Foyer voyeurs at L’Hotel for French flavour at Cabaret Festival

L’Hotel is singer-songwriter Brendan Maclean’s latest collaboration with director Craig Ilott and the team behind hit Fringe show Velvet.

L'Hotel star Brendan Maclean’s bellhop character with circus performers are Bri Emrich and Lexi Strumolo. Picture: Matt Turner.

Things are not always what they appear to be inside the walls of L’Hotel says Brendan Maclean, whose bellhop character will usher audiences through a luxurious world of French-flavoured fantasy and spectacle at this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

“As I suspected when I was first told he was a bellhop, he’s much more than that,” Maclean explains.

“He runs the place, and he’s the reason that performances are put on. He’s kind of creating his own world – L’Hotel is his heart and his imagination come to life.

“You explore whether or not that has been a good thing, or a dark thing, or a light thing for him through the cliental that turn up and the workers and the staff within L’Hotel.

“He’s a bit short-staffed though, so he is a jack of all trades. He’s checking you in, and taking your bag up, and possibly playing the piano for you … as (acrobats) Bri and Lexi are helping people into their baths!”

L’Hotel is singer-songwriter Maclean’s latest collaboration with director Craig Ilott and musical supervisor Joe Accaria, the team behind the smash hit Fringe show Velvet.

L'Hotel star Brendan Maclean’s bellhop character with circus performers are Bri Emrich and Lexi Strumolo at Apoteca Bar and Restaurant. Picture: Matt Turner.

“Imagine you are entering into a luxurious French hotel, and you have got on your glad rags,” Ilott explains.

“There is a black tie dress code and you are sipping on fine French champagne and nibbling beautiful cheeses – then you are captivated by this world of performance and music and burlesque.

“When you first enter into the space, it is like a theatrical abstraction of a fine French foyer. The world is being punctuated by performance, so initially it is an immersive experience.

“Then we transform into what I would call a full show mode, and Brendan’s character really guides us into the darker, more secret part of the night, behind closed doors.”

As with the voyage of self-discovery and flamboyant emancipation that Maclean’s character went through in Velvet, so L’Hotel’s bellhop bares his soul through French song, rather than dialogue.

“He’s kind of like a Puck character, to guide people deeper into that world,” he says.

“It’s not just about the hotel, it’s also about the fantasies that my character has inside his mind and what it has meant to run the place by himself.

“That came with really getting to know the songs, more than just phonetically, and the journey they are taking me on.”

Phonetics and phrasing are still important though, and to that end Maclean has been “deep diving” into the lyrics with French-born former Cabaret Festival artistic director Julia Zemiro.

“Out of the good will of her heart, she took me out for a coffee and has recorded these voice notes as well, so I’m going through those and getting the final touches on my accent down,” he says.

“I’ve just popped in a new track as well, which I am very excited about – I’m translating a beautiful song that people may have heard from The Great Gatsby soundtrack by Lana Del Rey, called Young and Beautiful.

“We were just missing an element in the show and couldn’t quite put our finger on it … I just sat at the piano and had a play, and Craig Ilott was like: ‘Well, what’s that?’ We played it out and massaged it and extrapolated as you do in these development periods for new shows.”

L’Hotel was originally conceived to be part of a French festival program, which was cancelled during last year’s pandemic, before coming to the Cabaret Festival.

L'Hotel star Brendan Maclean’s bellhop character with circus performers are Bri Emrich and Lexi Strumolo. Picture: Matt Turner.

“We were able to take advantage of those trying times,” says director and co-creator Ilott.

“Where other people were saying ‘run for the hills’, they were generous enough to say let’s take this opportunity to further develop it.

“Certainly it had to be presented to Alan (Cumming, this year’s artistic director) – if he didn’t like it, it wasn’t going to be in, obviously. Alan, thankfully, really, really loved it.”

Despite the difficulties Covid-19 still presents for international travel and touring, Ilott has managed to assemble a star-studded cast from around the globe, including French chanteuse Caroline Nin, who has been a regular attraction at past Cabaret Festivals.

“Caroline Nin is quite an icon … that’s just opened my mind up to the world of cabaret, and the history of it,” says Maclean, who is also a fan of the show’s UK aerialist Beau Sargent.

“He uses things that you wouldn’t expect him to do aerials on. In this one – I hope I’m not giving too much away – he’s performing on a whole luggage trolley that will be swinging up in the air.

“Then there is Bentley Rebel … a gentleman who is about six-foot-five, but when you put him in heels he’s about seven foot (213cm). He’ll be doing some pretty incredible burlesque performances – he’s an icon of the Atlanta and New York burlesque scene.”

Also joining the line-up is Russian-born contemporary circus artist and innovator Masha Terentieva.

“It’s kind of twisted cabaret – I won’t give away her routine, because it’s just awe-inspiring – but it’s something I have never seen before in my decade of cabaret,” Maclean says.

L’Hotel, Space Theatre, June 11-20. Book at adelaidecabaretfestival.com.au