Category: Event

Feast Festival 2012 lineup

Feast Festival 2012 lineup

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The programme for Adelaide’s queer arts festival, Feast, has been released, and it’s worth taking a look to see what’s on this year. The festival is held in Light Square from 10 to 25 November.

Most of the names I recognise are local performers. Of those, I can unhesitatingly recommend Libby O’Donovan. She has a huge voice, solid song-writing skills and a sassy-yet-vulnerable persona. What more could one want from a cabaret singer? She’s performing her show, Some of My Best Friends Are Single, for one night only. (Note that I’m posting this only after I’ve secured my own ticket.)

Jamie Jewell is back with a new show, Last Days on Earth. Jewell did a superb comic turn in La Chêvre Noir last year – even his knees were hilarious – but disappointed recently in the showtune melodrama, The Lonely Man, despite singing his heart out. Last Days on Earth is described as a “cosmic caper”, so let’s hope this is Jewell in better form.

Young performer Annie Seigmann is back. Last year she managed an irreverent, feel-good performance of her own songs even on a slow Tuesday night. She’ll have her work cut out again this time, as she’s been given the 11 am slot for Picnic in the Park. Another repeat show is New Coat of Paint: The Songs of Tom Waits, which I recall as being perfectly entertaining at the time but not actually memorable.

Feast Comedy Gayla should be worth a look. It will feature short taster performances from five comedians, including the acerbic, fishnet-wearing Hans. I usually find these compendium shows to be good value, as if any one performer is disappointing, there’s always another one on in a minute. Even better for the budget-conscious are the visual arts exhibitions, which are free. Last year they were held in shipping containers in Light Square, with a few works from each artist.

Otherwise, well, there’s lots. Cabaret, music, films, comedy, drag, and community events. Bowling, bingo, and the release of a pig by an animal liberation group (what?). The burlesque boom is well represented, so let’s hope some of that is less dull that what I sat through during the Fringe. Boyleqsue and Ambrosia do boylesque, Shaken and Stirred do “grrrlesque”, Trixie and Monkey do striptease acrobatics and Bad Barber Shop Burlesque involves man-eating plants.

Yes, that’s rainbow triffid burlesque. This intrepid reviewer may have to report back later.

Show Review: Fearless Nadia

Show Review: Fearless Nadia


Fearless Nadia is a musical performance and film about an unusual star of Indian cinema. Mary Evans, a white woman born in Western Australia, became a popular Hindi-language actor known for her alarming stunts, progressive views and vigorous fight scenes.

This OzAsia show presented a brief biographical film, followed by numerous highlights from her film Diamond Queen (1940), in which she plays a young, educated Indian woman who must team with a local bandit to defeat a cruel and rapacious overlord. There’s slapstick, romance and some excellent action set-pieces with a large cast and a moustache-twirling villain. There’s even a heroic horse.

The film snippets were accompanied by a small orchestra playing Western and Indian instruments. The musicians playing Western instruments wore their traditional garb of waistcoats and jazz hats. The Indian musicians performed sitting down, on raised platforms. All gave virtuoso performances, but it was the tabla players who garnered the most enthusiastic applause.

The combination of Diamond Queen and the Orkestra of the Underground was hard to resist. We in the audience cheered when Fearless Nadia punched out her first villains – her cinematic entrance is as an on-screen fist. We quailed when Mary Evans, who did all her own stunts, fell backwards into a waterfall. It was, perhaps, a little over-the-top when an electric violinist hung upside-down over the screen, suspended some metres above the stage while a scene reached a climax, but generally speaking, the music enhanced the film rather than distracted from it. After a long, luxurious, post-film outro, reminiscent of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, we gave the orchestra a standing ovation.

The show has closed in Adelaide but will be touring in India.

Game Masters @ACMI (Melbourne, until 28 October, 2012)

Game Masters @ACMI (Melbourne, until 28 October, 2012)

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) is host to the Game Masters exhibit, showcasing the work of 35 learning video game designers, spread across a large interactive area that features the arcade games that preceded the home computer and console, the game changers that brought the arcade into the home and the rise of the Indies, independent game designers who are changing the way we play, without a large production company behind them.

Team Falkner attended the exhibit on the 14th of July, taking on a feisty Saturday crowd to look at the development of the games over time. The way into the exhibit takes you past the arcade games of yesteryear. I got in a quick game of Centipede but the queues on most of the other games were a little longer than my level of interest in failing to impress the crowd gathered around. Asteroids was there and it’s astounding how popular a black-and-white game with simple graphics can be – when the game is good!

(One piece of advice: the machines and consoles are in constant use. If you are the kind of person who doesn’t like to handle human warm stuff, then bring hand wipes. If you’re even vaguely germophobic, this is a spectator event for you.)

From the realm of the Arcade Heroes, we moved into the Game Changers: those games, companies and designers who made giant changes to the way that we game. What a range and everything was playable! From World of Warcraft and the way it revolutionised the massively on-line experience, to the comedic nonsense of Sonic the Hedgehog, the sweeping open exploration of Shadow of the Colossus or (my favourite) vast quantities of the design documents of Deus Ex, with Warren Spector’s original design documents. Like Rock Band? It’s here. Lost a week to The Sims? Watch an interview with Will Wright. If you have played games in the past 10 years, you’ll find something here to make you go “Wow!” (No pun intended.) If you’ve been developing hand cramps from over-playing for more than two decades, like me, then your jaw will be on the floor for most of it. There’s a big interview bank where you can relax and listen to your heroes talking about their ideas, drive and vision.

From the Game Changers, we moved sideways into the Indies section. Playing outside of the major studios and turning out fantastic games with far less dependence on the big resources, we see games that are quirky, even downright weird, and establishing new genres. There was a pretty diverse range here, from PaRappa the Rapper to Fruit Ninja and Braid. Again, everything here was playable, and, because of the nature of the games, it was often hard to tell if someone was playing, watching or just experiencing.

A giant dance studio is set up in one corner, next to the Singstar booth and the Rock Band facility: all full, with queues, of people jamming, singing and just having fun. While we were there, a girl in a giant bunny onesy was belting it out with a friend in the Singstar booth while a father and son tried, valiantly, to save family honour on the dance floor.

 If you like games, playing, watching or just thinking about them, ACMI’s Game Masters is a great way to spend a couple of hours. Admission is $22/$17.50/$16/$11 for Full/Conc/ACMI Member/Child (4-15) and there are family deals as well. It’s pretty family friendly and there’s a lot for the junior family members to do but, if you really want to get involved, you probably want to find someone to look after the really young kids. Check out their website here.
Definitely recommended and an A event on the Velour Future semi-random rating guide! Get there before the end of October!