Ukulele Death Squad – Fifty Shades of Uke

When the venue you’ve chosen is an atmospheric old cinema in a leafy established suburb of Adelaide, the audience is already probably quite different to your Grace Emily or WOMADelaide crowd, and by different I mean more comfortable sitting down for an hour than standing and dancing.

For some, this may be the only way they can see your show.

So keeping the doors shut until past start time, when it’s mid-afternoon in summer, is not a great start.

When we are allowed entry, there’s wine, merch and the cinema shop open, but we’re now queuing for a show that’s late so we don’t stop. We move into the cinema and sit down (those upstairs realising they won’t have a great view as the stage has been set up in front of the screen platform, ie lower down, and they move downstairs) and we wait for the show to being.

We wait…30 minutes. Remember the audience demographic at this point.

When the band does arrive there is the odd heckle yelled out, but the band doesn’t respond, or apologise for their late start. When we see the lead has his arm in a sling, we mute this may be the reason. But the sling is removed quite quickly – if he has ever been hurt is not clear.

Ukulele Death Squad
Ukulele Death Squad

They’re off with a high energy, musically entertaining set. They’re fun, fast and clever, but the applause is tinged with all that has preceded them. Their banter is difficult to discern, and it seems to be directed at other members of the band, like in-house jokes.

The most endearing moments of the show are when they bring up two singers for a Nick Cave set, and their ukulele teacher ‘who made this all possible’, and he sings with generous empathetic applause from the audience.

Ukulele Death Squad in action
Ukulele Death Squad

I’m not sure where the rest of the cast were in the promo “… the world’s most dangerous Ukulele show is set to get a little bit sexy and a little bit saucy with a cast of choirs, dancers…” or where they would have performed on the small platform.

I can see the band working really well in the settings mentioned above, but to this audience they appeared arrogant and forced (it must have been difficult not getting the same energy back from a dancing audience) and …somewhat pretentious.

https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/ukulele-death-squad-fifty-shades-of-uke-af2019

Author: Jane Durbridge

A lover of the arts, a writer of the words, a drinker of the wine; the festival (& wine) state immerses you in its offerings in some way or another. To see extraordinary performances & installations & listen to exceptional musicians & writers has become an artistic ritual of my own. Read about some of my experiences here.

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