Songs from the Middle featuring Eddie Perfect to Tour Sydney and Brisbane
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 7:30AM Songs from the Middle featuring Eddie Perfect, The Brodsky Quartet and students of the Australian National Academy of Music premiered at the first Melbourne Cabaret Festival to a sell-out house on both evenings, giving the festival the great finale it deserved.
Tickets still available for Sydney and Brisbane shows!
About the show
In this unique artistic collaboration between a sweetly-singing satirist, some of the nation’s best music students and one of the world’s greatest string quartets, Eddie Perfect retraces his roots in a beautiful song cycle for House Cabaret.
“Perfect’s vision is an almost unimprovable mingling of satire and homage, cheek and deference, music and comedy” - The Guardian UK
Edmund Thomas Perfect has was born and raised in suburbia. He had what you would call a “good childhood” in a good suburb called Mentone. Mentone, with its long stretch of beach, its wide nature-strips, access to public transportation, high quality schools, ten-pin bowling alley, beautiful Catholic church and (much later) Bunnings Warehouse. There wasn’t much you could say was missing.
Still, Edmund couldn’t wait to leave and as soon as he could, he headed to the inner-city, and, as time passed, forgot all about Mentone. Now, driven by a brand of nostalgia reserved only for new fathers, Edmund Thomas Perfect decided to return to Mentone in order to find inspiration for this new musical work. What is it about a place that leaves a permanent print? Why is it so difficult to make peace with such a harmless, ultimately charming, sea-side suburb?
The man who penned satirical songs on everything from politics, the media, capitalism and popular culture to an entire musical on the life of Shane Warne, has decided to get personal with a cycle of songs about Mentone. Ranging from the historical to the intimate, the painfully factual to the patently fanciful, these songs pay homage to a place where every third or fourth person knew your name.
This is a piece about the nature of belonging, the reason people live in the places they do and why those places matter. It’s about remembering and pretending to forget. It’s a show about Mentone.
The Brodsky Quartet are equally famous for their classical repertoire, alongside their very contemporary collaborations with major international artists including Elvis Costello, Sting and Bjork.
Read the review on The Age by Martin Ball here.
Songs from the Middle
Sydney (as part of House Cabaret Series at Sydney Opera House)
Venue: Playhouse, Sydney Opera House
Date: 1 August
Time: 8.00pm
Tickets: Adults $35, Concession $29 plus booking fee
Bookings: Click here or call 9250 7777.
For more information on House Cabaret, click here.
Brisbane
Venue: Brisbane Powerhouse Centre for the Arts 119 Lamington Street, New Farm
Date: 6 August
Time: 7.30pm
Tickets: Adults $42, Concession $32, Schools $20 plus booking fee
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