Presented by Adelaide Cabaret Festival
Reviewed 9 June 2019
It wouldn’t be an Adelaide Cabaret Festival without our favourite fabulously faux German, Hans, and he’s ready to keep your night of cabaret fun going in the entertaining variety show 11 O’Clock Hour with Haus of Hans.
Step inside The Famous Spiegeltent and enter the glittery, sensual and comedic Haus of Hans. The entire show is exactly what you would imagine the inside of Hans’s mind to look like as he scandalously saunters around the stage performing Grace Jones’ Pull Up to the Bumper, flanked by two semi-nude and very toned male dancers in sequinned hotpants and feather collars. Throughout the night the German diva has the audience grooving in their seats with up-beat performances of classic hits like Dancing Queen, Got to be Real and Boogie Wonderland and newer hits like Sia’s Chandelier (played on an accordion no less). There are also (of course) multiple costume changes throughout the hour which include feather boas, a black and silver sequinned one-piece, knee-high fish nets, his signature large purple hat with an even larger pink feather and a black and pink sequinned hood in honour of Grace Jones.
Within this variety hour the audience is treated to a sampling of various cabaret performers with Mitchell Butel leading the way as the first guest of this particular night. The actor, singer, Helpmann Award Winner and newly appointed Artistic Director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia provides a hilariously relatable tune about painful past loves sending you a Facebook friend request. Butel’s chorus seems appropriately accurate for the situation – “Are you f*****g kidding me?!”.
The second cabaret sampling of the night is the energetic Maude Davey, who presented only one performance of her show, My Life in the Nude, in this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival. For those who missed out on this one-off show, they were treated to a fierce rendition of Patti Smith’s punk-hit Gloria by the multi-talented actor, writer and director who thrusts herself around the stage, hair wrapped up in a sci-fi-like coil while wearing what appeared to be a body-tight silicone bubble wrap from neck to toe.
Our last (and probably most impressive) variety performer of the night was the physically impressive Kween Kong. This towering drag delight has recently been crowned season 4 winner of Drag Nation and it’s not hard to see why. Beginning the performance with The Pussycat Dolls’ sampling of I Will Survive, her physical moves especially, had the audience in awe. From cartwheeling across stage in knee-high, latex boots to performing a ‘death drop’ which is part of the drag dance style known as ‘voguing’ (this is worth a search on Youtube), Kween Kong had jaws dropping around the room.
If Hans and the many entertaining variety guests have got you feeling alive you can party on as our favourite German hops behind the DJ desk spinning classic and current hits to keep you grooving all night long (well, ‘til two in the morning).
There’s never a boring moment in the Haus of Hans, and the 11 O’Clock Number provides a delicious sampling of entertaining acts from the buffet of cabaret darlings in Adelaide for the Cabaret Festival.
Reviewed by Georgina Smerd
Twitter: @Georgie_xox
Rating out of 5: 4 Varietal Fun
Season Ended
https://www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au/
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