An Evening With Dame Granny Smith cabaret review: Pipped puppetry
In this ventriloquist act with a difference, a talking apple comes loaded with catty gossip and brilliant puns
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Fringe. If you fancy a weep over a ‘gone to seed’ bit of fruit, there’s nowhere quite like it, is there? Dame Granny Smith, the world’s most celebrated apple (you’ll know her from Snow White), makes her return to Adelaide, accompanied by handler David Salter. From Carmen Miranda to her deadly rival and cousin, Dame Maggie Smith, Granny’s seen them all come and go and she’s here to spill the juice in a no-holds-barred hour of intimate conversation and a bushel of apple-based puns.
There is something quite brilliant about seeing a roomful of grown adults suspend their disbelief to really, really believe in a stage conceit, which is of course down to Salter’s tip-top ventriloquism skills (c’mon now, you didn’t really think the apple could talk). His genial stage presence gently supports us to keep right on believing; that he can sustain this through a big musical number, surely the greatest test of the ventriloquist’s skills, is worthy of applause. But there’s smart writing here too, with a couple of twists that genuinely ramp up the emotion: this is more than a farewell tour, it’s a coup de grâce with all the jeopardy that implies.
But first, bite into a fever dream of a Shirley Bassey drag queen lip sync number that will become your new earworm, a Smiths cover that will make your pips squeak, and a meditation on ageing that will rock you to the core. Like any good fruit salad, this show is much more than the sum of its parts: in fact, it’s practically pomaceous perfection.
An Evening With Granny Smith continues at The Crawford Room at The Courtyard of Curiosities at the State Studios until 22 March; picture: Paul Gallasch.