The cabaret stage, a new frontier for manly men

Statement for Siemens Award Melbourne Press Club (Adele Scott)

The piece The cabaret stage, a new frontier for manly men, written in June 2010, was originally posted on my blog www.breakingevenrevues.blogspot.com and then published on the band’s own website, as well as quotes from the piece being used for promotional material. I discovered this Melbourne a Capella group, Suade, through my fiancé, who went to uni with one of the band members. Suade were approached by the owners of the Butterfly Club to perform in the Inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival, to be held in July 2010. Having a close association with Neville Sice and David Read, Suade asked me to write a review of their preview show, in order to promote the show for the cabaret festival some more. As the band has been a finalist in the X-Factor amongst winning several other major singing and music awards, this review is particularly newsworthy for the Melbourne arts and cultural industry. Suade have made the transition from concert to cabaret and are set to make it in the performance and comedy industry of Melbourne. I personally find it very disappointing that more cultural articles do not make front page news (This does not include tabloid style celebrity gossip), but are relegated to the back pages of newspapers, as András Szántó (2009) says, “news bosses rarely care about ‘soft’ arts stories. They are into ‘hard’ reporting on wars and money and sport—boys’ stuff”. People complain that Australia is a cultural wasteland and many of our talented artists move to other countries, robbing us of the potential for developing our own cultural industry. It is a great passion of mine. I would say even a goal; to make cultural arts journalism more prominent in our sport obsessed Melbourne. It’s ok to love a football team (I do); however it is not ok to let football and sport news and gossip to dominate such an important part of our culture, in Melbourne. As a journalist I want to report on, our wonderful arts scene in Melbourne.

The cabaret stage, a new frontier for manly men (by Adele Scott)


They sauntered in. All rumpled casual clothes, unshaven faces and boisterous manner. It wasn’t until Suade had shuffled between the narrow aisle of the Butterfly Club and stepped onto the stage, that the audience realised this rowdy bunch of men weren’t audience members making their way into the tiny fifty seat theatre, but the a Capella singing sensation Saude. All male, all singing and no dancing. A white lie, the boys began the evening with The Longest Time (A crowd favourite) and a bit of ‘man-choreography’.

The show was to be a debut of Suade as a cabaret. While the Melbourne based boys have been fronting up to competitions and singing festivals for nearly 10 years, they were all cabaret virgins. The group even admitting to researching the definition of what cabaret actually is (A slippery concept to grasp even for the most veteran cabaret goer). The transition from concert to cabaret however was a lot like their beards, rough around the edges, but perfectly appropriate. In between originals like Can’t we just be friends a song about taking one for the team, there are also some great covers in the mix. A medley from Greece was aptly performed, and the idea of Sandy being played by a man, seemed surprisingly right.

The stand out moments in the show was when the boys deviated from the script and joked amongst themselves and the audience. Even though it took the members of Suade 10 minutes or so to warm up, with their natural showman antics, comic charm, and cheap testicle jokes (funny non-the-less) they soon had the crown eating from the palm of their hands. Despite clunky segues and obvious differences between scripted and unscripted dialogue, the larrikin spirit and manly boisterousness contrasted beautifully with angelic harmonies and impressive musicianship. In the ‘intimate’ 50 seat theatre of the Butterfly Club, Melbourne’s leading cabaret venue, the relationship between performers and audience could not be more tangible. You could cut the air with a knife, and this isn’t just the atmosphere, but the humidity created by bodies and belly laughs. This is all a part of the charm of the Butterfly Club, which has this year, celebrated its 11th Birthday from its home in South Melbourne. The owner’s David Read and Neville Sice, have successfully run the Butterfly Club as an independent arts venue for more than six years, without government support. The run of this show Blokes Don’t Sing was a preview show, in preparation for this year’s inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival, produced and directed by the Butterfly Club owners.

Do you ever get that feeling, as you are watching or listening to a great performer, when your heartbeat increases and the bottom of your stomach falls away? The feeling that usually accompanies a Tim Minchin song or a great ballad at a rock concert. Well Suade can make you feel that way for the whole hour and 15 minutes they were on stage. Apart from my aching smile and laugh muscles, the hardest part about this show was picking a stand out moment. Perhaps it was the Korean Boy Band tribute in reverse karaoke or the song where one man donned a giant testicle suit for the entire duration. Maybe it was the poignancy and joy in the song about one band member’s son. For a first time cabaret, an audience has never applauded so long or called so loudly for an encore. The blokes from Suade graced us with one last song, an upbeat cover of All Night Long and as the boys shuffled, minced and sidled back through the narrow aisle and steamy room to the exit, I have no doubt that every single person in the audience were wishing that the show could have gone all night long.

Suade will be returning to the cabaret stage at the Inaugural Melbourne Cabaret Festival in July this year. For more information visit www.melbournecabaret.com

Rating: 4 out of 5


Venue: There are not many venues in the world that would allow a performer to pelvic thrust into the owner’s face, who happens to be sitting in the front row...loving it.