Old Time Hollywood Down-Under

One word: Divine. That is what describes Chris Wallace’s Greatest Hits, performed for the first time at The Butterfly Club in South Melbourne. Sung by Sarah-Louise Younger, Kelly Wild, Joseph Naim, David Price, and accompanied on piano by MD Laura Tipoki and Andrew O’Grady on the double bass. On the baritone ukulele is Mr Wallace himself. The show opens with a rousing opening number about opening numbers, which could have been cut from any of our favourite musicals. Each cast member has a moment in the spotlight after Wallace tells the audience how he got into song writing.

It is worth coming to see this show just for Wallace, an (ahem) older gentleman is a Yank by birth, Greek by blood and Aussie by choice. His eccentric turquoise bowtie and cummerbund over a paisley shirt hold a certain old-world glamour, reminiscent of travelling sideshows and the garish charm of Los Angeles. Wallace is self deprecating, which an Australian audience will find refreshing from an American. He is witty and charming and has perfect comic timing, and his accent is endearing rather than grating. Each singer in the cast is attractive, talented and appropriate for this show in their own unique way. But one is of particular note. Sarah-Louise Younger, is an absolute knockout on stage. Sexy, funny, cheeky and with a voice that could kill, think Shirley Bassey meets Nina Simone. Her rendition of ‘Deeper’ a gorgeous soul song is enough to bring a joyful tear to your eye and have you swaying and nodding as if you were in a gospel church.

All the songs performed in this show are written by Wallace, and performed with joy and feeling. Including the children’s songs. The two things that let this show down are the poster and the title. Neither of which give any indication the sheer fabulousness of this performance and the genius of the song writing. Many don’t believe that it is possible to give a show five out of five, but this comes very close.

Hello You - Emily Taylor - The Butterfly Club

Emily Taylor appeared in the room looking elegant in a sparkly blue dress. Opening with a little song and an insult thrown at the accompanist in a jovial way. The real performance began when she started talking. Her skills as an actor far surpass her skills as a songstress. The show could have been run entirely without songs, even if they did serve as tenuous link between topics in the banter. Aside from the singing the stories and skits performed were hilarious. A lovely little snapshot into the idiosyncrasies of the human experience. Those bizarre childhood moments of misunderstanding, the confusion that only comes with old age. The show was filled with almost believable moments that could possibly have happened outside of the cabaret stage, but probably didn’t. It was all the more believable in the intimacy of the fifty seat Butterfly Club theatre. The intimacy of “Hello You” is the main attraction, it might not have worked in a larger theatre, the ten or so people in the audience were truly taken on a peculiar and personal journey with Taylor that was delightful, frightening and at times heart-wrenching. Especially when she was spraying water into her own mouth. Her strength really shone through during the improvised sections of the show. Taylor is a powerful actor however lost her power while singing, and disappointingly ended her act with a song.

Venue: Very appropriate for this show. The Butterfly Club is often a favourite.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Phlegm Fatal

Written, directed, and performed by Amy Bodossian. Open Studio, Northcote. 23rd Sept – 09th Oct.

The media release for Phlegm Fatal playing at Open Studio in Northcote for Melbourne Fringe Festival, said great things. Amy Bodossian is entrancing and wild and an artist of the spoken word. “Like a mortician I can make the dead look pleasant, presentable. I am an artist” The media release gave certain expectations that were completely blown out of the water. For one thing, Bodossian barely mentions death; her show is more about life, and love. ‘Phlegm Fatal’ a blend of original poetry and song, doesn’t get off to a swinging start. Her quirky personality and saucy friendliness draws the audience in and prepares them for a night of shocking jokes and naughty anecdotes. However her first poem is about the beauty of the moon. Not bad as far as poems go, but it drops a little bit like a cold cup of tea on the palate after the pizzazz of the opening song Come on to my house in which Bodossian threw lollies to the audience. Ordinarily any deviation from the song-patter-song formula of cabaret is refreshing, however after three poems in a row, it was more than time for a song. This is not to say that the poems weren’t beautiful or enjoyable. Bodassian has a wonderful grasp of language, and a very humorous system of delivery. The poetry is spoken in a very 60’s beatnik style over music, played on guitar, piano and clarinet, by the very talented ‘Paul’. The name of the show is a little deceptive, there are not that many references to bodily fluids except for the occasional, not so discrete nose wipe. While the show got off to a slow start, it picked up pace from the moment Bodossian donned washing up gloves and sung Domestic Bliss. She was physical, ironic and funny. All of a sudden the audience experienced the true potential of her bluesy voice, she swings from a gutsy high belt, floating melodies to a deep earthy croon on those low notes that even some men would not be able to reach. From that point on, Bodossian actually was entrancing. The poem about childhood, would speak straight to that inner child that resides in the soul of any person who grew up in Australia. It left you with tingling toes and warm memories. The original song about her childhood toy Clowney was utterly beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. The highlight of the whole show. She announced the last poem of the show, of which the closing line was “To leave the stage” and it was the perfect ending to this show, not that the audience were sick of her, but that it was entirely appropriate. However two songs followed and the audience was left with a rendition of Kylie Minogue’s Love Me. A quirky show, filled with love and cheekiness, great for anyone who likes a bit of spoken word.

Star rating: 2.5 out of 5

Venue: Small and cute, on the plus side they serve sangria and crepes. On the very very low side, the ‘stage’ is right next to the entrance, and the band due to perform after Bodassian kept on walking in, unapologetically mid song, and rudely dumping their instruments right in front of the stage. This might be acceptable for a gig at a pub, but not during a one woman cabaret. There should have at least been a sign on the door saying “Wait until applause”

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.

HOW SOCIETY SUCKED.

“...woe unto those who spit on the Beat Generation, the wind’ll blow it back.” A statement from Jack Kerouac in the 50’s that has indeed travelled through the winds of time into 2010. The Beat Generation, an philosophical movement in the late 40’s made up of people sick of the conservatism and academia that demonised modern poetry, and beatnik culture. The Beat Generation cleared the way for today’s music and arts journalists to report on the arts with relative freedom. In fact the Beat Generation could be said to have revolutionised music culture itself with the introduction of rhythm and blues into rock and roll, as exemplified by the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. “Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose.” Said Allen Ginsberg. They were all three things and more, without them, rock’n’roll music would still be classed as demonic and we would now, not be able to report on it as an art-form in itself. The Beat Generation, not only paved the way for rock’n’roll but for all other styles of music. This meant that as each genre of music made its way into popular culture, people were free to enjoy it and report on it, without fear of discrimination or even punishment. Without the influence of people like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, how could people now and back then, have true freedom to express their personality and opinion? Amiri Baraka said “The so-called Beat Generation was a whole bunch of people, of all different nationalities, who came to the conclusion that society sucked.” As budding journalist and music lovers now, we can quite easily come to the conclusion that society no longer sucks.
http://home.clara.net/heureka/art/beat-generation.htm

WHEN IMAGINATION RUNS WILD.

Emma Dean and the Imaginary Friends, a cabaret at the Butterfly Club.

The audience was ushered and accosted into the 50 seat show room at the butterfly club, by Dr. Dream the psychotic psychiatrist, Gigi the sensual and Henry the disturbed. Three Sydney physical performance artists appearing in Emma Dean and The Imaginary Friends. Emma Dean herself appeared after a couple of minutes dressed in a black vest and a pair of frilly knickers over stockings. She sat down behind the piano, pale skin and red hair illuminated in the spotlight. She hunched her shoulders over the keys, bent her long neck and raised a delicate hand. The beginning notes of “Pure Imagination” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory floated through the stuffy silence in the tiny Butterfly Club show room. As Dean began to sing, her ethereal voice wove a hypnotic web over the audience, and as we sat entranced, you could occasionally see Gene Wilder himself looking out of her eyes. “Emma Dean and the Imaginary Friends” has little story line to speak of, but explores the various routes that Dean’s imagination takes. Henry, Gigi and Dr. Dream, meant to be representations of three different facets of Dean’s inner workings, danced and occasionally sang to original and popular songs, thrashing and stomping, clapping and thrusting, in energetic and vulgar fashion with anguished and comic facial expressions. Dean was in charge, a pixie-like puppeteer either hushing them or running with the thought. Dean proved a consummate performer, especially showing such a depth of character in her voice alone.

The show was developed firstly by several of Dean’s songs having a common thread and her interest in “combining music with physical theatre”. This is unfortunately where the show fell a little flat. The dancers, while obviously talented, were over the top and quite unnecessary to the development of the show. Dean could have easily carried the entire performance on the strength of her ability and talent. Her voice flicks and floats between Quasimodo-esque grunts, ethereal melodies, operatic squawks and folksy hoots, with barely a hint of effort. Her eyes, face and hands tell an exquisite tale of each story, which was quite often negated by the energetic choreography happening on the other side of the piano. According to Dean, each character was developed on a shopping trip for false eyelashes. “Each performer was drawn to a particular fake eyelash and we kind a developed the characters from the eyelashes they chose” She said in a brief interview after the show. The idea of having the abstract dancing, is supposed to make the show more cabaret and strange, however they are purely distracting, and detract from the beauty of Dean’s voice and original song writing. The performers however, were not untalented and managed to slip in a few amusing moments.

Dean, hailing from Sydney is currently completing a tour of the east coast and has this year won the prestigious “Under Our Wing Award” from the butterfly club. Neville Sice, co-owner of the Butterfly Club compares her to “Bjork, except easier to listen to, and far better to look at!”

Dean and the Imaginary Friends is an interesting show, with plenty of colour and a little bit of mind twisting. It could be enjoyed just as much if the audience were to sit there with their eyes closed.

Gigi the sensual imagination was played by Amanda Laing, Dr. Dream the imaginary psychotic psychiatrist was played by Walter Davis Heart and Henry the disturbed imagination was played by Leah Reutens.

Stars: 3 out of 5

Venue: Not the most appropriate for this show, as the dancers were meant to be behind Emma Dean while she played the piano. This cramped stage doesn’t do justice to the idea of physical theatre meets music.

Despicable Me - Melbourne International Film Festival

ROTTEN APPLE, NOT SO ROTTEN AFTER ALL.



Just because he’s a bad guy, doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy.

Gru is the world’s top super villain.....or was.
The world is filling up with younger, smarter, and more tech savvy super villains. Gru hatches a plan to get back to number 1 status, and make his mother proud. He’s going to steal the moon. But when the plan includes adopting 3 super-cute orphaned girls, Gru discovers that just being evil doesn’t cut it, and has to change his plans much more than expected.

This film is endearing, funny and colourful. In other words just another formulaic Universal studios kids animation, needlessly converted to 3D so the cinema’s can earn an extra buck.
Despite the disappointingly predictable plot ‘Despicable Me’ has a wicked soundtrack created by hip-hop artist Pharrell Williams, which give the film edge and a tad more depth.
Interestingly, the kids in the cinema weren’t the only ones laughing hysterically at the slapstick antics of the rubbery yellow minions and the ridiculous weaponised squid shooters, fart guns and fluffy unicorns. The imagery and action rather than the script make this movie hilarious. And even though you can see it coming, there are a number of moments that will bring a tear to your eye.

The producer Chris Meledandri, operating for the first time under Illumination Entertainment, founded by Meledandri in 2007, when asked what influenced the film says “There is without question an element of kind of a 'Bond' like foundation from which it springs. Gru is probably closer, and not in a literal way, but to an old Bond style villain than any other sort of cinematic villain. Gru was about his physicality and that an influence in Chris [Renaud] and Pierre's depiction of how he moved and how physical he was as a character came from some Peter Sellers reference. They watched a lot of Peter Sellers and a lot of Rowan Atkinson”

Steve Carrel smoothly voices Gru the vaguely European super villain, which is no surprise, given the range of comic characters he has played in the past. Julie Andrews as the voice of Gru’s evil mother is a surprise as is that of Russel Brand who plays Dr Nefario. This character would be a change of scene for Brand as most roles of his are young eccentric and hard to ignore. The Dr Nefario character is not central to the story and only contributes to a few jokes. The charming surprise was that a couple of small characters were voiced by Jack McBrayer from 30Rock and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, who seems to be popping up all over the place in cameos.

‘Despicable Me’ tries to be a darkly humorous film and wins a few times. It has great Looney Tunes slap-stick quality which appeals to all ages, and has a heart warming story of finding family and home. Right from the start, the minions are endearing and quirky, and you just want the bad guy to win. This film is not groundbreaking in terms of story line, but is still worth a look.

Rating: 3 out of 5
Venue: The big screen at Hoyts Melbourne Central. The 3D glasses recycle station was placed very inconveiniently behind a wacking great pole.