SVEN RATZKE - HOMME FATALE Adelaide Cabaret Festival Dunstan Playhouse Until 23 Jun 2018 Review by Doug Phillips LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, SVEN RATZKE IS HERE! And I sure hope you’ve got a ticket. What a treat this show is, and how fortunate we are to have Sven bring it to us as part of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Sven oozes charisma, charm, and fun, and he delivers his tale with daring, humour, and absolute bucket-loads of talent. Cutting an impressive figure of confidence and stature, Sven takes us on a wonderful ride with this story, accompanied by excellent song choices and an impressive band. His band are seriously good. Very talented musicians who only stole the limelight when they were supposed to and kept everything flowing seamlessly. With Sven driving, we take an eccentric tour that includes Paris, Italy, The Netherlands, Perth, The Gold Coast, Berlin, a bathtub, and a basement…and more… But try as he might to entertain us with well thought-out storytelling, and great music, every component plays second fiddle to Sven. He is the star, and he embraces this with all the manner in which a real star should. If Golden Syrup could sing, it would sound like Sven. And this man can move too. With his excellent sense of comedy and timing, he at times could have passed for the love-child of Christopher Walken and Brian Nankervis. His loud moments were spot on, his quieter moments were captivating, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one sitting there motionless with mouth open in awe, eagerly awaiting what was to come next, but not wanting the current moment to end. I can’t rave highly enough of Sven and his show, and after a two-year absence for our Cabaret Festival, there were many in the crowd who obviously felt the same way. You may not be able to get a ticket to see one of his remaining shows, but put a note on your calendar for April next year to search the Cabaret Festival line-up for his name.