Belly
laughingly funny, naughty, quirky, breath-taking and absolutely spectacular. (Review
by Keith Millar)
The
final show I saw at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown this year was
appropriately named Au Revoir.
It was
billed as a cirque, comedy, dance, cabaret, vaudeville show, and it was
fabulously entertaining. Belly laughingly funny, naughty, quirky, breath-taking
and absolutely spectacular.
Au Revoir is the latest creation by the award-winning
Follow Spot Productions team who also brought the Big Brother series and last year’s top-selling Fringe production,
and Silver Ovation Award winner, Bon Soir
to the festival. This team has developed a massive following and the 270-seater
Kingswood Theatre was filled to capacity.
Featured
artists were Vanessa Harris, Ash Searle, Brad Searle, Nicole van den Berg, Liam
McDermott and Jane De Wet. Direction was by the enormously talented Vanessa
Harris.
Au Revoir was awarded a 2017 Standard bank Ovation
Award during the festival.
Young
singer songwriter Liam McDermott is relatively new on the scene. He is a
multi-disciplined artist in areas of art, music and drama and is blessed with a
wonderful voice. He provided the serious moments in the show with songs like
Lenard Cohen’s Hallelujah and Cher’s Bang, Bang (My baby Shot Me Down).
Vanessa
Harris was an irresistibly naughty ringmaster/compere. Dressed like a burlesque
showgirl in stockings and garter belt and mini, and with a sexy French ascent
she sang, danced and teased chosen audience members mercilessly.
The Big
Brothers, Ash and Brad Searle demonstrated their usual brand of highly physical
and breath-taking contemporary dance. It was most definitely a case of “don’t
try this at home”.
The girl
dancers, Nicole van den Berg and Jane De Wet were beautifully athletic,
co-ordinated and very sexy.
The only
problem with the show was that it was quite poorly-lit and it was difficult to
see the performers at times. It may have been a technical problem as a
technician rushed to the front on a few occasions to fiddle with equipment. He
never got it fixed.
That
having being said, this show has so much going for it that it hardly mattered
at all and the audience were kept enthralled from beginning to end.
After
the performance, the entire cast danced in a conga line to the foyer where they
interacted, signed autographs and took selfies with the audience. A nice touch.
– Keith Millar
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