Heather Croall's Top Ten Cabaret Festival Picks

Wed, May 23 2018
Adelaide Fringe may be over, but festival season lives on in Adelaide with Adelaide Cabaret Festival kicking off from June 8. If you're having trouble deciding what to see, why not start with Adelaide Fringe CEO Heather Croall's top picks.
Heather
Adelaide Fringe may be over, but festival season lives on in Adelaide with Adelaide Cabaret Festival kicking off from June 8.
If you're having trouble deciding what to see, why not start with Adelaide Fringe Director Heather Croall's top picks. 
JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL
Tony award winning, Golden Globe nominated co-creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, John Cameron Mitchell takes the stage, singing songs from the groundbreaking rock musical and subversive cult film.
Regaling audiences between sets with intimate, eye-opening, and at times devilishly funny anecdotes, he invites audiences to share his personal experiences over two decades of living with Hedwig. In a real treat for hardcore fans and newcomers alike, he’ll also play new material from his upcoming musical podcast Anthem. So Adelaide, ‘put on some makeup, turn on your eight track,’ it’s time to experience the original Hedwig.
GLORIOUS MISFITS
Over a decade ago our Artistic Director Ali McGregor ran away with the circus and found herself surrounded by a found family of carnival characters. Here Ali has hand-picked a selection of the most mischievously talented burlesque and circus acts in the world to celebrate this new vaudeville era.
MISSION SONGS PROJECT
Reviving contemporary Australian Indigenous songs from 1900 to 1999, Mission Songs Project focuses on the Christian missions, state run settlements and native camps where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were relocated.
Beautifully sung and artfully articulated by this vocal quartet led by Jessie Lloyd, the day to day life of the mission period, from cultural identity to love and loss, is explored through secular songs that shed light on the almost forgotten stories of our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders, families and communities.
BUTT KAPINSKI
Think it’s a solo show? Think again. Private eye Butt Kapinski invites you to co star in a film noir murder mystery. Join Butt in a seedy world of sex, sin, shadows and subterfuge!
Part-comedy, part-immersive theatre and part-social experiment, this hilarious international, award-winning hit is for adults only. Not for the easily offended.
THE LEGEND OF QUEEN KONG EPISODE II IN OUTER SPACE
Part of the new epic rock cabaret trilogy, The Legend of Queen Kong tells the story of Queen Kong — part rock, part ape, part immortal mythological being — on her journey through time and space on a quest to discover what it means to be human.
Imprisoned by humans for being too large, our hero calls on a passing meteorite and breaks free, embarking on a journey of transmutations that finds her meeting a bi-curious multiplicitous singularity.  Featuring neo-punk cabaret diva Yana Alana and featuring The HOMOsapiens, this is an epic space fiction, and supernova spectacular.
CARLA LIPPIS
Carla Lippis returns to Adelaide with the Australian premiere of her critically acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe Festival show. Lending her formidable voice to both originals and recontextualised classics, she fuses the tropes of rock and roll performance with the lyricism of theatre.
Backed by an ensemble who specialise in the unorthodox, the dark, and the evocative, Lippis’ menacing stage persona leaves audiences reeling.
HANS AND LUCKY SEVEN'S LOVEBOAT!
Join Adelaide’s favourite German icon Hans for a naughty night of nautical fun, in the best land-bound cruise ship show this side of the Torrens!
Joining Hans on stage, the Lucky Seven swing band blast out show tunes from the 1940s and 1950s to the present day with an infectious energy topped only by the high-kicking chorus of showboys and showgirls. A night of marine fun – anchors away!
JOANNE HARTSTONE
Clutching the sides of the Hollywood sign, aspiring actress Evie Edwards is about to tell us why she is up there. Looking out over the lights of Los Angeles, and the studio system that produced her nightmare, she takes the audience on a nostalgic journey through the golden age of Hollywood, told from a fresh and dark perspective.
Written and performed by Joanne Hartstone, the show’s affecting Technicolor-styled performance makes a poignant statement about the human cost of America’s dream factory.
SVEN RATZKE
The supernova of international cabaret and festival favourite, Sven Ratzke returns to Australia in a spectacular embodiment of all that is fatal, peculiar and enigmatic in a man’s world.
Armed only with his wit, his band, and the latest threads from Thierry Mugler, he discovers and uncovers the seducers and victims hiding amongst the pimps, lovers, angels and devils.
Ratzke’s masterful storytelling is eclipsed only by his sensational vocal performances, including works by Rufus Wainwright, Dez Mona, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop.
MICHAELA BURGER
Created by Adelaide’s own Michaela Burger (Exposing Edith), this world premiere explores Greek settlement in South Australia through the tale of a poor migrant’s son.
Beginning his working life at the age of seven making deliveries for the family bakery, his journey sees him down the opal mines in Coober Pedy as a teenager, before eventually opening his own chain of discount supermarkets in Adelaide, all brought to life through original compositions featuring modern arrangements of traditional instruments.
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK'S BIG BOO
Best known for her appearance on Netflix’s hit-show Orange is the New Black, Lea DeLaria breaks out from her Big Boo role in this spectacular blend of comedy and song.
A famously big personality, her razor-sharp wit and sassy stage presence deliver a brand of comedy that’s frank, outspokenly political, and bitingly hard.
Featuring songs from her latest album House of David: delaria+bowie=jazz, DeLaria sings ‘Fame,’ ‘Young Americans,’ and ‘Let’s Dance’ in a set that shows off her velvet vocals and remarkable range while still leaving audiences wheezing with laughter.
VERY STRANGE THINGS
Lawrence invites curious adventurers to step into his dubious laboratory of unexplainable things.
Thrilling and delighting audiences with questionable experiments, puzzling mind games, and impossible coincidences, the award winning stand-up comedian and filmmaker best known for his appearances in Maximum Choppage, Unbelievable, Choose Your Own Adventure, and Offspringconjures up a mind-bending night of comedic curiosities.
An absolute lark of hijinks and hilarity that will have you heaving in hysterics.