2023 Adelaide Fringe Form Guide 1 – Steve Davis On FIVEaa

Throughout the 2023 Adelaide Fringe, Steve Davis will be sharing tips about shows to investigate, especially South Australian grassroots shows, to help punters try something a little different.

The segment today, happened at 12:50pm with Richard Pascoe. Steve’s notes are below, covering these shows:

• My Favourite Conspiracy
• Closure at a Self-Serve Checkout
• The Early Late Show (including mention of Prof Longsword who’ll be a guest on Saturday, Feb 18, at 3pm, from his show, 100% MBA Success: Whisky And Trivia With Professor Longsword)
• George Glass: Bradbury The Musical
• The Good Immigrant
• Workmates
• Hear My Voice
• Taylor Swift – Country Meets Pop
• Soul and Déjà vu

Comedy Picks – Adelaide Fringe Form Guide

My Favourite Conspiracy

The moon landing was staged! There’s no such thing as COVID-19! The Royal family are lizard people from Mercury!

Each show, three comics share their favourite conspiracy theories with you at Legends Bar (which is just downstairs on Pulteney Street across from Target.

Whose theory is the most convincing? Who will win the coveted tin foil hat? You decide!

This has run a few years now and the formula ticks along well. It’s good, grassroots comedy.

Closure at a Self-Serve Checkout

‘Closure at a Self-Serve Checkout’ is a ridiculous, raucous, and chaotic one-woman comedy cabaret. A collection of stand-up monologues and witty songs performed by Bobbie Viney and her piano.

Ultimately, it’s about taking our depressed and broken hearts of the past and finding ways to move on, and most importantly, laugh about it altogether.

Bobbie graduated from Federation Uni at the end of 2019 and moved to Adelaide for good a couple of years ago.

I get the sense this will be a roller coaster ride most likely with torrents of streams of thought – some you’ll get, some you won’t, but I get a sense there’ll be enough to give you some satisfaction.

It’s on at The Howling Owl, just off Rundle Street in Vaughan Place in the East End.

The Early Late Show

Join comedians Vladimir McTavish (from the UK) & Adelaide’s Wendy Torbet, for The Fringe’s brand new chat and comedy show.

These are smart shows to see because they have guest comedians from other shows who come along, do a comedy set, and then get grilled in an improvised talk show environment.

Vladamir started this show format during the lockdown and it sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe last year.

It’s on in Gluttony at the Open Air venue called The Piglet, at 3pm every Saturday, Sunday, and the public holiday Monday.

And just a tip. Professor Sebastian Longsword will be one of the guests at the opening show next Saturday afternoon at 3.

George Glass: Bradbury The Musical

We all remember Steven Bradbury taking gold at the Winter Olympics when everybody else in his speed skating event fell over? Well, now he has a musical.

George Glass is an art-rock band from Adelaide and this is their latest show. Now, I reviewed their 2017 show, Scientology The Musical, and as I wrote back then, I was pretty underwhelmed because there wasn’t much context in the show to bring people along who were not deeply familiar with Scientology.

There were certainly good moments. So, I am suggesting this is worth considering because we won’t need a whole lot of intricate background to get into the Bradbury story and so you’ll just be able to concentrate on the fun and hopefully enjoy yourself as the last audience member sitting!

At the Arthur Artbar in Currie Street.

Theatre Picks – Adelaide Fringe Form Guide

The Good Immigrant

This is what I call a true “fringe” show. It’s been created for the fringe by a young company, and they’re trying something a little edgy that might connect well or might not.

CJ Productions is the company. They got good reviews for last year’s debut show Norm And Ahmed, but this year their show is The Good Immigrant at The Star Theatre on Sir Donald Bradman Drive.

The concept is that immigrants love Australia and Australian way of life and they’re entranced by its beaches, dollars, and even seedy night clubs.

The one thing they fear is racism but the question they’ll explore is – what can you, as an immigrant, give in return for the respect you hope to get from others.

The main character will be a happy young man who is oblivious to the consequences of some of his actions and it won’t be racism that he’ll be fearing, it will be something else.

Workmates

This is a bit of physical theatre about life in the office. It’s about two work mates who both have different approaches to surviving the 9-to-5 life, but they do it in an approach that is inspired a lot by The Office and Fawlty Towers.

The actors are David Arcidiaco and Robbie Greenwell and they say the show blends sketch comedy and surrealism through physical theatre.

It’s at the Majestic Roof Garden Hotel in Frome Street.

Music Picks – Adelaide Fringe Form Guide

Hear My Voice

There’s quite a big music section in the Fringe this year so there are some real jewels you might miss and Hear My Voice is one of them.

I’ve seen Alexandra Frost perform her soulful jazz singing for many years and I’m really looking forward to seeing her up her game and put on her first full Fringe Cabaret show.

And we all have to play with the hand that nature deals us in life and for Alexandra, she was born with a voice that is much deeper than a typical female voice. That means she often gets confused for being a man on the phone, etc.

But when she uses her voice to sing. OMG. It is something else.

So, Hear My Voice will be a great show with some excellent songs accompanied by New York trained pianist, Ed Heddle – Ed can jump into mind-blowing improvisations at the drop of a hat.

If you love really thoughtful and really classy jazz and blues – you will really want to catch this show at Nexus Arts Venue – the old Lion building near the Morphett Street bridge.

Taylor Swift – Country Meets Pop

Ella and Sienna are a couple of young singers from SA, and you might have seen them on The Voice. I saw them supporting John Schumann doing his Redgum Years concert in Goolwa last year.

They’re doing Taylor Swift songs which is perfect for them because they have a natural folk/country feel to their music.

It’s on at The Arkaba Hotel.

WILDCARD – Dance Pick – Adelaide Fringe Form Guide

Soul and Déjà vu

Alchemy Dance Collective presents a double-bill showcasing brand new contemporary dance works created by a team of Adelaide College of the Arts graduates.

The first one is “SOUL”, directed by Hanna Instrell-Walker. It’s perfect content for dance. It experiments with the idea of our good and bad thoughts actually becoming realised – manifesting themselves in our live. Plenty of karma in the mix.

Kate Burgess, directs “DÉJÀ VU”; a dance work that blends elements of satire and comedy, especially around that notion of, haven’t I experienced this before?

The Shed Rehearsal Theatre in Goodwood.