Puppets, Noel, and Glamour

I am right in the middle of a busy and rewarding time of rehearsing and performing. It is the wonderful time of year in Adelaide when we celebrate the Adelaide Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Adelaide is alive and throbbing !!

I have completed my 3 show-season of Noel and Gertie, Down and Dirty - a revue performance about the lives and friendship of Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence. It was a blast, and the show received a lovely audience response at each show. It was devised by my friend Jonathan Mill, and is playing a short season in Sydney for Mardi Gras with a Sydney-based cast.

Tonight is the Final Dress Rehearsal of Stravinsky's The Nightingale and other Fables, for the Adelaide Festival. I have loved working with my puppet, whom I have named Yako (after my lovely freind Ayaka). We have mostly worked well together although, at times, Yako's hands have refused to stop clenching in an ugly manner - more my fault than his! It is a beautiful production and I am so thrilled to be a part of it.

Finally, I am rehearsing for 2 more performances of Glamour & Song in the Fringe. My first performance is a little over a week away and I am 'breaking in' a new accompanist - the wonderful Carol Young. Of course, she is brilliant so I am in good hands.

I am then doing a regional performance in the the Riverland at the Waikerie Bowling Club on 15 March. My good friend Gillian Britton will be travelling with me and playing for me there. We performed the ONJ songbook at a number of Residential Care homes last year and we are both ONJ fans, so I am really looking forward to being 'on tour' with her!

Tickets for the performances for Glamour & Song: The Songs of Pat Carroll & Olivia Newton-John are on sale via the Adelaide Fringe site : adelaidefringe.com.au