Review: After the Flood by Mikelangelo & the BSG

After the Flood
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
7 May 2016
mikelangelo.net.au

Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen. Photo by  Tim Chmielewski  

Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen may have formed in Canberra 15 years ago, but their histories and song lines reach back in time and across continents.

After the Flood is their fourth album. Influenced by a residency in Cooma with Big hART, they tell their stories about coming to Australia from Europe in the 1950s, living in Cooma and working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

Today, Cooma is a stop before the snow fields, but there’s still the avenue of 27 flags representing the nationalities of the people who worked on the scheme. And it’s not difficult to imagine a town of 24-hour music and dance that balanced the back-breaking, life-risking work of tunneling through the mountains and bringing power to a nation. And I know why the best road-trip pie I’ve had was in Cooma.

The gentlemen, who share lead vocals on this album, find the hearts and souls of the migrants and refugees who made a home in mountains so far from where they were born. And they bring the music that travelled with them to find a new space for their extraordinary blend of polka, waltz, ballad, and rock and roll that always has room for an accordion or musical saw.

In Melbourne, the album launched in the lavish gold time-warp of the Thornbury Theatre; a venue that could have been built and decorated by the gentlemen in another time line.

Always in character, but never distanced from their audience, their mix of cabaret and theatre is a genre that’s owned and defined by this group.

While After the Flood brings a time and place to visceral life, the tour has a second act with the favourite songs that won the lust and wonder of their dedicated fans and unleashes the unpredictable passion of the magnificent Mikelangelo.

MELBOURNE FESTIVAL: Masquerade

Masquerade
Griffin Theatre Company & State Theatre Company of South Australia
Presented by Melbourne Festival
24 October 2015
The Sumner
to 25 October
www.festival.melbourne

Masquerade. Nathan O'Keeefe Photo by Brett Boardman

Kate Mulvany’s gorgeous adaption of Kit Williams's picture book Masquerade celebrates why picture books and stories are so important to children and why whenever a child asks you to read them a book, you stop what you are doing and read them a book. You’ll never regret that choice.

At today's post-show Q and A, Mulvany talked about how Masquerade was the distraction she needed when she was in hospital with cancer as a child.  She want on to explain how when, as an adult, she finally contacted Williams, she flew to his UK home where he served her rabbit pie and gave her the rights to his book – on the condition that her story be a part of the new story.

Published in 1979, his book is about the Moon (Kate Cheel) sending Jack Hare (Nathan O’Keefe) on a quest to deliver a gold amulet to her love, the Sun (Mikelangelo, in the dazzling role he was born to play). But what made this book insanely popular is that each page is filled with riddles and clues that identify the spot where the real gold amulet was buried. It was found in the early 1980s, but possibly by accident. And the lack of amulet doesn’t make the riddles and clues any more fascinating today.

At the heart of this adaption is the story about Joe (Louis Fontain), a child with cancer, and Tessa (Helen Dalimore), his mum who needs hope  – "Mum, why do you let them do that to me?" – as she shares the book with her son. With original music by Mikelangleo and Pip Branson, performed by the ever-divine Black Sea Gentlemen, their story continues after the last page with an adventure that lets Joe and Tessa help Jack Hare to revist Penny Pockets (Zindzi Okenyo) and the book characters and learn why The Man Who Plays The Music That Makes The World Go Around (Branson) sometimes stops.

With a design by Anna Cordingly that’s inspired by the book but created for the mood and complex delight of this version, direction by Sam Strong and Lee Lewis that never lets the story drop and always keeps hope, this is the sort of theatre that promises children that theatre is wonderful and reminds grown ups that a story about love is always the right choice.

Today (Sunday) is the last day of the Melbourne Festival. It’s been amazing and I can’t think of a better way to end it than to see one of the last two performances of Masquerade.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

Star of the Brighton Fringe

Wonderful news from the Brighton Fringe festival with the announcement of the festival's awards.

The Brighton Fringe (the UK's Brighton) is one of the largest festivals with over 750 events and 4000ish performers. I haven't been, but it reminds me of the Adelaide Fringe.

Best Cabaret was won by our own (and so very loved) Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen.

And the Star of the Festival award – STAR of the Festival, what a brilliant award name – went to Mikelangelo. With his usual charm, style and handsomeness, he said he was "Very chuffed!" and shared his very beautiful award with us.

But will he sacrifice a pair of shoes or tin of pomade to fit it in his baggage?

Dead Men Tell A Thousand Tales

Dead Men Tell A Thousand Tales
Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen
Sunday 26 July 2009
Toff in Town

If I ever go all Big Love and choose a polyandrous lifestyle, it will be with Mikelangelo and The Black Sea Gentlemen. In the meantime, the Gentlemen have been sharing their irresistible dark love around our townships in Dead Men Tell A Thousand Tales.

A night with the Gentlemen is rarely forgotten, as they continue to seduce the most hardened of souls with their deft combination of musical finesse, magic realism and perfectly coiffed hair. This new collection of tales and songs visits some shadowy places as the Gents taunt and defy death, but Mikelangelo loves his audience (and his Gentlemen) far too much to let us dwell too long in the darkness – and, anyway, he doesn’t like the attention to wander too far from his own humble magnificence.

It's been nine years since Mikelangelo began his collection of suave gentlemen musicians. His criteria being that they too had fled a Baltic nation, owned at least a fedora, a cravat and a fine suit – slightly less flashy than his own – and were sustained by a mix of testosterone, hope and a belief that originality will overcome populist and mundane offerings. (If Matt Preston were a musician, he surely would have joined the troupe.)

The early days found them crooning on street corners and any bar that offered them free shandies, but the Gentlemen now spend many months away from our shores, as distant entertainment venues demand they leave their antipodean home to present their exquisite musical offerings to the world, for there can be no other quintet of guitar, accordion, violin, clarinet and double bass that could ever be their equal.

If you missed the current tour, you could don your finest livery and follow them to the UK, or buy a copy of their new CD also called 'Dead Men Tell A Thousand Tales'. It is their most thematically complete recording that brings a complexity and maturity to the music that necessarily takes second place to the theatrics of the live show – and Mikelangelo promises that each shiny disk contains a perfect imprint of their five souls.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.

Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen: From Here To There

MIAF 2006
From Here To There
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen
26 October 2006
The Famous Speigeltent, Melbourne

In 2001 I noticed a dubious group of be-suited gentlemen roaming the Saturday markets in the far land of Canberra. For their musical antics I threw them some spare coins. They continue to be led around the globe by the enigmatic Mikelangelo. Last night I saw the Gentlemen in their true home - the Speigeltent. No longer begging for change, their sold out performance was greeted with well deserved cheering, foot stamping and hollering.

Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen’s new show, From Here to There, proved a hit at the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe. Their original music, unique characters and nefarious comedy makes for some damn fine cabaret.

If you are familiar with the Gentlemen’s antics, this show is full of new material, without forsaking the old favourites. Watching members of the audience mouthing, “sodomy is not just for animals” was a highlight. Nearly as high as Mikelangelo’s pants and his newly acquired bathing costume.

The increased theatricality of this show, allows each gentlemen to display their own unusual talents. The Great Muldavio’s taxidermy monologue is not easily forgotten and Guido Libido will have you yearning for the simple delights of the silent cinema.

But do not fear - Mikelangelo does not let the greatness of his gentlemen detract from his own greatness. Mikelangelo is pure charm, mixed with mystery, a dash of macabre and a hint of obscene. He also writes the music, which you will find yourself humming for days after - if you don’t immediately buy a CD.

I have seen no one comparable to the Black Sea Gentlemen, but they do remind me of The Tiger Lillies. Even if Mikelangleo and Martyn Jacques do sing at opposing ends of the vocal spectrum, and the Gentlemen are slightly more gentlemanly with their choice of subject matter. 'Formidable Marinade' is a veritable romantic song next to 'Masturbating Jimmy'. (I have a Mikelangelo song chosen if I ever have a wedding and a Tiger Lillies’ track if I ever have a funeral.)

Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen really do get better and better each time I see them. From Here to There has struck an ideal balance between structure and improvisation, with stunning music and eye-wiping comedy.

There are few opportunities to see the show in Australia this year, but 2007 promises more visits around the country. If you haven’t spent a night of pleasure with the Gentlemen, don’t miss them.


This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com