Arts news: Crazy Rich Asians star brings wedding show to Adelaide
One of the stars of hit film Crazy Rich Asians is bringing her new wedding show to the OzAsia Festival.
SA News
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Crazy Rich Asians star Koh Chieng Mun is inviting Adelaide audiences to take part in a wedding banquet at this year’s OzAsia Festival.
The 63-year-old Singaporean actor and comedian, who played the mother of Awkwafina’s character in the hit 2018 film, will perform in Por Por’s Big Fat Surprise Wedding with audience members as the guests.
Tickets for the show by Singapore Repertory Theatre will include a four-course Indian meal, as Koh plays a spirited 70-year-old whose groom remains a mystery … even to her family.
OzAsia’s new artistic producer Joon-Yee Kwok said other program highlights include A Passage to Bollywood, which blends classic and contemporary dance routines by renowned Bollywood film choreographer Ashley Lobo.
“There’s lots of incredible dancing, many costume changes – it’s a very spectacular production with a really large cast,” Ms Kwok said.
Also coming to the festival, which runs from October 24 to November 10, are Filipino drag queen and TikTok superstar Taylor Sheesh, deaf British-Japanese dancer Chisato Minamimura, and The Story of Chi by Tasmania’s Terrapin Puppet Theatre.
Tickets at ozasiafestival.com.au
REVIEW: THE QUESTIONS
State Theatre Company SA
Space Theatre, until August 17
There may have already been Covid musical parodies but State Theatre Company’s premiere Australian work The Questions is a fully-fleshed, laugh-out-loud, insightful look at finding love in lockdown.
From its opening number, writer Van Badham and composer Richard Wise make it clear that their show is really about longing to find connection in a world which is increasingly fractured and isolated.
It is feel-good fun for its non-stop, 90-odd minutes as Badham manages to keep cleverly delaying the inevitable breakdown of the characters’ defences, while diverting to take the audience down some deeply emotional cul-de-sacs.
Actors Charles Wu and Chaya Ocampo are magnificent, in complete comic contrast as personalities but gorgeous harmony as vocalists, as the unnamed resident and visitor whose disastrous first blind date is extended indefinitely by an order to “shelter in place”.
Wu’s resident is an uptight neat-freak with apparently misogynistic attitudes, while Ocampo’s free-spirited visitor has a degree in gender studies, making for much chalk-and-cheese conflict.
Jeremy Allen’s set is an enviable modern apartment overlooking a high-rise skyline, which resembles a Jeffrey Smart painting by day but illuminates to create added depth and dimension by night.
Wise’s score reveals his love of waltzes and lullabies, but is punctuated by punchy patter numbers with rapid-fire lyrics and nods to vaudeville and G&S, as well as the occasional – and potential hit – grunge-punk rocker.
This accompaniment is provided by a three-piece band – Sam Lau, James Bannah Jr and Jason Mack – who perform behind the double-glazed glass (which ingeniously doubles as a sound baffle) of a neighbouring apartment as they hilariously watch the relationship unfold.
If you need somewhere to shelter in place this winter, there could be no better place to do it than watching this most welcome addition to the Australian musical theatre canon.
Patrick McDonald
WINERY UNVEILS MUSIC FESTIVAL ACTS
Hit remixer Cyril will heat up the crowd at this year’s Handpicked Festival at Langhorne Creek in a 10th anniversary line-up which includes headliners The Jungle Giants, Matt Corby, Angus and Julia Stone, and Pete Murray.
Folk duo The Dreggs, Maori brothers band Coterie and singer-songwriter Azure Ryder will also take the stage at Lake Breeze Wines on November 9.
Handpicked creator Kate Cooper said the festival returned last year after a pause during the Covid pandemic and being forced to cancel because of extreme weather in 2022.
“After not being able to see The Dreggs perform with us during the freak storm, we couldn’t be more excited,” Ms Cooper said of the duo’s return.
Cyril Riley’s remix of the Suzi Quatro duet Stumblin’ In went viral on TikTok last year and was followed on the charts by his mix of Disturbed’s version of The Sound of Silence.
Brisbane indie rock band The Jungle Giants have had more than half a billion streams worldwide, while siblings Angus and Julia Stone recently reunited after seven years to record their new album.
Bookings at handpickedfestival.com
ROCKER’S BRIEF ENCOUNTER WITH ADELAIDE’S OWN GIRLS ON THE AVENUE
Australian singer and songwriter Richard Clapton is sharing his special connection to Adelaide in the lead up to his gig at Woodville Concert Town Hall on August 2.
Clapton, who also worked as a producer with INXS, penned and produced his own hits such as Capricorn Dancer and Girls on the Avenue.
And the latter chart topper has a special connection to Adelaide where it got its “reputation”.
“When Girls on the Avenue was No. 1, I was playing The Mediterranean on Hindley Street and a bunch of girls burst into the dressing room after the gig proclaiming ‘’bout time someone wrote an anthem for us!’,” Clapton recalls, adding: “I was perplexed because the song is literally about a couple of girls who lived on The Avenue in Rose Bay in Sydney. My roadies kept nudging me and giggling ‘these are Hindley Street working girls!’. My manager overheard this and decided that ‘sex sells’ so this urban myth has gone on for years.”
Adelaide seems to be a place where things happen to Clapton, who says a not-so-funny thing happened on the way back from the theatre in our town.
“When I returned from living in Los Angeles in the early ‘80s I brought a top LA guitarist back to Australia,” he says.
“We were playing (a gig) one night, and the band were in the car waiting to go to dinner.
“We put it in reverse, and suddenly there were a lot of cracks and pops, and about a dozen plain clothes police in the car park,
“Two drug dealers burst out of a room on the second floor (of a hotel); there were a hail of bullets and lots of shouting, and one of my roadies came out his door from the room above and was instantly tackled to the ground by another roadie lest they were hit by a storm of bullets.”
Clapton, who has been on the music scene for more than 50 years, answered a few questions for us:
Your favourite song to perform?
Blue Bay Blues, Capricorn Dancer and I Am an Island
Favourite cover?
Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young
Best moment as a producer and who for?
INXS “Underneath The Colours” (1981)
Something about you that you have never told a reporter before …
This is not a wig! This is my real hair!
What can people expect from the show in Adelaide?
I have recorded about 264 songs, so with each new album release the set list gets harder and harder. There is obviously a time limit for these gigs, so I have to squeeze in as much as I can and try and leave a bit of room for new material, but it is a squeeze. However, if you want to know whether I play all my “hits”, the answer is yes.
Tickets to Richard Clapton's August 2 show at Woodville Town Hall area available at thebbiesounds.com.au
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Originally published as Arts news: Crazy Rich Asians star brings wedding show to Adelaide
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