CHANNELLING ADELE

Naomi Price’s one-woman cabaret gets a makeover for its return to Brisbane. Peter Pinne reports.

After playing sell-out seasons in Sydney (Slide Lounge), Melbourne (Chapel Off Chapel) and the Gold Coast (Arts Centre), where she was called “Sassy, hilarious, poignant and gob-smackingly good,” Naomi Price’s cabaret act, Rumour Has It: Sixty Minutes Inside Adele, returns to Brisbane, the city where it all started, in a bigger and better version.

Playing the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts from 24 – 27 April, the show, an expose of Adele’s public and private life, will feature a seven-piece band, new songs and new arrangements.

Written by actor Naomi Price and journalist, Adam Brunes, the highly successful cabaret show was created in 2011 over a bottle of wine. As Price said, “we were having fun and taking the piss out of Adele when I started imitating her cockney accent.” Suddenly a show was born!

Price and Adele share some similarities. Both are redheads, both are British and both have an outrageous sense of humour. Their other shared interest is of course music. As Price says, “Adele is the most successful and influential female recording artist of the past five years. Her songs are interesting, gut-wrenching and raw, and that’s the sort of theatre I’m drawn to and what I like to create.”

In Rumour Has It Price doesn’t go for an impersonation of Adele. As she said “no one does Adele like Adele,” but she does go for the “open vowel sounds” that the star uses on songs like “Rolling in the Deep”. “I try to keep a balance of doing the songs justice but also not losing sight of Naomi Price.”  

Price, who’s slim, wears a “sexy fat suit which is curvy” for her appearance in the show. When asked what her favourite Adele song was, Price said “it changes daily, but at the moment it’s Skyfall,” the James Bond movie theme which won Adele an Academy Award.

“Overwhelmed” was the word Price used to describe the reaction to Rumour Has It in other states. “It’s nice to take a show where nobody knows you.” Audiences have responded to the show’s wicked and satirical take on the diva, but “they have also been very touched.”

Brisbane audiences know Price for her many musical theatre roles which include Mary in Jesus Christ Superstar, Cathy inThe Last 5 Years and Mimi in Rent. Musical Director of the show is Jason McGregor, who has worked with Price since 2010.

Recently Price treated Brisbane to a preview of her ‘Adele’ when she outrageously compered the annual Matilda Awards. Following the return Brisbane season, the show will play Noosa Long Weekend, and also Madame Tussauds, Darling Habour, Sydney, in May.