Tandanya, built in 1901 as the Grenfell Street Power Station, has since 1989 seen (at least some) long-overdue power returned to Australia’s Indigenous and Torres Strait Peoples as the country’s National Aboriginal Cultural Institute. For the purposes of Adelaide’s 2021 Fringe it is called the First Nation’s Hub.

On Wednesday’s cool evening every one of the faces of 20 audience members was warm and smiling on exiting a spacious and attractive upstairs room of that historic Colonial building. 

Kevin, a 48 year old self-described “back-to-front looking Ninja Turtle” from the lower lakes of Storm Boy country, rationalises his own life story thus far with evidently genuine equanimity and infectious good humour. 

He muses on his “dysfunctional” background of abandonment by a heavy handed Scottish father and his love and respect for three mothers. He reflects on his own eventual relationships with women; three wives, eight kids, 104 first cousins, aberrant behaviour and three different state jail stints, along with a suicide attempt … Little is left out it would seem – but the very best part is that the stories are told with hilarious mobile facial expressions and body language.

Kropinyeri’s declared maxim is Make peace in your life and as he shares with us some of the quirky paradoxes of Aboriginal culture, along with funny aspects of perceived white/black differences, the credo rings true.

His imitation of an Aboriginal girl on a dance floor giving her all to Whitney Houston’s Somebody to Love is a killer. (Deadly.)

Kevin Kropinyeri has proved a successful and loveable stayer in comedy, in Oz and elsewhere for 14 years. His Talkabout shows why. 

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Gillian Hunter

Arts Garden
An eco and community minded cultural wots-on

Mons 6.30 - 8.00pm
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