Roll up! Roll up! The circus is in town! Well, sort of. La Soirée is circus meets burlesque and everything in between. Featuring the stars of La Clique in a pick ‘n mix fashion you can never be sure what to expect. La Soirée is ever changing from night to night but always brilliant. Performed the world over, the show has been given the renowned Idolize Spiegeltent for the Adelaide Fringe and I can’t imagine seeing it anywhere else. On the last Saturday of the Fringe the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations raged outside The Garden of Unearthly Delights and so, decked out in green I pushed past them and through the gates to join the line snaking out next to the tent. From this point onwards I knew La Soirée was going to be a good show.

La Soirée is an extremely attractive performance, cast, staff and tent all included. With crushed velvet jackets and smiles from the doorman, Lachy, we were given a helping hand to find seats by a lovely lady in fifties style black attire. Ushered in a few rows back from the stage I peered around to see a packed room, the walls covered in mirrors and intricate framework, while in the centre rested a small and circular red stage. The lights dimmed, the William Tell Overture began to play and onto the sage our host for the night burst forth! Dramatic music? Check. Pin Stripe suit? Check. Megaphone voice? Check. It looked like we were set for our nostalgic trip into a time lost to previous generations, as we were asked to “MAKE SOME NOISE!”. From the depths of the shadows emerged Le Gateau Chocolat singing soft baritones building around the dramatic music. Le Gateau Chocolat moved onto the stage to reveal an outfit unparalleled by any other; golden frills consuming the space on stage and the night of entertainment officially began.

A tough act to follow, one would think, but it soon became apparent that each act was just as difficult to follow as the next. In showers of glitter and splashes of water the acts performed in quick succession to an almost constant sound of applause. Somewhere between gasping at the acrobatic skills of The English Gents and covering my mouth with my hand in shock at the flexibility of Captain Frodo I began having to hold back on yelling out.

The show was not all trained acrobatics, however, with modern music and comedic acts such a Mario, Queen of the Circus and Canadian born Mooky. Moving away from the more traditional circus skills Mooky and Mario had the audience almost crying with laughter. However a word of warning for this show; although there were younger faces in the crowd, swearing and some nudity flitted in and out, intermingled with audience participation from the first few rows that gave new meaning to the term ‘personal boundaries’.

Eventually, after the short intermission, my notes became almost incomprehensible as I feared to take my eyes away from the stage. For our host to say it was “Not a sit back and fold your arms show!”, was rather an understatement and in the end received a standing ovation from all members of the audience as well as a charming rendition of We are the champions by Queen. The Fringe may have ended for this year but La Soirée certainly hasn’t, taking out the Bank SA Pick of the Fringe Award this year. We can only hope they will return next year and who knows what new and brilliant acts they will have picked up by then‽ La Soirée is shocking, inspiring and encourages you to follow even your wildest dreams! So be sure to look out for one if not all of the acts next year and witness the spectacle that is, La Soirée!

Four hours. And an interval on top of that. This thing is long. When I mentioned to my housemate that the Fringe website said The Three Minute Project would go for approximately 240 minutes, we figured there must have been an error. “If it’s really four hours long it better be fucking brilliant,” were his words. Well, director Genevieve Brandenburg eludes genius in her project, but overall it’s not an unenjoyable evening’s outing, despite the length.

The concept of The Three Minute Project is taken from Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. Warhol took potential 1960s stars and filmed them silently, in black and white, as a kind of alternate portrait. Local artist Genevieve Brandenburg first saw this series when she was in high school. After graduating in 2010, Brandenburg was exposed to a number of people who she felt were interesting, talented and creative individuals and she decided that these people were worthy of something like Warhol’s portraits. Brandenburg spoke to her audience before screening The Three Minute Project. She spoke eloquently and earnestly about the reasons she felt compelled to create this work of art and what she hoped it would reveal about the people involved as well as about the nature of human beings. It is Brandenburg’s professed belief that you can “never truly know a person because everyone is immensely deep”: she expressed a hope that her film would reveal this, along with standing as a celebration of the individuality and creativity of humans in general. It is a lofty ambition and one that is probably only partially achieved.

In order to achieve her goals, Brandenburg worked with a similar concept to Warhol’s Screen Tests. 221 people were told to sit alone in front of a camera for three minutes but were not informed of much else. There are differences to Warhol’s work – for example, Brandenburg and cameraman Sam Young work in colour and with sound. This quite drastically alters the feel of the portraits created, although not necessarily in a bad way: the feeling they create is very different and as such is seems unfair to compare the results. The Reading Room serves as the backdrop for Bradenburg’s subjects, almost every one being given a floral chair to sit in, set against a blank wall. Although filmed over several months, this chair and the blank wall remain the same with only one exception. There is also a consistent buzz of noise from another room.

Watching the reactions of subjects put in front of the camera is entertaining, for the most part. While many did the Warholian thing and were silent, staring either at or away from the camera, there were a larger number who talked. Those who did seemed to use the word ‘awkward’ a lot, which is understandable. Some attempted humour, others chose to communicate in song or through the quotes of some literary idol, some told stories and some attempted to say something deep and meaningful (that usually came off simply sounding pretentious or naive). It was interesting that those who spoke tended to fall into two categories. Firstly and more commonly, there were those who seemed to be wanting to put on a show. Sometimes this was through jokes (the guy with the whale joke and the one with hand puppets each deserve a mention) but for the most part it seemed that people were performing a kind of character. Those who did not fall into that category seemed to see the camera as a kind of confessional to vent or to reveal something of themselves. Both say a lot about what these subjects might be like as people.

The subjects Brandenburg has gathered for The Three Minute Project were meant to cover a wide variety of walks of life: workers and artists, young and old, friends and strangers were apparently involved. While there are a few exceptions (mostly older family members, by the look of things) most of those put in front of the camera appear to be between the age of sixteen and twenty-six and, although their piercings and hair colours may alter, the majority of them seem decidedly middle class. That said, it doesn’t make the subjects less fascinating. What Brandenburg has created is an interesting record of Adelaide’s young, ‘alternative’ (and I use that word very loosely) crowd: a collection of portraits of a specific time and place. The show dragged at times, but overall those four hours went much more quickly than I had expected them to.

Billed as a ‘new, surreal, post-apocalyptic-romantic-black-tragi-comedy,’ Even If We’re The Last Two People On Earth centres around Lewis Sargent (Will Cox) and Emily Price (Molly McCormack), a pair of nineteen-year-old survivors who find themselves thrown together after the rest of the human race is wiped out by the apocalypse of December 21, 2012. Written and directed by Jack Atherton, the story follows the duo’s progress as they travel through the remains of society, their feelings for each other growing as they come to terms with everything they’ve lost. Along for the ride is Isabel Meow (Monica Guilhaus), an unhinged exotic dancer picked up in a strip club along the way.

The main problem with this show is the script. It isn’t without redeeming value –occasionally there are sharply-written lines which provide momentary comic relief – but on the whole it feels too long-winded, leading to the show exceeding the advertised time of 60 minutes by nearly half an hour. A fourth character, in the form of the Ghost of Post-Traumatic Stress (Matt Williams) breezes on and off stage at random intervals, rattling off lines with little to no explanation about who (or what) he actually is. Little background is given on the nature of the apocalypse itself, or how and why it happened. While this ambiguity initially provides a backdrop to the characters’ development – one of Lewis and Emily’s first real discussions highlights their conflicting theories over what’s actually happened to them – over time the lack of clarification starts to feel like a cop-out on the writer’s part.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty of all is that the narrative between Lewis and Emily doesn’t often connect with the reality of the apocalypse happening around them. In a post-apocalyptic world where food, water and survival of the fittest on a day-by-day basis are paramount, the two characters’ obsession with their own relationship – love, sex, and marriage (is that last even possible in a post-apocalyptic world?) – feels disjointed and unrealistic.

The acting is similarly patchy. Guilhaus delivers the strongest and most memorable performance of the show with her portrayal of a deranged stripper, although the non-stop wackiness does grate over time and, more dangerously, begins to overshadow the central love story between Lewis and Emily in the second half of the play. Lewis has some of the best individual lines in the show – his prayer to a ‘genocidal, megalomaniacal Lord’ is great – but Cox’s tendency to whine his lines really lets his character down. Price’s emotive performance as Emily is perhaps the most consistent of the three leads, although one could argue that her often-complaining character is the least sympathetic of the three.

I had high hopes of Even If We’re The Last Two People On Earth, and while I really tried to enjoy it, in the end I just couldn’t do it. As a hard-core fan of apocalyptic novels and films, I was eager to see how a piece of theatre in that same genre would work performed onstage. That I came out of the performance feeling let down really says it all.

Presented by the South Australian Children’s Ballet Company, Cinderella – The Untold Story is a zany adaptation of the classic fairytale, with a modern twist. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s satirical story from his collection of Revolting Rhymes, this fractured fairytale follows Cinderella, a meek and dreamy girl who is bullied relentlessly by her two hideous stepsisters. When the Prince hosts a Royal Ball, all the ladies of the kingdom rush to attend, and with the help of seven clever rats and a Fairy Godmother, so too does Cinderella.

But will the Prince prove to be everything Cinderella hopes for? Will they live happily ever after?

The production incorporates both dance and theatre, featuring young dancers – between the ages of 10 and 19 – selected from various ballet schools throughout Adelaide. It is choreographed by internationally renowned Csaba Buday, and directed by Beverley Waters, who has worked on a number of performances for the SA Children’s Ballet Company, including The Red Shoes, Clara’s Arctic Dream and Aladdin and the Genie of Unlimited Wishes.

Cinderella – The Untold Story is creative and fun, with a combination of dancing, acting and witty narration. The audience consisted mainly of young children and their parents – the younger members particularly connecting to the upbeat music, colourful costumes and great energy of the performers. The addition of several fairytale favourites including Snow White, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack and Jill, Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, also added to the fun.

Both the plot and costumes were given a modern spin. The Prince was dressed in sunglasses and skate-shoes, the ugly stepsisters in fluoro tutus and ribbons, and Goldilocks was almost unrecognisable, looking like a 1930s showgirl. While this related to a modern audience, it seemed slightly kitsch, diminishing the fairytale charm.

The performance was vibrant and entertaining, but lacked the polish one might expect to see from the state’s Ballet Company, even its youth branch. Admittedly, many dancers were under 15 so this can be forgiven; but nevertheless, I expected the standard to be more sophisticated. For many of the roles, there was not a lot of dancing at all – the Prince and the ugly stepsisters seemed, for the most part, to just stomp around the stage.

Having said this, Puss in Boots was, technically, very good, and the pas de deux between Cinderella and her true love was delightful – possibly saving the show. It was utterly refreshing to finally see some quality classical dancing. Goldilocks’ Broadway-inspired dancing was also noteworthy, as were the ugly stepsisters, who were very amusing and dynamic, despite being given limited dancing roles.

At the end of the show, the children from the audience were welcomed on stage to meet the dancers. They were clearly delighted to approach their favourite character and have a photo taken with them.

Overall, Cinderella – The Untold Story was imaginative, visually appealing and full of energy. I was a little disappointed with the standard of dancing; however, judging by the reactions of children in the audience, they thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

“I’m 49.” Again and again Peter Berner mentions his age, making sure the fact was nailed into our minds. He tells us that he’s not completely past it yet, but he can’t wait for old age before engaging in the sort of unforgiving honesty that old people can get away with.

His show is all about honesty. He’s honest about himself and his anal bleeding. He’s honest about what he thinks of various countries and their figureheads. He’s honest about thoughts that we all have but don’t dare to express. One of those is “we don’t need everyone”; walking the streets of Adelaide, he says, are many people for whom he can’t see the point. Disguised as jokes, he throws us truths and opinions that perhaps only a jaded 49-year-old would fully notice or express.

One of his items is about what he calls the compassion pie. He talks about all the terrible events happening in the world for which we are supposed to show compassion. But compassion, he says, is a finite resource. He’s right, we’re constantly bombarded by causes and charities and problems, and we seem to care about each new one a little less. It’s a thought that is probably in many people’s minds, just not fully realized. His show is full of these things, little truths that he has worked into joke form.

I found him more interesting than funny, although I still laughed. I went to the show with my dad, who is 48, and he laughed his pants off. Peter’s humour is appreciated more by an older crowd, perhaps. But it was a great show.

Peter Berner isn’t one of those comedians who spend a year writing their shows. For example, he worked Kony 2012 into his act, a phenomenon only a week or so old. He talked about the recent leadership ballot between Rudd and Gillard. His is a dry wit, with his jaded persona and intelligent take on contemporary events. He reinforced his jokes with a shitload of cursewords (ha) but didn’t come off like Wil Anderson, whose punch lines are often based around swearing.

It was at the Comedy Cellar, which is a pretty classic standup bar. The atmosphere was great, and it was a perfect setting for Berner. His act doesn’t really involve audience interaction, and the stage’s separation from the audience worked well for him.

Peter Berner is a very smart funny-man. You can catch him in various media outlets in small doses, but if the chance to see him for a whole hour comes up, take the opportunity. We may not need everyone, but we definitely need Peter Berner.

Most people have heard of Claire Hooper through the hit TV show Good News Week, where she acts as a team captain and channels her comedy stylings through discussions of current affairs with other A-list personalities from around Australia. The show she brings to the Adelaide Fringe, however, is quite different, instead drawing inspiration from Hooper’s views on art; namely, what does and doesn’t constitute it. One particular work she mentioned again and again throughout the show was a work of art which involved 100 million hand-painted porcelain replicas of sunflower seeds – is that art? Isn’t it?

It’s an odd choice of subject matter, and perhaps a rather limited one; while it could have filled a segment of her show, it wasn’t really enough to carry the whole thing. Laughter from the audience on her ‘art jokes’ was primarily of the polite and abbreviated kind rather than hearty and sustained, and there were long pauses between gags where Hooper seemed to struggle to think of what to say next. This is part of her onstage manner, of course, which unfortunately didn’t translate well to the acoustically-limited confines of The Deluxe at the Garden of Unearthly Delights. The same could also be said of her notoriously deadpan delivery, which does work within the confines of a well-amplified Channel 10 studio in Sydney, but at The Deluxe often came across as more subdued than intended, even lifeless at times.

However, despite all the aforementioned working against her, Hooper made the best of a bad situation and managed to carry the evening capably, if not spectacularly. Some of her other gags fell flat – the random emergence of a woman from a box onstage ten minutes into the show received a lukewarm reception from the crowd and made no sense to me at all. Especially since I couldn’t even see said box over the heads of the crowd, which means something as I’m six foot two.

Hooper’s best moments came when she broke free of her rehearsed routine and engaged with individual members of the crowd on the spur of the moment – the tried-and-true technique of greeting latecomers as they attempted to sidle past the stage to their seats drew laughs, as did her brilliant response to an audience member telling everyone about a letter to the editor she’d once written about the “state of the world.” “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… couldn’t you have just told your cat?” Points also to Hooper for carrying on like a trooper (yes, I went there) when two gentlemen near the back decided that the middle of her show was an excellent time to stage a loud, energetic conversation that filled the entire tent (luckily they left soon afterward.)

All in all, the show was still good enough for me to come out of it with an opinion of Claire Hooper as an excellent comedian who picked a bland idea for a show. I still have faith in you, Claire. But next time, drop the sunflower seeds.

Most people know by now what to expect when they walk into a Fiona O’Loughlin show: anecdotes about her family; liberal use of the word ‘fuck;’ usually a rant or two about a handful of public figures; and plenty of cheerful references to her well-publicised problems with alcohol. This is pretty much exactly what you get at Fiona O’Loughlin in The Divine Miss O, the comedienne’s twelfth offering to the Adelaide Fringe in as many years.

Except she’s added something new this time. Interspersed between O’Loughlin’s stand-up segments are pre-recorded ‘interviews’ between Fiona and two outrageously gay PR agents at Bitch PR, an agency to which Fiona has supposedly gone in order to get an image makeover. It becomes increasingly obvious that O’Loughlin is targeting the gay audience with this particular show (the clincher being her entrance on stage in a Cher wig singing Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.) As O’Loughlin herself happily admits, she’s struggling to generate fresh material now that her kids are all grown up, which apparently means it’s getting increasingly difficult to tell embarrassing stories about them for public amusement. This new angle has good and bad repercussions for her act. While the Bitch PR video is good for a laugh – the guys in the video do hilarious impersonations of the bitchy gay stereotypes usually found in Hollywood rom-coms and American TV shows – the fakeness of the staged clips does clash with the ‘no bullshit’ persona that radiates from O’Loughlin every time she opens her mouth – a persona on which she’s built her entire career, in fact.

That being said, there were perks to the new format. Even I was looking forward to the cataclysmically-funny result when, at one point, O’Loughlin flounced onstage wearing a peroxide-yellow wig while a pre-recorded voice intoned ‘it doesn’t matter if you love Him, or capital H-I-M.’ While O’Loughlin piked out of that particular song before it had even started (Lady Gaga’s Born This Way, if you’re unfamiliar) she does close the show with a rendition of a Bette Midler tune you’ll be unlikely to forget anytime soon (I won’t give away the name.)

All the window dressing, however, doesn’t detract from the heart and soul of O’Loughlin’s show, which are still her stories about her family. Her poor kids are shown no mercy; one of them is casually and repeatedly referred to as a ‘big fat bald guy’ throughout the entire introductory segment. While I did notice one or two of O’Loughlin’s stories from previous live and TV gigs being sneakily recycled throughout this show, they were all so expertly told that I didn’t mind in the least hearing them again. O’Loughlin’s apparent inability to resist the humour of her own stories – she cracks up constantly throughout the show – only adds to their charm.

Throw in a rant about Dr. Phil, F-bombs exploding left, right and centre (including the rather awesome word ‘fuck-knuckle,’ which I’d never heard in my life before that night), and a closing story about a howlingly hilarious social gaffe from her time in rehab, and you have the latest proof as to why O’Loughlin, more than a decade into her career, continues to lead the pack in Australian comedy. The Divine Miss O, indeed.

Given the action-packed state of Australian politics in recent weeks, it’s no wonder that Political Smack-Down! opened to a relatively full house on Wednesday night at the Wheatsheaf. With a line-up of TV writers – including Toby Halligan, Scott Abbott, Courtney Hocking and Matthew Kenneally – headlining the event, as well as being hosted by local comedian Jon Brooks, each performer takes the stage in turn and shares their thoughts with the audience on various aspects of current affairs (mainly politics).

Political comedy by its very nature tends to polarise, and not just in the sense of pitting the Left against the Right, the Labor supporters against the Liberals, and so on, but also in the effectiveness of the comedy itself: it’s often either gut-bustingly funny or yawn-stiflingly weak. Political Smack-Down! is unusual in that it occupies a kind of middle ground. Granted, it’s much closer to the former than the latter. The audience remained far from quiet throughout the night, and there’s no doubt that all five comedians were capable of showing their audiences the funny side of politics. Particular standout moments included Brooks’ politically-slanted ‘changing a lightbulb’ jokes; Hocking’s exaggerated reading of the Gina Rinehart poem ‘Our Future;’ and Keneally’s critique of Gillard’s views on ‘mateship.’ That was the good news: that there were plenty of moments like these which kept the audience chuckling throughout the night.

The less good news was that there were rarely any jokes that sent the audience into fits of uncontrollable, belly-aching laughter for any sustained length of time, which remains in my book the definitive mark of a truly great comedy show. It was all too common throughout the night for the audience to respond to a particular joke with a quick burst of laughter, only for it to end abruptly, with several seconds of awkward silence descending on the room immediately afterward, as though the performer had expected the laughter to last much longer than it did. Part of this could be attributed to the twenty- and thirty-something performers not judging their audience as well as they could have done. Halligan’s casual and overly-vulgar references to gay sex acts – as well as somehow managing to equate the mining industry with pornography – didn’t exactly send the mostly-older crowd into hysterics. Likewise, Abbott’s segment on Facebook and the Kony campaign went right over their heads.

The lack of political balance among the line-up was another issue. All five acts leaned rather noticeably toward the Left, and as the evening progressed a clear bias developed against Tony Abbott and the Liberals. Admittedly, asking a comedian to resist the temptation to go to town on Abbott is like asking a bull not to charge at a red rag, and to be fair neither Gillard nor Rudd escaped the evening completely unscathed either. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that a greater Right presence among the line-up would have brought more political and comic diversity to the show.

Perhaps the best way to resolve some of these issues would have been to let the comedians loose on the audience as a group rather than one-by-one. I couldn’t help thinking throughout the show, ‘God, this would have worked so much better as a panel.’ Let’s face it: if Channel 10 has taught us anything, it’s that political humour can work well in free-for-all situations, with programs like The Panel, Good News Week and The Project providing key examples. Lining up all the comedians of Political Smack-Down! on a bench and letting them bounce off each other for two hours could have taken the comedy to another level. All five commentators certainly seemed intelligent and spontaneous enough for that kind of improvisational humour. But sadly, it was not to be.

So is the show still worth seeing? If you like political humour, I would say yes. It’s by no means a bad show. It’s even a good show, which achieves its stated aim of providing a night of ‘comedy with brains.’ The only problem is that the show it COULD have been is so much better than the show it currently is. If Brooks is planning to bring it back next year, he may want to take that into account.

A crowded downstairs venue dimly lit with the soft hue of yellow and pink stage lights and filled with the gentle sounds of cabaret music. In this windowless room, reminiscent of a scene from the popular movie Burlesque, a sense of anticipation fills the air as people vie for the best seat in the house. The usually retro Cavern Club has been transformed as members of Stage One Dance Studio prepare to present their debut performance An evening of Burlesque. Featuring songs from the movies Chicago and Burlesque as well as scores of cabaret music, An evening of Burlesque brings to life the sights and sounds of the Moulin Rouge (and burlesque) and is sure to delight fans of dance and musical theatre alike.

“I’d like to say that it (the show) is more on the classy side of burlesque” explains Kim Ewing, artistic director of Stage One, “there’s nothing too risqué, it’s more about the dance. It’s a bit girly, a bit sexy, a bit raunchy without being too in your face”.

At first glance the stage seems massive, stretching from one wall into the centre of the club, occupying most of the free space in front of the bar. A few lucky audience members pack the small tables and booths surrounding the stage while many others are forced to settle for seats spanning from the stage to the back stairs of the club. It seems an odd seating arrangement for such a visually rich show and I’m certainly glad I was one of the lucky ones up front.

As the lights dimmed the familiar tune of Cher’s Welcome to Burlesque began to play and the stars of the show took to the stage. This aptly chosen song was the perfect start to the show as it set the mood for the evening and introduced us to the twelve young women (most aged between 18-22yrs) who would guide us on this journey. As the show continued it became clear that the already expansive stage could have been a little bigger; particularly for the group routines. There were a few near misses as dancers performed leg extensions, long, stretching poses and fast moving twists and turns and the fact that there were no collisions is a real credit to the tight choreography and talent of these women.

For me, the standout routine of the night was the stunning rendition of Chicago’s Cell Block Tango - complete with cell doors. It was clear the dancers were enjoying every minute of this routine and while they were all amazing to watch the real standout performer for me (in this instance) was Peytyn Gericke. Her energy and facial expressions during this routine brought her character to life and she owned the stage with her attitude. Other favourite routines include the intricately choreographed Express and the energetic Show me how you burlesque which saw the girls dancing through the audience (an almost impossible task in the near capacity venue). Fans of the movie Burlesque may notice that some of the dance steps performed in this show closely mirror those featured in the movie and it was a real joy to see these moves performed live.

The show comprises group and solo routines and while most were performed to a recorded soundtrack, there were a few occasions where the dancers sang along to the songs. Soloist Samantha Adams was a joy to listen to and her powerful voice was beautifully complemented by those of her fellow dancers; it’s just a shame the overly loud music often drowned them out.

The costumes were absolutely stunning; from sultry black sequins to delicately laced pink and white corsets and even a slightly risqué police uniform (and I use that term lightly). The dancers looked fantastic. They all seemed completely at ease with their somewhat revealing outfits and their confidence really shone through in their performance. Any girl who can dance in a corset and heels deserves a standing ovation in my book.

An evening of Burlesque was truly a feast for the senses with beautiful costumes, memorable tunes and awe inspiring routines; I thoroughly enjoyed my first (and hopefully not my last) foray into the world of burlesque.