Archive for June 24, 2010
RAW: Bird Wizdom’s Tiny Conspiracy – La Boheme
Jun 24th
To think it is but three months since Anya McNicol-Windram produced that 5K extravaganza at the Fringe and here today we have a whole new show. Amazing output and determination! This time, Bird’s Wizdom’s Tiny Conpsiracy, features a much smaller entourage – a mere seven people participating – and in the much smaller La Boheme venue. Whereas previous shows seemed to have been anchored around a dispassionate Melanie Prior on cello, this time Anya is very much front and centre and as usual her talent, make-up and charisma carried the day.
Around 12 new songs are in the show, many with the familiar and engaging rhythm and beat we have heard on the Bird Wizdom album and with those lyrics of abandonment and envy that can inspire reactions from hilarity to emotional outpouring. ‘Tea Tea Tea’ and ‘Georgie Porgie’ stood out in this collection as Anya utilised many of her usual helpers including Lilly Sim belly dancing, Annie Siegmann on Bass and Josh Luke Rice as Dr Bones.
As usual there were as many questions posed (like, what is this all about?) as answered but nothing can deny Anya’s brilliance in conceiving and executing such a show and the raw difference it poses for audiences.
Kryztoff Rating 4K
RAW: Frisky and Mannish – Cab Festival
Jun 24th
This show is great fun. Felicity Fitz-Frisky, in school mistress black, and Hansel Mannish, in a somewhat camp outfit that featured some leather trousers that begged the question as to how they get put on or removed, provide the most polished of performances.
While the notion of making fun of singers and their lyrics is not new, this English pair, through their School of Pop approach, give a more contemporary spin on it drawing on such things as how English literature classics inspired and smoking cannabis affected song writing. From Kate Bush to Lady Gaga, no one targeted much survived the expose. Quite whether all this crowd got all the jokes is unclear – the standard Adelaide cabaret crowd seems rather older as a rule than the fringe humour audiences this pair would have been used to.
Nonetheless, with some patter about Adelaide’s sad rivalry with Melbourne, superb comic timing and never let up intensity, Friksy and Mannish make for a great hour of entertainment whether or not one would describe it as true cabaret.
Kryztoff Rating 4K