Reviews

Five-time Grammy Award winner and named in The Guardian’s top 100 most inspiring women in 2011, Angélique Kidjo returned to Adelaide for both WOMADelaide (replacing UK artist Nitin Sawhney after a medical emergency) and a one night only performance at the Festival Theatre. The acclaimed Beninese-French singer, songwriter, and renowned activist is celebrating her 40th year on the world stage and showcasing her most recent album Mother Nature. 

As the audience files into the Dunstan Playhouse, we find writer and philosopher Édouard Louis seated at a desk, typing on a laptop. The cyclorama behind him produced by Sébastien Dupouey and Marie Sanchez, transforms into a never-ending road, subtly lit, indicating that we are on a journey - initially, a clouded and foggy one, which eventually clears as the turmoil of this talented performer come to a crescendo.

Chess, the musical, was first performed in 1986, three years before the fall of the Berlin wall. It is nearly 40 years old and yet the eclectic music and story of political machinations retains relevance. Two superpowers contest world domination in a game. Antagonists are the unstable Freddie Trump (-er) and slightly more sympathetic Russian, Sergievsky. Sergievsky’s paean to Russia’s eternal heart connects individuals to nations in the lyric “Let man's petty nations tear themselves apart”.

Boeing Boeing has a long history! It was a hit in its native France in 1960. The English adaptation opened in London in 1962 and ran for seven years! And despite some misgivings concerning inferences about American society, the 1965 movie starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis did well overseas. By 1991 the play was listed in the Guinness Book of records as the most performed French play in the world. Multiple revivals over the past 20 years have also done well, some winning awards.