Reviews

Hot on the heels of Patti Lupone for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival comes another Broadway ‘legend’ – John Cameron Mitchell. Although also based in Musical Theatre this is a completely different show. Whereas Ms Lupone blew us away with her renditions of popular and conventional Broadway classics, John Cameron Mitchell blasts this convention apart.

Sven Ratzke, the Dutch-German cabaret performer, personifies everything that true cabaret is about. He is sexy, flirty, audience focused and uniquely entertaining. In fact, he reminds me that I have seen a number of other cabaret performers do great shows, but Ratzke’s show is true to the cabaret genre and he is a quintessential cabaret style performer.

According to Hitler's memoirs, it was his teenage viewing of Richard Wagner’s Rienzi –  about a Roman tribune who led a proletariat revolt against the nobles of Rome – that made him understand for the first time his destiny: to strengthen and unite the German Reich. Hitler had the autographed score of Rienzi with him in the bunker where he took his life in 1945.

Johanna Allen’s 70-minute show Cake is a salacious celebration of reckless consumption and excess. She is coquettish, bawdy, flippant, flighty and passionate, all within minutes. She gambols through the works of musical geniuses including Cole Porter, Madonna, Abba (a particular favourite of mine in this show), Kylie Minogue and the Eurhythmics, demonstrating a powerful, soaring and compelling vocal range through a myriad of styles including musical theatre, pop, jazz and light opera.