CABARET FESTIVAL: Playing to Win

MELBOURNE CABARET FESTIVAL
Ash Flanders: Playing to Win
15 June 2016
Chapel off Chapel
to 19 June
melbournecabaret.com

Ash Flanders

It's nearly 10 years since I wrote one of my first reviews about a Fringe show with a young graduate called Ash Flanders.

And look where we are now!

My review is on The Age/SMH.

Mini review: Special Victim

Special Victim
Ash Flanders
14 February 2014
Hares and Hyenas
to 22 February
facebook.com

What do you do if you're scared you won't get enough Valentine's Day attention? Ash Flanders invited a bookshop full of friends, relatives and strangers to spend the evening with him to avoid seeming needy.

After the overflowing audience love of his first solo show, Negative Energy Inc, he got the gang (musician Dave Barklay and director Stephen Nicolazzo) back together to make a show for Adelaide's Feast festival last year. The result was Special Victim and Melbourne finally gets to cut that special love heart into their flesh this and next weekend at the ever-lovely Hares and Hyeneas bookshop in Fitzroy.

While Negative Energy Inc was about coping with a career that wasn't swimming in the big pool, things have changed for our Ash, but that hasn't changed his attitude or his obsession with special victims: those of the Law and Order kind and those who bring it on themselves.

It's not as revelatory as his first show, but there are still songs, wigs and stories about life with Heather (mum) and Daniel (partner) – and there are trips to Geelong and Adelaide that are as frightening as trips to Geelong and Adelaide can be.

And it is Ash, so it's fucking hilarious.

And he wears a white, be-sparkled jump suit and stilettos. What more do you need to know? Apart from it may be his last performance before being Hedda Gabbler at Belvoir Street in June.

Review: Negative Energy Inc 2

Midsumma 2012
Negative Energy Inc
Theatre Works
15 January 2012
Theatre Works
to 4 February
theatreworks.org.au

Being a white boy from Brighton is so damn hard that it's left Ash Flanders in a foul mood for 30-odd years. Like me, Ash generally hates things and people and is only happy when he's sharing the pain with a long rant and an obscure show tune. Negative Energy Inc is the stand up story of why he draws his mandala in black and it rightly left the opening night crowd stomping and cheering.

Negative Energy Inc started when Ash's boyfriend, Daniel, told him about The Secret. That's not some Midsumma-boy thing, I mean that book rich white women (and Oprah) love that's all about vision boards and controlling your life with a few nice thoughts. I hated it from the time a yoga teacher got into it and said that the only thing stopping me from holding standing bow for ever was my thoughts. She didn't put on 30 kg and grow a scabby trunk from her third eye, so I guess my thoughts still aren't good enough.

Ash's hate of The Secret made him think hard about why his acting career wasn't perfect – despite the love of every critic – and why he wasn't doing sold-out, critically acclaimed shows in festivals...

Shut up ... There's no way that's The Secret in action. Surely it would have happened if he hadn't thought about it.

The first season of Negative Energy Inc did sell out, I raved and his performance as the Horse Woman from Judge Judy became legend.

As Theatre Works insisted that it come to Midsumma, Stephen Nicolazzo came on board as director and helped shape the story to bring out its darker nature and bravely camp up accompanist Dave Barclay.

Ash creates an stab-in-the-heart antidote to harmlessly dull theatre as this laugh cos-it-hurts-to-cry show  tickles your brain 'til you're squealing and makes you want to share a bunk with him at Christian camp.

Ash is also very sensible (there's your quotable) and performing only on Sundays and Mondays; those nights when other shows (and theatre restaurants) have nights off, leaving us stuck with telly or thinking about going to the tennis – so there's no reason not to get yourself to St Kilda and dose up on his misery.

This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Photo by  ISKA Photography