out of that safety and with a style of writing that I find incredibly beautiful. respect comes bravery and invention.” ✏ Jess Martin There is this gorgeous rough poetry to the way she writes that asks actors to always operate in a space VENUE: Odeon Theatre slightly beyond naturalism while addressing incredi- TIME: times vary, 27 Feb-18 Mar, not 4,11,12 bly human concerns.”

TICKETS: $34-76

Theatre

“ Men have had dominance over the microphone for a very long time”

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Credit: James Hartley

We meet director Geordie Brookman to learn more about In The Club, a new play that shines a light into the dark corners of football clubs and sexual violence

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The Audience as Director A far cry from traditional theatre, many shows break the fourth wall, with some removing it entirely. Fest investigates why interactive Fringe shows are on the rise

Theatre

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Credit: C. Holder

A

udience interaction used to mean a drunk heckler in the back row. A spontaneous retort could elevate an otherwise sedate standup set, and some comedians build their careers on a reputation for snappy comebacks. But too often those interactions end in humiliation, either for the comic left speechless onstage or for the upstart cut down for interrupting the show.

Over the last few years, a different type of interactive performance has gained popularity, one that does away with the stage altogether and invites the audience to be a part of the performance.

That’s exactly what Catherine Holder offered last year with her show Sonder, a performance that invited one person at a time to join her and make a bed. The single audience member helped to determine the direction of the show through their decisions and the discussions that followed. It was an attempt to bypass the technology that mediates so many of our interactions and connect with a stranger by finding the things which unite us rather than divide us.

Sonder won’t return this year, but Holder will, and her new show Cafe Play! is also performed for a single audience member. She and Pearce Hesslin will take turns as the sole performer, though the setting has moved from a private bedroom to a very public CBD cafe.

As Hesslin explains it, the show is “literally just them sitting opposite us at a table in a cafe.

“There’s a script, it’s kind of a guided show so we have several directions that the audience can push us in, and we change the story depending on what they’re talking to us about,” he expands. “It’s a show for one person so it’s their show, really.”

Every audience member brings something

Catherine Holder and Pearce Hesslin in Cafe Play!

different to the table (so to speak), which keeps both participants in the show equally engaged and the improvised format means there’s no pressure to follow a script. “Because it’s just one performer and one audience member, there are no real mistakes happening; it’s very forgiving. There’s no audience watching them making the decisions.”

Though it’s in a public space, the other people in the cafe will be unaware that there’s even a performance happening. Rather than breaking the fourth wall, it’s as if Holder and Hesslin temporarily remove it to bring the audience inside.

“ It’s a show for one person so it’s their show, really” - Pearce Hesslin Hesslin hopes that this will make the show less intimidating for audience members. “If they don’t have any pressure on their plates then it will be much easier for them to get involved.”

Another show that relies heavily on audience participation is Werewolves, which debuted in

Adelaide last year. Designed for an audience of 20 rather than one, Nick Phillips plays gamesmaster for a session of the popular parlour game.

Phillips has a background in fine art sculpture and designed computer games for many years. But despite his artistic background, he's always been more attracted to immersive gameplay than aesthetic beauty.

It was this that first attracted him to Werewolves, which was adapted from a teaching tool designed by a Soviet psychology student. The concept is simple – audience members are divided between hapless villagers and the werewolves who attempt to eat them each night. The two groups are indistinguishable and through interaction and guesswork, the villagers must attempt to discover the werewolves among them.

Phillips used to organise sessions of the game for the staff of Sheffield Doc/Fest film festival that his partner ran in the UK. His partner is Heather Croall, now the CEO & Festival Director of Adelaide Fringe.

She encouraged him to turn it into a Fringe show, and the result was a sell-out season last year. He added more sessions, which also promptly sold out, and then the same happened in Edinburgh.

“There’s a group of artists that came to play Adelaide a couple of times and then in Edinburgh they all came again. Now they’re all talking on Facebook

about coming to play Werewolves again.”

So why the repeat visits? Every game is different as it relies on the individuals who turn up – it’s essentially a psychological experiment with no controls.

And once again, as well as being driven by the audience, Phillips ensures that the interaction takes place in a gentle fashion. “It’s not like you’re getting asked to come up onstage in front of everybody.

Everyone’s in the same boat.”

Everyone who attends becomes an actor with a potential secret to hide, and a vitally important part of the performance. Perhaps this is the secret behind the popularity of interactive shows. The Fringe is an open access festival and anyone can put on a show, but why go to all that trouble when you could simply direct someone else’s? ✏ Alexis Buxton-Collins SHOW: VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

SHOW: VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

Werewolves various venues times vary, various dates between 16 Feb- 17 Mar $10-15 Cafe Play!

The Jade times vary, 28 Feb-10 Mar, not 4-6 Mar $16-20

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Kids Top Picks Entertaining your small humans at the Fringe and Festival isn’t always easy. We’ve dug out some kid-friendly gems

Fun House [G] The Garden of Unearthly Delights, times vary, various dates between 16 Feb-18 Mar, $40-68

High-energy circus for the whole family, Fun House promises to be an all ages and all action sugar rush with performers from Cirque du Soleil and Broadway. A largerthan-life production that literally doesn’t fit in the tent, Fun House only has two rules – have fun, and no shoes on the jumping castle!

Platypus Man [G] Live From Tandanya, 1.45pm, 17 Feb-18 Mar, not weekdays, $17.50

Swamp Juice [G] Royal Croquet Club, 1.30pm, various dates between 17 Feb - 18

Kids

Mar, $20-25

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Welcome to a swamp like no other. Using household rubbish for props, Melbourne-based Bunk Puppets – known for their novel take on shadow puppetry – present a charming story of one man who meets scuttling mice, crawling snails, and who knows what else.

Ordinary objects come to life in a swamp filled with oddities. Just watch out for snakes!

This offbeat Aussie storytelling show pops straight out of 90s kids television and onto the stage at Tandanya. The top-billed hero Platypus Man – aided by his sidekick Human Person – battles rascally villains, helps his mates through tough times, and learns about himself along the way.

GROUNDED GROUNDED, times vary, various dates between 16-25 Feb, FREE

Overwhelmed by all the options and can’t decide?

Get the whole family involved and head along to GROUNDED in Victoria Square. This new pop-up precinct connects young people and their adults to great experiences through a range of music, theatre, and visual arts. Lose yourself in workshops and activities that will bring out your inner child!

Top Picks

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My Brown Paper Clouds [G] 1pm, various dates between 10-18 Mar, $17

MR BADGER tells the story of The Wind in the Willows [G] Various venues, times vary, various dates between 17 Feb-12 Mar, $15

The classic story by Kenneth Grahame, told in an intimate outdoor setting as only Mr Badger can. Sit in dappled shade as Mr Badger regales you with exciting tales of animals and friendship. Retaining much of the original language, the simple presentation style ‘harks back to a bygone era’ with a beautiful kindness.

Credit: Sabrina Testani

A contemporary dance performance for younger kids, My Brown Paper Clouds encourages audiences to use their imagination to follow on a boat ride down the river, dance in the trees, or trek over the mountains – all assisted by recycled brown paper. Put down the red cordial and spend some time daydreaming.

Can You Hear Colour? [4+] AC Arts Main Theatre [Adelaide Festival], times vary, 9-15 Mar, $25-35

Using the rare neurological quirk of synaesthesia (some people are able to ‘see’ sounds) as a jumpingoff point, Adelaide-based Patch Theatre seek to charm hearts and open minds in this opera for little ones. Join a girl with such a gift as she meets a rainbow bird who helps her undo the Colour Catcher’s theft of the world’s precious hues.

The I Hate Children Children’s Show Rock and Roll Spectacular! [G] Gluttony, times vary, various dates between 16 Feb-18 Mar, $25

The award-winning I Hate Children Children’s Show has a new angle: rock and roll! A show aimed at the parents as much as the children, I Hate Children... invites you to rock out with the meanest magician, giggle at their quick wit and banter, and all backed by an incredible live band.

A show for anyone who loves their children but hates boring kids shows!

fest-mag.com

The Garden of Unearthly Delights,

Can You Sing a Rainbow?

Adelaide-based Patch Theatre have made another thoughtprovoking work for 4-8 year olds. Fest speaks to artistic director Naomi Edwards about their sensory Adelaide Festival premiere Can You Hear Colour?

Kids

W

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ell, can you? The short answer is: yes – if your brain happens to be wired in a particular way. Though difficult to accurately measure, an alleged 4% of the population experience synaesthesia: involuntary cross-sensory perception, like hearing colour or tasting shapes.

And while performance is an excellent domain for posing questions, the question posed by Patch Theatre’s new opera-for-kids Can You Hear Colour? isn’t really the titular one. Instead it asks: if you can hear colour and I can’t, how can I try and understand that? Why should I? “It’s using a unique way of perceiving the world – in that when [the Girl] sees colour, she hears music – as a metaphor for difference,” explains Naomi Edwards, Patch’s artistic director since 2015, “and how that’s a precious gift and a wonderful thing. I wanted to make a show about empathy, and particularly what it is for children. How can we amplify that and value it, and give an artistic experience around it?”

In today’s divided world, empathy sometimes feels like a lost skill.

“I don’t think children need to be taught empathy,” she asserts. “We need to unlearn the things that stop them being empathetic. They don’t see the divisions that we see, they don’t see the categories of people that we see. What happens when they start going to school and encountering people outside of their family unit? What do they learn that unteaches them their natural instinct to be cohesive socially?”

Can You Hear Colour? might utilise synaesthesia as a proxy for alternative points of view, but the neurological phenomenon wasn’t the show’s original inspiration.

“I was packing up my house and watching this TED talk of a guy called Neil Harbisson, who is a cyborg.”

She clarifies: “He has colour blindness – which means he only sees in black and white – and had an antenna put into his skull. This antenna changes light frequency into sound frequency, so he hears a different pitch for each colour – he hears colour. I was just so arrested by it, I could not imagine what that must be like, and bang – that’s the show.”

The plot of the show is accessibly simplistic, the key ideas boiled down to the interactions of three characters: “[The Girl, Michaela Burger] meets the Bird [Bethany Hill], who introduces and expands her idea of music. Then she meets the Colour Catcher [Alan John, also the show’s composer] – who has taken all colour out of the world – and she uses her gift to remind him of the beauty of colour and the beauty of music.”

But Edwards recognises the preconceptions some might have of this particular type of performance.

“I think a lot of people hear ‘opera’ and think they’re not going to enjoy it, because it’s really formal, or stuffy, or old and dusty! But the show is quite contemporary in that sense, and because [the Girl is] discovering her ability to hear music very simply and gradually, it slowly builds up into quite a complex gorgeous score.”

“ I don’t think children need to be taught empathy. We need to unlearn the things that stop them being empathetic” This way of building complexity from smaller identifiable parts conjures Sergei Prokofiev’s beloved Peter and the Wolf, something Edwards will know well from directing the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s production in 2017.

“I was working on Can You Hear Colour? at the same time,” she recalls. “I asked [Alan John] to write the finale of the show first, and then we’ve woven backwards all of the themes and ideas and lyrics. By the time we get there there’s this rich and sweeping orchestral sound, and we feel like we’ve heard it all our lives because it’s been slowly planted and built, in the same way that Peter and the Wolf does.”

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Can You Hear Colour?

Making work for children is challenging. Their age makes them perhaps the most ruthless critics of all (“There is nothing more vibrant than an audience of 4-8 year olds – there is no audience more critical, no audience more engaged”), forcing theatremakers to adapt in order to survive.

But, commenting on the health of children’s theatre Down Under, she says that while “the work that’s being created is sensational, and the artists that are working in the field are the best in the country,” our weakness is that “other countries are better at valuing it than we are in Australia.

“There’s lots of talk about opera dying and not being relevant and it’s like, well, let’s find a new audience. Let’s open up the artform to what it can be and reinvent it and be informed by it, but take it forward at the same time.”

Can You Hear Colour? is therefore pitched as an unthreatening yet inspiring show for both kids and their parents, in order to hopefully restore the magic

of taking a trip to the stage.

“The whole ritual of going to theatre is so valuable for families,” she expands. “It is that shared time of two people sitting in the dark, looking in one direction, and experiencing the same thing – but probably not experiencing the same thing, and what that conversation is.”

How important it is, then, that a work devised to be accessible to a critical age group should be about not only tolerating but celebrating differing perspectives and alternative experiences. If this message lands home, Can You Hear Colour? might just be the catalyst to propel children’s theatre to the ranks of ‘serious’ performance – and maybe even help the next generation be a little bit more empathetic in the process. ✏︎ George Sully and Laura Desmond VENUE: TIME: TICKETS:

AC Arts Main Theatre [Adelaide Festival] times vary, 9-11 Mar $25-35

Her Majesty’s Theatre (58 Grote St,

Adelaide Festival Venues

13) in the centre of the CBD will see

theatre, music, and dance pieces come to life, and Elder Park (King William Rd, 10) will utilise the most of the weather with a number of outdoor performances. The beautiful acoustics of Saint Peter’s Cathedral (27 King William Rd) will be well exploited by the Adelaide Chamber Singers in Late Night in the Cathedral.

Adelaide Town Hall Adelaide Festival Centre

St, 4) will host a range of voices,

orchestras and bands, and the State

Library of South Australia (North Ter & Kintore Ave, 18) will incorporate an

interactive art installation. Next door, the Art Gallery of South Australia (North Terrace), in conjunction with Jam Factory (19 Morphett St), the

Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art (55 North Ter), and the Santos Museum of Economic Botany (in the Adelaide Botanic Garden), will present

Australian artists in the Adelaide Biennial exhibition Divided Worlds.

City Guide

The Adelaide Festival Centre (North Ter & King William St, 2) is the heart of world-class production in Adelaide.

Following an extensive refurbishment, the Festival Centre will be home to a number of shows this season across its three performance spaces (Festival Theatre, Dunstan Playhouse, Space Theatre). The Palais (Torrens Riverbank/Elder Park, 1) will be returning on the RiverTorrens with live music, long lunches and beautiful views, and Writers’ Week will again be across King William Road in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden (15).

Adelaide Town Hall (128 King William

Over in the West End you’ll find Grainger Studio (91 Hindley St) for Stalin’s Piano, AC Arts (39 Light Sq) for opera and dance, and ACE Open (Lion Arts Centre, North Ter) for an important art exhibition regarding sense of self within the Australian Muslim community. For a change of scenery, head to UKARIA Cultural Centre (119 Williams Rd, Mount Barker Summit, 19) in the Adelaide Hills for a serene music experience.

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State Library of South Australia

UKARIA Cultural Centre

Right in the heart of the city is new outdoor venue GROUNDED (Victoria Sq/Tarntanyangga, 109), a family friendly venue run by Carclew Youth Arts Organisation. Filled with hands-on activities and performances suitable for all ages, GROUNDED culminates in the huge family festival SUPERMASSIVE (25 Feb).

Adelaide Fringe Venues Adelaide comes alive during the festival season with pop up venues all over the CBD

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The Producer's Bar

Credit: Andre Castellucci

Around the corner on Grenfell Street is The Producer’s Bar (235 Grenfell St, 103) which has been a cult Fringe venue for years. Its quirky layout and upstairs performance rooms, lovingly called the Niche, the Nook and the Cranny, make it one of the fringe-iest venues you’ll find.

Host to a slew of comedy acts and a pick of theatre and music, there’s never a dull moment right through to the wee hours.

North of the river you’ll find the Royal Croquet Club, or RCC (Pinky Flat/ Tarnda Womma, 122). Headed by a local Adelaide crew, their curated list of events includes theatre, circus, and cabaret. Dogs are more than welcome here, and get in early for Happy Hour every day from 5-6pm where tickets, drinks and food are going cheap.The Big River Motel stage inside will be host to 12 huge musical performances over the season and the Neon Forest is returning with an interesting new angle.

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The biggest outdoor venue is The Garden of Unearthly Delights (Rundle Park/Kadlitpina, 94) which is known for its world-class comedy lineup – and the trapeze that doesn’t fit in the tent! This year is also the first year the Garden has a theatre stage.The show really starts as soon as you step foot in the Garden, with roving acts and fancy dress the norm.

Food offerings are always a huge highlight, as is the carnival area with rides and sideshows.

GROUNDED

RAJOPOLIS (54 Hyde St, 70) is another new face for Adelaide Fringe 2018. Located in Raj House on Hyde Street, RAJOPOLIS has a strong LGBTQI+ lineup including comedy, cabaret and immersive theatre.

Expect the unexpected!

The Garden of Unearthly Delights

Across the road is Gluttony (Rymill Park/Murlawirrapurka, 43) with a strong circus and acrobat program and acts from across the world. Gluttony also has a great range of music, comedy and cabaret acts, and is home to the Spiegel Zelt – a gorgeous mini Spiegeltent and one of the oldest in the world!There are more performance venues than ever inside, and food and drink locations throughout thanks to its expansion this year.

If theatre has a home at the Adelaide Fringe, it’s arguably at

Holden Street Theatres (34 Holden St, Hindmarsh, A). While not in the CBD,

it’s a quick and convenient tram ride northwest, and with scenic enough surrounds to warrant spending at least a day there.Their excellent and frequently prize-winning theatre program is complemented by the venue’s charming bar and sunny outdoor seating.

Head another block south and find The GC at the German Club (223 Flinders St, 96) with music, cabaret, and comedy galore. Get along early to grab a classic German schnitzel before seeing a show!

The Best Job in the World

The Producers on Grenfell Street has built a strong reputation as one of the top venues for comedy at the Adelaide Fringe. Fest chats to the venue operator Marcel Blanch- de Wilt

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his year will mark Marcel Blanch- de Wilt’s sixth year as a venue operator for the Adelaide Fringe, but his engagement with the festival goes back a lot further than that.

“This is my tenth year, which is kind of crazy for my brain but it’s exciting at the same time.

I started out in theatre, where I was very much on the fringe of the Fringe. I didn’t know anything about it when I first started, I just knew it was a chance to get on stage and pretend that I was a legitimate artist.”

Since that time, Blanch- de Wilt has gone on to become a recognisable face at the yearly festival. Before his relocation to Sydney he was a regular on the Adelaide comedy circuit, where he could frequently be found on hosting duties at the local comedy spots.

His semi-weekly podcast The Loose Five (aka 'Marcel’s Best Friends Club'), currently on an extended hiatus, profiled an impressive list of working comedians from both Adelaide and throughout the country. Between live tapings of his podcast, and regular billing on comedy nights, Blanch- de Wilt established himself as a performer who could be regularly found on stage come Fringe time.

But this year you’ll be most likely to encounter Blanch- de Wilt hovering around the box office at The Producers, where he manages the five room venue space. “There are venue operators that are ghosts, and you’ll pay them money and then never see them again. But I’m

there every day from about four or five o’clock till we close at one o’clock.”

Not that he particularly minds. “It feels like the best job in the world when you can be in the company of your closest mates at a bar and call it work.”

Blanch- de Wilt started out as a venue operator managing a much smaller space when he took on the one room Harry’s Bar in 2013, which presented a mixture of burlesque, live sketch comedy, and standup. It was from there that he learned the lessons that he’s gone on to apply to the role. “I realised that artists need a venue where the event manager was there for them.

They’re the ones that make the atmosphere, and I realised that was the key towards a successful venue: keep the artist happy.”

The Producers, which is tucked away on Grenfell Street, just around the corner from The Garden of Unearthly Delights and Gluttony, will play host to an impressive roster of Australian comedians this Fringe, including Alice Fraser, Fran Middleton (The Checkout), Suren Jayemanne (Comedy Next Gen) and Matt Stewart (RAW Winner 2014). What makes the venue so appealing for visitors, and keeps artists returning year after year, is the sense of community Blanch- de Wilt has been able to foster there.

“I really love those venues that have a bit more of a family vibe, a place where the artists won’t just do their show but they’ll also hang

out, they’ll chat to the audience members after the show, they’ll see each other’s shows, they will promote each other’s shows, they’ll get behind each other. That’s what the festival is all about.”

“ It feels like the best job in the world when you can be in the company of your closest mates at a bar and call it work” Blanch- de Wilt is based in Sydney these days, where he splits his time performing standup, teaching at NIDA Open, and managing his youth theatre company Disco Turtle Productions. The topic of his move from Adelaide to Sydney is actually the focus of Love + Cordial, the third solo show Blanch- de Wilt has brought to the Adelaide Fringe.

“With each show I’m trying to challenge myself. I had done a show about my childhood, bullying, and self-expression, with Death of a Disco Dancer, and I did a show about my wedding and my relationship with my dad in Best Man. So there’s always been a bit of a childhood-centric theme to my shows which I’m really happy about.

"Love + Cordial has the least amount of childhood in it. It’s a show about my relationship with my wife, and especially surrounding how we broke up for a year and then got back together.”

When Blanch- de Wilt originally relocated with his then-girlfriend, things didn’t exactly go to plan. “I found Sydney far too intimidating, far too large, rent prices too high, and I just felt a little isolated and ended up running back to Adelaide with my tail between my legs and minus one girlfriend.

“In a long-term relationship, most couples might have something that they retrospectively call a break. But if it’s twelve months it’s pretty hard to just call that a ‘break’. This was well and truly a breakup.”

The show will obviously play with themes of loneliness and heartbreak, but the story has a happy ending: the couple since tied the knot, and Blanch- de Wilt promises the show won’t be too bleak for audiences. “I think most people walk away from my shows enjoying the silliness, the storytelling, and the inner child elements, and this one will be no exception.” ✏︎

Justin Boden

SHOW:

Marcel Blanch- de Wilt: Love + Cordial

VENUE:

The Producers

TIME:

9-9.50pm, 3-18 Mar, not 5, 12

TICKETS:

$10-16

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Food and Drink Hotspots When the weather is on point, there’s nothing better than an evening spent wandering the streets and discovering bars, restaurants, and cheap eats throughout the Adelaide

In the East End, Vardon Avenue is the place to be with a wide choice of establishments ready and willing to wet your whistle, no matter your poison of choice.

BRKLYN

New Orleans-themed NOLA (28 Vardon Ave, @nolaadelaide) offer a range of craft beers and whiskies alongside Creole and Cajun-inspired food.

The William Bligh (33 Vardon Ave, @ thewilliambligh) is a speciality rum bar

named after the early 1800s governor who tried to stop the rum trade in New South Wales.

Mother Vine (22-26 Vardon Ave, @ mothervinewinebar) serves up an

extensive range of wines alongside their Mediterranean-inspired plate menu, while theTasting Room at fine wine merchants East End Cellars (25 Vardon Ave, @eastendcellars) offers the chance to sample from their extensive cellar alongside tasting flights matched with meat and cheese.

Parisian-style brasserie Hey Jupiter

City Guide

(11 Ebenezer Pl, @heyjupiterbrasserie)

Hey Jupiter

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serves up French classics for breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the week, while Burger Theory (8/10 Union St, @burgertheory) offer American classics for a ‘sustainable Australian future’ including burgers made of a blend of beef and kangaroo meat served in a potato bun. Within a block you’ll find EST Pizzeria (30 East Ter, @estpizzeria), home to gourmet pizzas and boutique beers.

BRKLYN

If you’re feeling fancy, Rundle Street is home to Australia’s Restaurant of the Year 2017 – Orana (1/285 Rundle St, @rest_orana_). If modern Australian cuisine isn’t your thing, Taj Tandoor (290 Rundle St, @taj.tandoor) offers authentic Indian with amazing customer service. If you’re after a cocktail, BRKLYN (260-262 Rundle St, @ brklyn_adl) will fix you up with classic and modern ’tails to die for, and a late night barber shop to keep you looking sharp. The Exeter (246 Rundle St) and The Austral (205 Rundle St, @ theaustral) hotels are absolute institutions – grab a jug of local beer and a seat out the front if you can!

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Things are just as lively over in the West End. Be spoilt for choice on Peel Street with Alfred’s (14 Peel St, @alfreds_bar) offering up ‘your home away from home’ with indoor and outdoor seating for evening drinks. Over the road, Maybe Mae (15 Peel St, @maybemaebasement) isn’t the easiest spot to find, but if you happen upon the concealed entrance and venture down the stairs you will find a 1950s-style cocktail bar with a regularly changing menu.

Roxie's

tle Tailor (19 Peel St, @cleverlittletailor)

offer up quality liquor and bar snacks while a menu of 100+ cocktails can be found in Therapy (2 Peel St, @ bottletherapy) alongside exposed brickwork and discounts for industry staff. For food, Bread & Bone (15 Peel St, @breadandbone) specialise in meat cooked on their wood grill, while Peel St Restaurant (9 Peel St, @peelst) offer contemporary Australian cuisine in an industrial style setting.

West Oak Hotel

Leigh Street has its own atmosphere with Casablabla (12 Leigh St, @ casablabla) bringing the ‘multicultural tapas’ vibes, Udaberri (11-13 Leigh St, @ udaberri_adl) covering gin and tonics with vigour, and Pink Moon Saloon (21 Leigh St, @pinkmoonsaloon) offering nibbles, beers and cocktails in an internationally recognised architect’s dream. The West Oak Hotel (208 Hindley St, @westoakhotel) oozes charm and is one of Adelaide’s oldest continually licensed venues.

For a rooftop experience, head to 2KW (2 King William St, @2kwbar) or

Hennessy Rooftop Bar (45 King William St, @mayfairhoteladelaide). For an

afternoon in a beer garden, check out

Roxie’s (188 Grenfell St, @heartofroxies) or The Ed Castle (233 Currie St, @ edcastlehotel). If you’re up well past

the sunset, Midnight Spaghetti (196 Grenfell St, @midnightspaghetti_) has your late-night carb craving covered, slinging angel hairs into the wee hours from Wednesday to Sunday.

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The intimate surrounds of Clever Lit-

Fat Controller

Chinatown in the Central Market district is easily accessible by the free tram, or is an easy walk. Noodles, dumplings, yum cha and dessert can be found on every corner. For noodles, try Ryo’s Noodles (80 Gouger St, @ryos_noodles) in Japanese style, and check out Dumpling King (85 Grote St,

Need a mid-arvo pick-me-up? Get some caffeine into you from one of Adelaide’s small coffee spots. Larry

For a day away from the city, head to

ryandladd) is great if you’re in Rundle

Hahndorf Inn (35 Main St, @hahndorfinn)

also 1/108 King William St,

@ExchangeADL) has you sorted on Var-

@dumplingkingcafe) for cheap and

don Avenue, and Penny University (1 Union St, @pennyuniversitysa) will have your coffee and your lunch covered.

cheerful serves of their namesake.

Star of Siam (67 Gouger St, @starofsiam) is the place to go forThai fare, and BBQ City (84 Gouger St) will get you in and out the door in record time for a Chinese feast.

Melbourne Street in North Adelaide is home to The Lion Hotel (161 Melbourne St, @thelionhotelsa) with award winning decor, pub fare, a stunning restaurant and ever-changing beer taps on offer. Further down is Spot &

Co (129 Melbourne St, @spotandco_ade-

City Guide

laide) for all your cocktail needs, and

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multicultural eating galore with Tiger Lilly (116 Melbourne St) Thai, Zapata’s Restaurant (42 Melbourne St) for Mexican, Monsoon (133-135 Melbourne St) with Indian, and Himalayan Kitchen (73 Melbourne St) bringing Nepalese andTibetan.

& Ladd (Shop 36, Regent Arcade, @lar-

Mall, or Signature (23 Charles St) if you’re heading toward NorthTerrace.

Exchange Coffee (12-18 Vardon Ave,

When you’ve seen your shows for the night but you’re not ready to call it quits, hit up Rocket Bar and Rooftop (142 Hindley St, @rocketrooftop) or Fat

Controller (136 North Ter, @fatcontrollerclub) for one hell of a dance floor

rave. If you have friends in high places, the Fringe Club (Rymill Park) is a fantastic place to rub shoulders with performers and producers alike.

The Lane Vineyard (5 Ravenswood Ln, @thelanevineyard) outside of Hahndorf

for a picturesque experience. The

serves a genuine taste of Bavaria. If you’re not sure what to try, there’s food and beer tasting plates available!

Glenelg is one of the most easily accessible beaches thanks to the tram from King William Street. Check out

Bracegirdle’s (31 Jetty Rd, @bracegirdles) for local chocolates, then head to

The Moseley (11 Moseley Square, @moseleybk) or The Grand Bar (Stamford Grand Hotel, 2 Jetty Road, @ thegrandbar) for a beachside drink.

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South Australia has a vibrant foodie culture including a number of fantastic food icons that are on any SA bucket list! Here are a few recommendations

H

aigh’s Chocolates, established in 1915, is Australia’s oldest family-owned chocolate maker. Their luscious, smooth chocolate is a result of over one hundred years of patience and love. Beehive Corner, the iconic building on the corner of Rundle Mall and King William Street, has been the flagship Haigh’s store since 1922, although now the SA great has expanded into the eastern states with a total of 15 stores Australia wide.

No smoko is complete without the classic Farmer’s Union Iced Coffee. A tradie favourite, this SA staple outsells Coca Cola almost two to one, claimed to be the only place in the world to do so! No trip to South Australia is complete without picking up a carton of this liquid gold.

The largest Australian owned brewery can be found right here in Adelaide, making ale using a recipe that’s over 150 years old. Cooper’s Brewery ales and stouts have the famous ‘Best After’ date, signalling the completion of the natural conditioning that occurs in the bottle. These ales are best enjoyed after a roll on a flat surface for 20cms, allowing the yeast sediment to move through the beer, releasing its signature flavour.

The Balfour’s Frog Cake is so iconic in South Australia that it was listed as a Heritage Icon in 2001 by the NationalTrust of South Australia.The fondant-covered treat first hit the shelves in 1922 and the recipe hasn’t changed since.

“ No trip to South Australia is complete without picking up a carton of this liquid gold” Menz FruChocs are the only chocolate treat made in South Australia with its own Appreciation Society, including t-shirts. These little balls of apricot and peach smothered in milk chocolate were first produced in 1948 and little has changed since you can’t improve perfection!

From humble beginnings in the Adelaide Central Market, Charlesworth Nuts have become a household name in all things nuts and dried fruits. Their policy of never serving nuts from the previous day still stands, so their warm, roasted nuts are fresh every time.

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Heaps Good Food Legends

Exploring the Visual Arts Scene Adelaide has a strong visual arts community who support both emerging and established artists in a broad range of media.

Here are some of the artistrun galleries and collaboration spaces you’ll find across Adelaide’s CBD and throughout the outer suburbs

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ward-winning Adelaide artist Emma Hack has a new home at ART BAR (52 Sturt St, @artbarph) in the CBD. The space features oil paintings, still lifes, photography, and iPad artwork from over 100 local SA Collective artists, and also offers wine tastings from an ever changing cellar door. The quaint space has indoor and outdoor seating and is the perfect place to wind down with friends over a glass of South Australian wine. ART BAR breathes fresh life into the traditional stereotype of an art gallery, making it more immersive, family friendly, and accessible.

Cult & Harper (168 St Vincent St E, @cultandharper) opened as one of the last of the Renew Port Adelaide initiatives and is the brainchild of large-scale artist Lisa King and boyfriend Jarrad Jackson. The transformed loft space is a platform for local visual artists not only to exhibit, but to use as a collaborative working space. The cultural hub is home to a retail store, an event space, a cyclorama photography studio and a licensed bar. The functional space is surrounded by a glorious assault of the visual sense with clashing neon, velvet, and vintage furnishings paired with commanding wall art. The space is available to hire for hosting events, exhibitions and parties.

Not only is Fontanelle (175 St Vincent St, @fonta-

ACE Open

Sister Gallery

in Port Adelaide a home to 27 South Australian artists, the gallery also provides annual studio hire scholarships to two visual art graduates a year, thanks to the Helpmann Academy and the Klein Foundation. The artists under Fontanelle’s wing are able to utilise studio, workshop and rehearsal spaces, as the aim of the gallery is to support local artists from all disciplines and in all stages of their career. By embracing creativity within their walls and providing a space for artists to ‘work, take risks, engage in dialogue and debate, and exhibit,’ Fontanelle encourages artists to continue challenging the status quo.

Supported by Fontanelle, Sister Gallery (26 Sixth St, @sistergallery) is the new kid on the block and exhibits visual artists from South Australia, Australia and overseas. Sister Gallery is pushing boundaries of what it means to be an art gallery by including an online exhibition space which will feature internet and video art. Co-director Mia Van den Bos is 'particularly interested in the way artists have adapted to the digital age and are using emerging technologies in their practice' and how these challenging works can be incorporated into traditional gallery spaces.

FELTspace (12 Compton St, @feltspace) is an artist-run organisation in the Adelaide Central Market district which focuses on local nelle_gallery)

Fontanelle

Cult & Harper

FELTspace Gallery

Vitalstatistix

emerging and early-career artists and is celebrating ten years of continuous operation in 2018. FELTspace have supported hundreds of artists by providing a space for development, discussion and exhibition of new work.

It is an invaluable site for experimental and diverse exhibitions with openings on the first Wednesday of every month. In April of this year an all-star exhibition will be held to celebrate the ten year anniversary.

The Lion Arts Centre (North Ter & Morphett St) in the city’s west is home to ACE Open (@ace_open), South Australia’s flagship contemporary art gallery ‘placing values of ambition, integrity, openness and criticality at its core.’ ACE Open hosts contemporary and experimental artists from South Australia, Australia and abroad. The free exhibitions are curated to be challenging, but the space is welcoming and encourages engagement. A broad range of perspectives are showcased across cultures, ideas and art practices. The gallery hosts an onsite studio program and also publishes the Broadsheet Journal – one of Australia’s most respected visual art publications.

Also at the Lion Arts Centre, Nexus Arts (@ nexusarts) was born out of the cultural and societal changes from Australia’s immigration policy shift and increasing multiculturalism within communities. In its early days, the

collective nurtured and highlighted the work created by artists through their own cultural lens, often in juxtaposition to Australia’s conservative understandings. Throughout the life of Nexus Arts, the focus has been on bringing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) artists into the mainstream visual arts scene. As one of the leading organisations supporting multicultural artists, Nexus Arts has challenged and questioned cultural stereotypes and incited debate across art and community contexts. In addition to fostering multicultural artists, the centre runs special projects and services within the community including collaborative projects, forums and professional consultations.

With an annual program including exhibitions, collaborative projects, residencies and performances, Vitalstatistix (11 Nile St, @vitalstatistix_) is a vibrant artist-run contemporary organisation. There is a focus at Vitalstatistix on the development of multidisciplinary art forms which explore and experiment with ideas and engagement. Being a feminist organisation, there is a great tradition of supporting female artists of the state which continues stronger than ever in the current climate. The gallery calls Port Adelaide home in the heritage-listed Waterside Workers Hall. ✏︎

Laura Desmond

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Beyond the Bricks – Adelaide Getaways Adelaide comes alive during festival season, and the excitement doesn’t stop at the city limits. Around every corner and in every direction there’s something exciting on offer

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ith Adelaide’s central location it’s quick and easy to venture out of the festival bubble of the CBD and into the countryside. From hiking in the hills and exploring rugged beaches, to roaming scenic wine regions and strolling quaint country towns, there’s something for everyone.

If you can’t get enough of the arts, Adelaide’s famous Fringe Festival extends much further than the city. Regional Fringe hubs host many events both near and far and have “been one of the biggest areas of growth,” says Adelaide Fringe Director Heather Croall. The idea that the Fringe is only in the CBD is really a “long gone concept,” and with the Fringe growing and expanding throughout the state it’s “become a great excuse for travelling to see a regional centre.”

There are plenty of Fringe activities happening within an hour’s drive of Adelaide in the Barossa Valley, the Clare Valley, the Mount Lofty

Ranges, the Adelaide Hills, the Fleurieu Peninsula and the Mid Murray region – all of which have plenty of local attractions on offer too.

“ If it’s a real taste of the outback you’re after, venture north to the Desert Fringe in Port Augusta” Further south there are events on Kangaroo Island, the Limestone Coast and Mt Gambier, and a camping adventure along the Coorong.

If it’s a real taste of the outback you’re after, venture north to the Desert Fringe in Port Augusta, or to Whyalla, host of the uneARTh Festival, which Croall describes as “a real festival wonderland.”

“Fringe comes in all shapes and sizes and Take a hike there’s no one model,” says Croall. Each region If you’re up for hiking, the Morialta Falls works to their advantage and towns are transPlateau and Waterfall Gully to Mount Lofty formed in their own unique ways. The Fringe hikes offer amazing views of gorges, waterCaravan plays a role in this too, bringing the falls, and the Adelaide CBD. You might even Fringe colour to country towns and acting as a be fortunate enough to share the trail with backdrop for performers. some wildlife – kangaroos, koalas, echidWith spectacular scenery and unique nas and possums are spotted regularly. events, Croall adores the vibrancy regional Unfortunately it’s not exclusively the cuddly Fringe brings to the state. creatures, beware of snakes too! If a native “The great hospitality of the country reanimal interaction is what you’re seeking gions is on display when they have their Fringe you can be guaranteed a sighting at one of activity going on because you get all the comour wildlife parks. munity coming out and they love to welcome some visitors along to the event as well.

On your bike “Often you’ll find that there’ll be local musiFor biking, the Coast to Wines RailTrail is a cians performing alongside interstate comedi‘great fit for families’, travelling from seaside ans alongside international circus performers.

Marino to historic Willunga and taking in So you get that real mix of local, international ‘beautiful coastal cliffs and vineyard vistas’ and national.” along the way. If this whets your appetite for The draw cards for these regions don’t beaches, the South Australian coast exceeds stop at Fringe events either. Rodney Harrex, expectations not only with great city beaches, the Chief Executive of the South Australian but also top surfing and snorkeling spots to Tourism Commission, recognises that “our the south at Port Noarlunga and further down regions host an impressive suite of events in the Fleurieu Peninsula. and festivals, allowing them to highlight their Wine time diverse assets and giving visitors an incentive Of course South Australia’s 18 wine regions to venture further than the CBD.” are not to be forgotten, having earned With many regions an easy day trip from Adelaide the title of ‘one of the Great Wine Adelaide, there are a variety of activities on Capitals of the World.’ With over 200 cellar offer for all ages and interests. As Harrex says, doors on Adelaide’s doorstep, you can “from world class wine experiences in the spend an afternoon tasting in one of the Barossa and McLaren Vale, to the spectacular nearby award-winning regions. coastline along the Fleurieu Peninsula, and unique wildlife experiences and premium fresh Little old Adelaide may be just that, but a produce in the Adelaide Hills, there is someplethora of opportunities and experiences are thing for everyone to enjoy.” just a stone’s throw away. ✏ Hannah Connell

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s a community, Adelaide hopes to become the world’s first carbon neutral CBD by reducing carbon emissions at individual and industrial levels. The goals and changes set into place are already proving to be beneficial, as carbon emissions dropped 20% between the years of 2007 and 2013. The City of Churches aspires to be a worldwide leader in environmental change and inspire other cities to work towards carbon neutrality.

WOMADelaide Festival focuses on providing only compostable and recyclable wastes and correctly segmented waste bins so it’s easy to get it right. In addition to removing all landfill wastes, WOMADelaide compost all biodegradable wastes through Jeffries for use as mulch in the Botanic Gardens. To help combat carbon pollution, a percentage of every ticket sold is also being invested in replanting native trees in regional South Australia.

Adelaide Green Clean are behind correctly separating wastes at WOMADelaide, Adelaide Festival, the Garden of Unearthly Delights and Adelaide Fringe. Food vendors across all of these festival sites provide compostable cutlery, plates and glasses to reduce landfill wastes.

Be Social!

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good way to keep track of your favourite venues and artists is to follow them on social media.

Since it’s so quick and easy to use, Instagram and Facebook are likely to have the most up to date information for a show, public appearance, or event.

You can also tag yourself in and around events to get involved. Here are some of the key accounts to keep on top of the festival madness!

Adelaide Fringe @adlfringe Adelaide Festival @adelaidefestival Adelaide Festival Centre @adelaidefescent Royal Croquet Club @royalcroquetclub The Garden of Unearthly Delights @thegardenofud Gluttony @gluttony_fringe Adelaide Fringe at The Producers @fringe_at_the_producers Raj House @rajhouseadl Holden Street Theatres @holdenstreettheatres @FestMag

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A Sustainable Future for Adelaide

How to be a Good Punter Follow Fest’s tips for getting the most out of the festival season before it’s over for another year!

Do your research! Before you know it, the festival season will have flashed by. Flick through the guides and find performances and works that are of interest. Plan some shows and ask around for recommendations.

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Talk about your experiences! Chat to friends, colleagues, family, your pets, anyone who will listen about your festival experiences. How did a show make you feel? How did it change you?

What questions about your life experiences did it bring up? Recommend shows to people you think might enjoy them.

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Immerse yourself! Spend time in and around the festivals any way you can. Check out free shows, or attend free events like Writers’ Week to make the most of the season. Meet new people at events and shows. Performers travel around the world meeting new people and are more than likely going to be happy to discuss their work with you!

Challenge yourself! Allow yourself to see a confronting piece of theatre, or be vulnerable enough to cry at a performance. Performing arts are about the expression and the emotion of the human experience – delve deep.

Try something new! Wherever possible, expand your horizons by trying a genre you haven’t seen before or by checking out a show you haven’t heard of yet. Maybe the performers will be just starting their careers and you may just stumble upon a gem that will make headlines in years to come.

Be a good audience member! Remember that the people on stage are doing what they love, and usually have a personal message they’re trying to share. Show them good audience skills. Give them your full attention during their performance, respect their craft (even if it isn’t your usual type of show), and, of course, applaud at the end. Performers put their heart and soul into their work.

Take it easy! Keep in mind that the festival season is a marathon, not a sprint. Take care of yourself, take breaks, breathe.

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