Love, Lust and Lager
Funkier Than Alice
La Boehme
Season closed


La Boehme was where I encountered, experienced and will never forget the formidable quartet that is Funkier Than Alice. If you can't make their show this time round pencil them in whenever they return because they are most emotionally and intellectually awe inspiring cabaret act ever.

In two acts Judy Stubbs, Nicole Murphy, Shalmalee Palekar and Cellist Rita Woolhouse twist and turn songs familiar and not in ways that gives them a new vibrancy, humour and pathos with the subject of love and lust in the frame.

In the first act, it seemed as if Nick Cave had been split into four and transformed into women, so dark, brooding and intense, heady red wine like were the songs.

From the witty take on Marilyn Monroe's Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend transformed into A Bra Is A Girl's Best Friend to the most intoxicating rendition of Kate Bush's Breathing, Funkier Than Alice hold you in a state of constant surprise and wonder. Their voices, so disciplined, so sublime, so strong and subtle in the interweaving of harmonies are to die for.

No sooner are you begging for more of the same from Act one than Act two changes to tack to questioning Australian culture. Their renditions of Men At Work's Downunder and Midnight Oil's Beds Are Burning in particular show off their smarts, turning these songs into questions themselves and as for Palekar's rendition of Bed's Are Burning focusing on the word 'how (can we sleep)' - indeed!

David O'Brien