Cabaret: Exactly Like You

Exactly Like You: The Magic of Dorothy Fields
book by Nick Maclaine and Izaak Lim
Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
Music by Cy Coleman, Jerome Kern and Jimmy McHugh
Directed by Michael Loney
Musical director Lochlan Brown
Performed by Ali Bodycoat, Ian Cross and Izaak Lim
Downstairs at the Maj
9 – 11 October, 2014

Three years ago the young writers and producers Nick Maclaine and Izaac Lim teamed with director Michael Loney in the snazzy Cole Porter biographical pastiche, You’ve Got That Thing.
They top it with Exactly Like You: The Magic of Dorothy Fields, a vivid memoir of one of the most durable and influential musical artists of the past century.

Cabaret: Christa Hughes

Beer Drinking Woman
Cabaret Soiree
Downstairs at the Maj
11 – 13 September

If I keep banging on about the glorious Christa Hughes, it might encourage more of you to savour her delicious and generous talents. And while her recent shows here were both stonkers, Beer Drinking Woman is her stonkiest, not least because it features many of her own funny, desperate songs.
Starting with her Cheap Thrills, an untidy taste of what’s to come, and the title track, a Memphis Slim blues from 1940 enlivened considerably by Hughes’s deeply impressive beer sculling and gargling expertise, the show range over the peaks and troughs of life on the bottle.
It's her last night in town tonight, and there are some tables left, I'm told. It will be a shame if you aren’t in them.  

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian

Amanda Harrison
Accompanied by Bev Kennedy
Downstairs at the Maj
21 - 23 August 2014
If you’re A Star, and used to performing on big stages in green make-up, the little cabaret downstairs at the Maj must be daunting.
To paraphrase the title of Amanda Harrison’s one-woman show, you’re right up close and very personal on that stage. If you wanted to be less naked, you’d take up stripping.
Harrison is first cab off the rank in a cabaret season at the Maj dominated by women, either as performers (including the not-to-be-missed Christa Hughes) or subject matter (Michael Griffiths’ take on Annie Lennox; the story of the lyricist Dorothy Fields). You could do much worse.

Link here to the complete review on The West Australian's website       

Cabaret: Christa Hughes

Neurotic Ladyland
Downstairs at the Maj

15 – 18 August, 2013

Christa Hughes, she with the voice that goes right up to her bum, returns to the basement cabaret at the Maj in great form.

Last time she was here was with her dad, the venerable boogie woogie pianist Dick Hughes, and a terrific set of dirty blues and drinking songs; this time around she’s brought the striking jazz pianist Leonie Cohen, drummer Jim Dunlop, a combustible collection of right-out-there songs and some truly gob-smacking costumes.

The result, Neurotic Ladyland, sometimes threatens to tip over the edge, but most of the risks Hughes takes pay off, and she’s always got that mighty voice of hers to straighten things up if they go haywire.

Cabaret: Two Weeks in Paris

Devised and performed by Analisa Bell

Musical director Mia Brine

With Rhoda Lopez and Laura Hopwood

Downstairs at the Maj

11 – 14 July 2012

You’ve got to hand it to Analisa Bell.

I doubt even her most ardent fans (and she seems to have plenty of them) would claim she’s got one of the great voices, or that the shows she puts together downstairs at the Maj have any particular insight or wit, but there’s something about her that wins you over.

Maybe it’s her utter lack of pretension, the obvious pleasure she gets in being able to do the things she does, her wide-eyed ordinariness, that does the trick. Maybe it’s also her canny instinct for her audience that you have to admire, even if you don’t share their enthusiasm.

But let’s be frank. This little show, inspired, it seems, by an unexceptional two weeks' holiday in Paris, is a barely sustainable vehicle for Bell, and nothing she does in performance lifts it above a sort of musical slide night.

Cabaret: Well Swung

 Devised by Mick Christo

Performed by Nick Christo and Chrystal de Grussa

Downstairs at the Maj

7 – 10 September, 2011

Cabaret is an intimate exchange between the performer and his audience, and when you're up that close and personal, it helps a great deal if you like the person you’re watching.

There are a number of ways this can happen, and the talent of the artist and the quality of the show are only two of them. In the case of Nick Christo’s Well Swung, the third, and so far best, of the Cabaret Soiree series downstairs at His Majesty’s Theatre, it was his generosity that won me over. It was apparent from moment one that Christo was going to struggle to tear our attention away from his side-kick, the riveting Chrystal de Grussa, but, instead of relegating her to supporting status, he gave her full rein, to the great benefit of the show.

Cabaret: Guy/Doll

Created by Nick MacLaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim

Directed by Nick MacLaine and Andrew Williams

Musical director Jangoo Chapkana

Performed by David Bowyer, Julia Jenkins, Corinne Cowling and Will O’Mahony, accompanied by Jangoo Chapkana

Downstairs at the Maj

27 – 30 June, 2012

The team of Nick Maclaine, Andrew Williams and Izaak Lim have become something of a local hit factory.

Their production for last year’s Cabaret Soiree series, the Cole Porter memoir You’ve Got That Thing was a rung or two above most of the entertainments staged during these seasons. Its script had substance, the music was elegantly performed and they wisely brought in the experienced and perceptive Michael Loney to direct.

Loney is not back this time, and the script has been reduced to occasional patter between songs. Guy/Doll suffers badly for both absences.

I wanted to like Guy/Doll much more than I did, and I believe its creators are capable of much better things. Choosing songs because there is a reason, rather than merely an excuse, to do them would be a good place to start.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian    

Cabaret: Opening Doors

Music and lyrics by Matthew Robinson


Featuring Lucy Durack & Matthew Robinson

Downstairs at the Maj

20 - 23 June 2012

Lucy Durack

It’s a self-evident but nonetheless thought-provoking truth that if you’re one in a million, there are thirteen hundred of you in China.

It kept bouncing around my head while homecoming princess Lucy Durack, she of Wicked (and soon-to-be of Legally Blonde the Musical) fame, worked through songs from the repertoire of her friend, collaborator and fellow WAAPA graduate Matthew Robinson.

Their short, seriously sold-out stand opens this year’s Cabaret Soiree season downstairs at His Majesty’s Theatre.

Link here to the complete review in The West Australian