Arts diary: Basking in sun of an Aussie summer, welcome to the Fringe in Adelaide

Published on Wednesday 24 February 2010 18:04

WRITING about a city or a festival, less than 48 hours off the plane, is fraught with perils.

But journalists rush in where angels fear to tread, so here are a few first fleeting impressions of Adelaide, capital of South Australia, in full festival swing. The Adelaide Fringe, which like Edinburgh's takes place in tandem with the loftier Adelaide Festival, claims the title of the "second-biggest arts festival in the world". It claims to have more than 700 shows – up 46 per cent on 2006 and the most in its 50-year history – running over nearly a month and including everything from comedy to cabaret.

More to the point, Adelaide, founded in 1960, counts itself second only to Edinburgh in terms of what is now a world-wide network of Fringe festivals, from New York to Prague.

Not all the shows run for the month – some for just a few days, others a week or two – but it prints nearly 400,000 Fringe guides and claims nearly 300 independent venues. It's claimed the city turns itself over to the festivals for nearly a month, and does rather more to support them than, ahem, Auld Reekie.

Many of the biggest players in the Edinburgh Fringe are here to see the fun. An unusually large delegation this year has included bosses of the Underbelly, Gilded Balloon and Assembly venues, and major Fringe producers, as well as Kath Mainland, our own Fringe chief executive. Wandering along Adelaide's central Rundle Street, you could run into the Assembly director William Burdett Courts, or David Calvitto, star of the Fringe hit The Event, now showing in the Fringe in Adelaide.

They are talent-spotting for Edinburgh possibles or bringing some of their own; Edinburgh reviews take pride of place in the programme entries. The city is teaming with shows by the unstoppable Guy Masterson, almost all with Edinburgh success already under their belts; they range from The Sociable Plover to Scaramouche Jones.

Early tips from Adelaide range from The Boy with Tape on his Face, an accomplished and heavily interactive mime-cabaret act, to Parasoul, which I've yet to see but which one breathless insider described as sexy lady acrobats with umbrellas.

Parallel tram lines

ADELAIDE, with a population of more than a million, is mostly a one newspaper town: this being the Adelaide Advertiser, part of the Murdoch empire. It boasts a headline this week with an ominously familiar ring: "We need more trams, and we need 'em now."

Adelaide, unlike Edinburgh, actually has a tram, snaking like clockwork through the centre of the capital of South Australia. But there appears to be a long-running row over delays in planned extensions of the system, particularly to the airport.

Time out for visitors

ASIDE from the weather – clear blue skies and temperatures, currently, that are hot but not quite roasting – Adelaide has something else that the independent-minded in Scotland have sometimes wished for: a time change that distinguishes it from bigger neighbours.

Adelaide is half-an-hour behind Melbourne and Sydney, and ten and a half hours ahead of Scotland.

No-one, in a sample poll, appears to know why, not even the taxi driver, though he has a couple of jokes. "Some people reckon we're about 20 years behind," he intones. "Or we're so slow it takes us an hour and a half to work 60 minutes."

Red star at night

THE Advertiser is the chief source of Fringe reviews, and those all important star ratings. It also has an eye for the weird and wonderful. The cover of one Front Row festival supplement this week is devoted to Chinese dancer Jin Xing, 43, bringing her dance company's production Shanghai Beauty. "Xing was a colonel in the People's Liberation Army until her sex change operation 15 years ago," the paper notes. "She is now married with three adopted children." There's no business like showbusiness.