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Adelaide Fringe 2016

Best of Fringe Variety

Motley & Mac

Genre: Cabaret, Circus, Comedy, Fringe Theatre, Theatre, Variety Show

Venue: Gluttony - The Speakeasy

Festival:


Low Down

5 acts in 1! A chance to sample the Fringe with a variety of acts, such as, burlesque, circus, comedians, magicians, singers, puppeteers and acrobats. You won’t know what to expect with a diverse line up each night.

Review

Music greeted us as we walked in and it set the scene. A fairly quiet Wednesday night gave the performers a challenge to keep the audience revved up. They succeeded in this and the audience was appreciative and enthusiastic throughout.

The show began with “C*untry music” singer, Shirley Gnome, who was charismatic, sassy and funny. Her sex songs included lines like, “my hand smells like a penis”. She came back on later to do a song about dating a very old man, which was an audience pleaser and at times groan-worthy by the imagery it evoked and very amusing.

MC Paddy is a character. He was engaging, kept the show moving,  as well as entertaining the audience with a variety of magic tricks, all done extremely well. His sleight of hand was phenomenal. I was sitting really close and he didn’t give away a thing!

The ladder balance expert from Papillon was excellent. (As outstanding as the Papillon show itself). Peerless in his skills, his self professed “best in Australia” act was humorous, well timed, engaging and an outstanding feat of balance.

We were treated to a sassy and sexy burlesque act, who interacted with the audience and was very entertaining. “Hey big spender” created a backdrop for her antics and her sultry striptease. She then treated us to a very skilful sword swallowing act. Very well done.

Pants Down Circus gave an appearance through their hoola hoop expert. Very amusing and highly skilled. Her involvement of two male audience members as back up singers was really entertaining.

The final act for the evening was the Half Naked Chef, a comedy cooking demo by an Englishman wearing socks and sandals, an apron, red underpants and nothing else! He kept the audience laughing and created a very interesting “Irish Trifle” consisting of Guinness, cream, a Flake, sprinkles and herbs, adorned with an umbrella. And much to the amusement of us all, one brave audience member drank it!

I think each performer is worthy individually, however a variety show is difficult to maintain the continuity and it just lacked that bit of fluidity and theming that is possible in a single show. I’ve seen several of the shows these performers were from and all of those shows were highly recommended. I’d definitely recommend this show though as it is fun and entertaining and a great way to sample the Fringe.

Published