MUSIC TO WATCH BOYS BY Cabaret Fringe Festival La Bohème Until 28 Feb 2012 Review by Brian Godfrey As a reviewer, I get a little anxious when it comes to my first Fringe review of the season because the quality (or lack of it) of that show can assist in determining my mood and expectations for the rest that follow. I was especially anxious when I discovered that my first review was going to involve a piano accordion (I think I must have been frightened as a child by little men in very tight, very short, shorts playing ’Feniculi, Fenicula’) and had a title that sounded aimed more at the female population of Adelaide. I had no cause for alarm – Carol Young’s “Music To Watch Boys By” is a GREAT way to start the Fringe: it is very funny, zany, relevant to both genders, clever and ever-so-slightly different. The theme is stalking! Ms Young has subtitled the show “Stalking is just another way of saying ‘I Love You’”. She postulates from the onset that we are all, in our own way, stalkers – and goes on to offer evidence in the form of a number of love songs (an hour’s worth, anyway). It all makes perfect sense when you consider song titles such as “I Was Made For Loving You, Baby” and lines from popular songs such as “I Honestly Love You” (‘Maybe I hang around here a little more than I should’) and “Puppet On A String” (‘I know that one day you’ll say that you love me madly’) – and let’s not forget that great Tom Jones hit “Delilah” (all about standing at someone’s window, waiting for a man to leave, knocking at her door, then stabbing her to death). She also tells of her own stalking manoeuvres with her infatuation, John (not his real name). Young knows just how to play an audience (and the accordion) and is nicely endearing in a pleasingly psychotic and soothingly sociopathic way! She has them captured – literally – with the first flash of her camera (careful, you may end up on her Facebook page!). There is nothing sinister or macabre about this show; it is just damn good fun. Let’s face it: anything that allows, and in fact encourages, an audience to clap and sing along, can’t be all bad. So, put on your dark glasses, take your binoculars and “stalk” Ms Young at La Boheme. Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)