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Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
 As
I leaf through a programme which appears to be about 40 pages
of excellent performances packed into two weeks of actual Cabaret
Festival, it occurs to me to ask Festival Director Julia Holt
whether she feels at all constrained in what she can present
to the ticket buying public.
"I think the great thing is we've got 14 national and international premieres, and the return of a lot of good shows with some great new things," she says, Festival Director's hat very firmly in place. Ye gads, it's very nearly that time of the year again!
As it was last year, so it is this: there are a fair number of parallels to be drawn between the 04 and the 05 programmes, it must be said. After all, this is a cabaret festival, so that's always going to be the primary focus. Along the way there's a handful of pure comedy acts (good for the box office and the theatrically challenged), a good collection of Adelaide based performers... "We're employing 120 Adelaide musicians alone."
Holt is proud not merely of the number and the opportunities it presents, but also of the quality of the musicians involved. There are other parallels: last year the highly acclaimed Combo Fiasco said goodbye to their audiences through a final sold out show at the Cabaret Festival; this year it's the Fabulous Singlettes who will be drawing the curtain on their performing career as one of the Festival's highlights.
 It
counts as something of a feather in the cap that the Cabaret
Festival can attract performers of the stature, not to mention
calibre, of Jane Birkin, the wife of French singer Serge Gainsborough,
and a great impressionist herself. She was, for example, featured
in the movie 'Blow Up'.
"We're only five years old, as it is," says Holt, going slightly sideways with the point - the Festival's success in attracting world class talent. 'Is that but a drop in the bucket when it comes to establishing a Festival?' I ask, and she seems not to have considered the five years over-much when she answers. "Well we get great coverage from all the artists from around the world, as well as all the journalists and media, so I guess we're getting quite well known around the place."
As we discuss the mix for the festival - of old and new, of international guests and local artists, she points out that, "I tend to take it to the next level, always, because when you settle for the one style or at the one level, that's when you trip yourself up.
 "There
are some things we can bring in to SA if only for this, because
otherwise they wouldn't come here; I'm thinking of things like
Sista She, and The Chaser (CNNNN), who we've talked into doing
as a stage show." This will be a first for The Chaser crew,
and there are some difficulties associated with getting their
particular mayhem, which they've named 'Cirque du Chaser', to
work on stage.
"What I'm particularly excited about is getting Adelaide based and new artists involved, which is always a trick when you're working with a genre based festival... but I've come up with a couple of new ideas.
One is 'Sing Your Soc.'s Off', a show tunes medley hosted by Anne Wills and featuring three musical societies. Another is a music trivia quiz hosted by Forever Young (actually Jo Zealand) accompanied by the William Light School Ukelele Orchestra. Yes, they're real, or they will be by showtime!
Now of, course, due to some thousands of programmes being mailed out early, and the subsequent leaking of some details by the daily paper, there were few surprises in store for the assembled guests at Tuesday evening's launch event. Holt sounds very unflustered by the unfortunate revelations.
"Well it takes the pressure off; we'll just have a party," she laughs. That's a party with performances from Kaye Tuckerman (this year she's 'Stalker', last year she was 'Maneater'), CNNNN's Julian Morrow and the previously mentioned Fabulous Singlettes.
Alex Wheaton
Pictures: Jane Birkin
Sista She
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Bookings are now open for the 2005 Cabaret Festival, which runs from Fri 10 to Sun 25 June. Proudly supported by dB Magazine.
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