Jeffrey! â the musical, and other satirical delights
By Terry ClintonSYDNEY â Obviously, Jeff Kennett was born to sing and what better way to pick a new president for the Republic of Australia than with an eisteddfod? At least that's the way Trio Gusto see it.
The Wollongong-based ensemble with a razor-sharp line in musically-guided political satire returns to Sydney with its Cabaret Politique on Saturday, July 24 for a single performance at the Tom Mann Theatre, 136 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills.
In a show honed at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the trio of four â Judith Stubbs, Nicole Murphy, Cameron Sharp and pianist Philip Roberts â proves that a social justice agenda can include plenty of laughs.
The show has been updated since single-handedly pioneering an unofficial Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Fringe Festival in February (it didn't make the official program after being deemed not mainstream enough). Contemporary concerns now are more in the spotlight, from labour relations and unemployment to multicultural issues and indigenous rights, in an all-singing, all dancing kind of way.
Down at the casino, Jeffrey Not the Boy from Oz gives birth to a new g-strung sensation, while elsewhere Joan Sutherland matches lungs with Amanda Vanstone in the torch song department and Pauline Hanson adopts a wistful tone for I Still Call Ipswich Home.
The Preamble Eisteddfod will take care of the presidential selection process, while who better to stage this year's Social Justice Awards than Con-Glom Media International (a Kerry Packdog/Rupert Murder corporation).
The show, starting at 8pm, is a fundraiser for Sydney's Solidarity Choir, which for 12 years has sung at hundreds of public venues and demonstrations in support of human rights, social justice and the environment.
Tickets, available at the door, are $15/$10 concession. For more information
about tickets, call 9555 7156. For more information about Trio Gusto, call
(02) 4283 5224.