’80s Ladies: Adelaide Fringe 2023 Review.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4 stars for seeing your fave ’80s bangers, performed in specky, hair-raising style!
Review by Carla Caruso
Dust off your crimper, blue eye shadow, and scrunchies; it’s time to revel in your love of all things eighties.
’80s Ladies is on at the Fringe – at The Pyramid in Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga – for six shows only. If you’re a child of the ‘80s, you’ll love this musical trip down memory lane.
The show’s presented by The Cast Entertainment, and the star is Adelaide songstress Chloe Castledine, who’s backed by a troupe of dancers and an 18-piece band.
The spectacle’s like a ‘guilty pleasures’ playlist, celebrating some of the most influential female artists of the 1980s. Think Kylie Minogue, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox, pop duo Bananarama, and beyond.
There are costume changes galore and plenty to keep you interested, from umbrellas that shower glitter to cheerleaders waving pompoms for Toni Basil’s Mickey (yes, yes, yes!).
It only took until the third song – Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart – for the audience to start clapping and singing along. And not much longer for people (some dressed in eighties garb of their own) to get up out of their seats to dance.
I overheard one woman in the crowd joke to the man behind her: “If I’m blocking your view, that means you have to get up!” By the end, a few audience members had even joined Chloe onstage.
There were also touching tributes to the late Olivia Newton-John – with a gold-clad roller-skater whizzing around to Xanadu – and Whitney Houston (How Will I Know and I Wanna Dance with Somebody were covered).
As well, Madonna – from her best era (in my opinion) – was honoured through songs like Express Yourself and Vogue. Though, unfortunately, no ‘Vogue hands’ were performed, like from the film clip!
The only detour from the ‘80s during the show was a cover of Destiny’s Child’s Bootylicious, with Chloe and the dancers donning some very sassy, sexy outfits for this. It was great to see a diversity of body shapes celebrated onstage too.
With the audience seated in a U-shape, the only downside was that the entertainers performed more to the front than to the left and right. And maybe having several different singers would’ve changed things up a bit.
But, all in all, if you’re the kind of person to have your radio tuned to an eighties-only station all day like I do, then you’ll be in heaven. There’s no way you can leave without feeling like you’re Walking on Sunshine à la Katrina and the Waves.
Also cool is soaking up the atmosphere in Victoria Square/Tarntanyangga afterwards, with the fun including festoon lighting, food trucks (hello, hot donuts), and mini golf.
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS
For more information, please visit the Adelaide Fringe website.
All photos by Carla Caruso for Play & Go Adelaide (unless specified)
At Play & Go Adelaide we make every effort to provide accurate information to the best of our knowledge at the time of publication. We recommend confirming times, dates and details directly before making any plans as details may be subject to change.
As per all our Play & Go reviews, this is not a sponsored post. The Play & Go team review via media accreditation and when kindly invited.
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