END OF THE ADELAIDE FRINGE (for now)

It’s the end of the show.  Final curtain calls. House lights on. Take a bow, Adelaide. One summer month when the city comes super-alive for audiences and performers alike. With over 1200 shows, record ticket sales and four weeks of perfect weather this was surely the best Fringe ever. Streets road-blocked off for mass al fresco dining. Laneways strewn with pop-up bars. Street entertainers on every corner. The sudden flurry of activity from the silent disco walking tour passing by. Pubs, cafes, halls, churches, open spaces, even private dwellings, and a car all transformed into Fringe venues. The major performance hubs: the Garden of Unearthly Delights, Gluttony, the German Club, the Royal Croquet Club. And the summer, gone. Actors remove your grease paint. Acrobats nurse your injuries. Burlesque dancers put your clothes back on. Comedians return to human observation. Artists seek new visions. Musicians dream of further glories. The last vestiges of “bumping out” vying with the last scattered days of heat, as autumn and the big sleep take hold and life returns to so-called normal.

Take a bow, Adelaide… Best Fringe ever

Personal highlights were the crowd-pleasing Choir of Man, John Hinton’s Scientrilogy -“peer-reviewed musical theatre,” Madchester rave tribute We are Ian and contemporary colonial folk Bush Gothic, all award winning. Also the fabulously soulful  Teskey Brothers, Carla Lippis’ naughty Midnight Marauders, the scientifically surreal Nikola and I and so many other great shows, all reviewed here:

INDIGO’S PIANOLYMPICS – CHOIR OF MAN – DAVE AND MIKE DO CASH AND DYLAN – LORD OF THE STRINGS! RETURNS

ALBERT EINSTEIN: RELATIVITIVELY SPEAKING-A HISTORY OF EARLY BLUES-BEST OF EDINBURGH CABARET

A NIGHT OF CREAM – ADELAIDE SONGS THE DIRECTOR’S CUT – BELLY OF A DRUNKEN PIANO -ROCK ORCHESTRA UNDER THE STARS

WE ARE IAN – TESKEY BROTHERS – CARLA LIPPIS- GYPSY FIRE

BUSH GOTHIC – MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS -BUTTERFLY: THE JOURNEY CONTINUES – ROUGE

ALBERT EINSTEIN RELATIVITIVELY SPEAKING – KEVIN QUANTUM: ANTIGRAVITY – NIKOLA AND I

and of course the terrible stand up comedy show that doesn’t deserve a mention.

Exhaustion may have set in, but it’s physical not cultural. Now  it’s time for the French Film Festival and the ongoing delights of autumn: red wine, open fires, fall foliage, friendship, and still a favourite place to be.