Overview
Sydney Festival's in full swing, with sell-out crowds filing into festival venues citywide, from Carriageworks to Riverside Theatres and back to the Festival Village and the mighty Spiegeltents. After heartily feasting on Messina's carnival delights, we're heading into the last legs of the festival for 2016. Don't get to the end of January and miss the whole damn thing, these five shows are some of the most talked-about events of the program — there's just a few tickets left. Get 'em.
Top image: Prudence Upton.
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If Morissey was Mexican, his tunes would sound pretty much like you’re going to hear them at this show. Yep, as you can guess by the name, this is a Mexican act performing the Morissey songbook.
But it’s not just any old band, it’s seven of the best musos in Mexico performing arrangements by Calexico’s Sergio Mendoza, all in Spanish. Expect every Latin rhythm you can think of — from ranchera, mariachi and danzón to mambo, norteño and cha cha cha.
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Like many a great singer-songwriter before her (cue Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits), Kate Tempest began as a dealer in words. In 2013, she became the first ever person under 40 to win the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in poetry.
In 2014, she attracted a Mercury Prize nomination for her hip hop-driven debut album, Everybody Down. Now she’s published a novel. Billy Bragg loves her. Chuck D is a fan. Check out her fresh, authentic freestyling for yourself.
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It’s hard to imagine a better show at the Spiegeltent this year than Meow Meow’s, in which cabaret’s international woman of mystery sings about her quest for love while gabbing away like the third member of Ab Fab.
Meow was created by Melissa Gray, one-time law student and graduate of WAAPA. She’s appeared in the West End, at Bowie’s High Line Festival, and on the ABC in their recent The Divorce. She co-starred in that made-for-TV opera with Katie Miller-Heidke, who has provided songs for The Little Mermaid, as have the likes of Megan Washington and Amanda Palmer.
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Picture yourself in a karaoke bar in Phnom Penh. Now imagine a couple of psychedelic rockers turning up and blowing the joint away with their mixed bag of grooves — from old school Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll to soul. Now you’re getting close to The Cambodian Space Project experience.
Led by muso Julien Poulson and vocalist Channthy Kak, the band revives Cambodia’s popular music history — which Pol Pot nearly wiped out altogether — through both classics and originals.
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This tell-all is certainly one of the most daring performances on offer at Sydney Festival this year. The show stars a group of Sydney’s local over 65s, who will share their wisdom and real-life stories of romance and sex.
Created by the team behind Haircuts by Children (which showed at Sydney Festival back in 2008), this show will be packed with plenty of laughs and tender moments for adults of all ages.