Brisbane Festival 2019: Wrap of the hits and misses of this year’s event

The verdict is in on the most accolade-worthy, the most awe-inspiring and even the most awkward shows at Brisbane Festival 2019, but special mention must also go to some of the most distasteful acts the arts and theatre extravaganza has ever seen.

THERE were some hiccups as usual but Brisbane Festival has pretty well done it again.

For three weeks the city has been pumping with music and theatrical events from the grand to the intimate.

Artistic director David Berthold’s fifth and final festival paves the way nicely for his successor Louise Bezzina, who made the Gold Coast a cultural destination running the Bleach Festival there.

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So as she prepares to take over, we look at the best and worst of this year:

Brisbane Festival: Invisible Cities

MOST UNLIKELY SUCCESS

A show based on a novel they said could never be adapted for the stage, presented in a disused warehouse at Yeerongpilly, didn’t exactly sound like a recipe for success. But Invisible Cities turned out to be a risk that paid of with thousands attending. This collaboration between British outfit 59 Productions, dance company Rambert and the Brisbane Festival shouldn't have worked but it did. It was spectacular and inspiring and a night out with a difference. Considering the fact it hadn’t even been created when artistic director David Berthold booked it, this was a risk that paid off. Big time.

The bushfire crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time for Fire Gardens.

MOST DISASTROUS EVENT:

Fire Gardens was supposed to be one of the centrepieces of this year’s festival, lighting up the City Botanic Gardens in fiery splendour at the height of the bushfire emergency. Wrong!

The folks behind it, Compagnie Carabosse from France would have been devastated that it didn’t happen but there was nothing anyone could do. When we heard it was merely postponed we were sceptical, and then it was announced that it was cancelled altogether. Figures are being bandied around as to how much the festival lost. Certainly it was hundreds of thousands of dollars but it has even been suggested that the cancellation cost the festival as much as $1 million. Talk about bad timing.

MOST INSPIRING SHOW

For my money, the most inspiring act this year was Michael Falzon’s star turn in Swing on This – when the popular Aussie singer took to the stage in The Courier-Mail Spiegeltentsans hair, fresh from a round of chemotherapy. The popular 47 year-old singer and musical theatre star’s world was rocked after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer earlier this year and he has been undergoing treatment since then. But nothing was going to stop him performing with his buddies Ben Mingay, Matt Lee and Luke Kennedy. Guts effort Michael. Respect.

MOST UNCOMFORTABLE SHOW

Dancenorth's Communal Table may go down as the event that made people feel the most uncomfortable. Our reviewer Gerard Cockburn said if the aim of this multi-sensory happening was to do just that, it worked. “Upon arrival, we were all forced to hand over our phones, we couldn’t sit with the people we had come to the show with and we had to walk into the performance space with our eyes closed,” he wrote. Cockburn said the dinner-turned-performance-turned-audience participation event was confronting, a tad lame and pretentious. Are you sorry you missed that one? Didn’t think so.

Blanc De Blanc performers Caitlin Tomson-Moylan, Tuedon Ariri, Skylar Benton (Maid), Melanie Hawkins, Remi Martin Lenz, Ugi Otgonbayar (contortionist) and Cristina Gatti. Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

MOST DISTASTEFUL SHOW

I don’t care where you come from, masturbating on stage is not acceptable. And we had that occurring in two shows at this year’s Brisbane Festival. In my review of Blanc De Blanc Encore, I wrote that a simulated masturbation scene went on for way too long and was the only segment I thought should be dropped. When my colleague Michelle Collins went to review Brisbane performer Annie Lee’s show, she was shocked to discover there was masturbating in that one too. What the hell? But apparently people took Lee’s show Pawn Again Christian, part of the Theatre Republic program, in their stride with no gasps of horror. “Nor did they gasp when she simulated a Catholic priest masturbating in the confessional,” Collins wrote. Go figure.

MOST UNDERRATED SHOW

South African Isango Ensemble’s SS Mendi: Dancing The Death Drill was one of the festival openers and I understand it didn’t get as big an audience as it deserved. Maybe a theatrical performance about a maritime disaster just didn’t sound like fun but I saw this show and it was quite brilliant. And it was infused with humour by this vibrant company which kicked the festival off in fine form. Maybe it was all too early? Anyway, I hope they come back sometime because they really were very good.

MOST SUCCESSFUL SHOW

How do they do it? Yet again Strut & Fret Production House triumphed with their annual offering. This year it was Blanc De Blanc Encore and despite having an MC who exposed his testicles for way too long this show pulled them in, if you’ll pardon the expression. The figures aren't in yet but we hear it set a new attendance record for The Courier-Mail Spiegeltent and was the festival’s most popular show. In fact they had to bring in extra seating to accommodate the adoring crowds who didn’t seem to mind the testicular confrontation. In fact everyone had a ball, so to speak.

MOST POPULAR FREEBIE

Each night during the festival thousands gathered at the festival hub, Treasury Brisbane Arcadia, for the two nightly showings of River of Light, the spectacular free water and light show. That boosted attendances there to 400,000 people even before Sunsuper Riverfire. In fact some people saw that and nothing else at the festival which was fine by artistic director David Berthold who wanted people to be free to enjoy Arcadia and River of Light even if nothing else that grabbed them.