BackTwoFront: Harmless Musical Fun – Adelaide Fringe Review

Vines Room at National Wine Centre, Sun 26 Feb. [MUSIC/CABARET – SA] It’s not a bad idea to have artists who are established and comfortable in one realm to cross over to another. Kristen Hardy’s home base is opera; Rohan Powell’s is much more broad based - musical comedy, country, and popular music. Together they attempted to define what ‘back to front’ meant as they went. It could a mean a man singing what is normally a woman’s song, a jazz singer doing opera, or a song normally heard with instruments being sung unaccompanied- it was a fairly flexible notion. Some examples worked really well. Kristen’s opera-style version of Tammy Wynette’s country classic Stand By Your Man was spectacular, and Rohan’s Johnny Cash rendition of I Dreamed A Dream from Les Miserables was surprisingly good. But not everything worked. They were honest about their lack of rehearsal and it showed – testament to the fact that no matter how accomplished you are in your own genre, crossing over doesn’t necessarily come naturally and can require solid rehearsal to pull it off. Heather Elliott on piano was a star – keeping things together when they got a bit loose, and entertaining us all with a woman’s version, complete with harmonica, of Billy Joel’s Piano Man. With extra effort this could have been something special, but overall it mostly felt like just a bit of harmless musical fun. 3 stars Michael Coghlan BackTwoFront continues at the Vines Room at National Wine Centre, at various times, until Sun 11 Mar. Book at FringeTIX on 1300 621 255 or adelaidefringe.com.au. Click HERE to purchase your tickets. #ADLfringe