Cabaret Festival

Adelaide Cabaret Festival Review: Swing on This

Swing on This

Take four of Australia’s hottest and talented leading men & guest star Kate Cebrano, and you have the recipe for a great night out, served with a mighty punch!

 

Swing on This

Presented by Adelaide Festival Centre in association with Good Egg Creative
Reviewed 7 June 2014

As strange as it may seem, sometimes the hardest shows to review are those that are exceptional. It’s fairly easy to be caustic about something that doesn’t make the grade, but when it is so good that many adjectives will describe it, it’s hard to pick one. For Swing on This, this reviewer has selected two: BRILLIANT and SENSATIONAL.

Take four of Australia’s hottest and talented leading men, Michael Falzon (We Will Rock You, Rock Of Ages), Luke Kennedy (The Voice, The Ten Tenors), Matt Lee (So You Think You Can Dance, Australia, Bert in Mary Poppins) and Ben Mingay (Wonderland, An Officer And A Gentleman); add in Musical Director Craig Schneider conducting the always superb Adelaide Arts Orchestra, spice it well with Swing classics (such as Mack The Knife, A Kick In The Head, It Had To Be You and That’s Life) as well as ‘swingified’ rock/pop numbers (such as Van Halen’s Jump and Wonder Wall by Oasis); top it off with guest star Kate Cebrano; and you have the recipe for a great night out – served with a mighty punch!

One of the reasons that Swing on This works so well, apart from the glorious talent of the four, is the wonderful camaraderie these men share with one another: they could so easily be the Australian Rat Pack. With good natured jibes at one another and their huge sense of fun and relaxation, the audience took to them straight away and became part of this boy’s club for the rest of the night.

Mingay is the ‘bad boy’ of the bunch – and didn’t we love him for it?! Lee proves he can sing almost as well as he can dazzle with dance. Falzon is the “Mr Cool” of the group, with Kennedy being the fresh faced ‘youngster’ who proves he can move as smoothly as he warbles.

Every instant of the show was a delightful highlight, and to prove it the audience were allowed to take photos and videos and twitter each marvellous moment.

One huge mistake however – the show was for one night only (sad face).

Reviewed by Brian Godfrey
Twitter: @briangods

Venue: Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide
Season: season ended
Duration: 2 hours

The Adelaide Cabaret Festival runs from 6-21 June 2014.

 

More News

To Top