Steven Oliver: Bigger and Blacker | Adelaide Fringe 2022 review

Steven Oliver is a minority within a minority, and you can add to that an even smaller group: the spectacularly talented.

Steven Oliver - Bigger and Blacker. Picture: Dylan Evans

Steven Oliver: Bigger and Blacker

Cabaret

Rating: *****
Melba Spiegeltent at Gluttony

Until March 20

Steven Oliver returns with the very personal show he premiered at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in 2019.

There’s more cabaret royalty on stage as he’s joined by accompanist Michael Griffiths. It’s a great partnership.

The best cabaret exposes the artist’s soul and this is the full monty, though Oliver only takes his jacket off.

It starts with Oliver as the gay Aboriginal drag queen or “Faboriginal” twerking artiste.

He’s a minority within a minority, and you can add to that an even smaller group: the spectacularly talented.

Oliver reveals he was at his most depressed working on the TV sketch show Black Comedy, the classic broken-hearted clown.

The songs and routines are all his own work, a deeply felt catalogue of his life which he delivers with passion.

His self-aware self care is a lesson to all. Gay or straight, black, white or somewhere on the spectrum, he has something special for every one to take away from the night … including a tea towel for sale at the merch stand.