Printable CopyAUDITIONS: THE CABARET
The German Club
Until 11 Mar 2018

Review by Jamie Wright

Stacey-Louise Camilleri and Stephen McMahon are audition pianists, which means they’ve sat through a lot of people singing – both good and (of course) bad. And now they’re here to tell us about what they’ve seen and heard.

It’s certainly an interesting concept, ripe with possibility – after all, the most popular segments of any of the various television shows about singing competitions tend to be the early ones where we get to see people whose friends and family really should have been a lot more honest with them about their abilities (or lack thereof).

But, while the show starts off well, before long it starts to run short of material and get a bit repetitive. The volume’s up way too loud, and on more than one occasion it felt like they hadn’t rehearsed/scripted the segments as much as they should have.

And, while it is sometimes funny to hear stories about bad auditions, the thing about the equivalent segments of the reality programs is that they’re also showing the opposite – where people who you don’t expect to amount to much open their mouths and reveal that they’ve got real talent. Only hearing about the ‘terrible’ people – also a fairly broad label applied here – makes the show start to feel like it’s bordering on the mean-spirited.

Both are good performers, but the show needs some more development in order to work as well as it could. And perhaps some balance in order to appeal to a wider audience than 20-something musical theatre enthusiasts.

Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 5)