It’s been a busy year for Jamie C Jewell. He’s been seen on our screens in Channel 10’s I Will Survive, and appeared in Ephemera Stains at The Bakehouse Theatre, as part of the Blackbox Theatre Season. Now he’s back in live cabaret mode, as part of Feast 2012, in Last Days on Earth.
Working, again, under the direction of David P Jobling (who directed Jewell in Ephemera Stains) Last Days on Earth is a musical journey through the final days of four ordinary people, under the most extraordinary of circumstances.
As a Wing Nut Meteor hurtles towards earth, we experience, through song, the lives of the wife of the astronaut who is heading into space to destroy the meteor; a hen-pecked husband who just wants to ride his motorbike; and an Armageddon doomsayer, who loathes ‘queers, whores, telemarketers and Teletubbies’.
The astronaut’s wife – whose husband leaves a series of messages on their answering machine, which are then erased by their dog – slowly drinks herself into oblivion while declaiming her lost love through a blended rendition that includes the Prince classic made famous by Sinéad O’Connor, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, and The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’, with comic interludes from the dog and phone.
This is followed by the Germanic husband, who escapes his hausfrau by taking off on his Harley-Davidson. Jewell’s renditions of Talking Head’s ‘Once in a Lifetime’ and Queen’s ‘I Want to Break Free’ in German are priceless, recognisable, and extremely catchy, in a sequence that comes complete with onstage motorbike and driving special effects.
Finally, Jewell – looking like the mad prophet from The Life of Brian – as the doomsayer berates us for failing the Lord and warns us that there’s a ‘Bad Moon Rising’, before being struck by a piece of falling meteor.
Each of these scenes is interspersed with a video prelude – allowing for scene and costume changes – before the final scene; a more realistic approach to all things fatal, via Joe Jackson’s ‘Cancer’.
The point Jewell was trying to make with this fourth vignette – that apocalyptic outcomes are far less likely than succumbing to illness – is clear, but this final part of the show was such a jarring juxtaposition that it took some of the playfulness out of the previous sequences.
That said, Jewell is an amazing talent, with a powerful voice and an onstage playfulness that allowed him to overcome a number of technical issues – including a runaway dog, an escaping moustache, and a dead headset mike – with professional and carefree aplomb. He is ably support by Carol Young and the Paramedix, though with microphone issues he was sometimes overshadowed.
With only a two-show run, I foresee a return season in either the Fringe or Cabaret Fringe – hopefully with a little reworking to smooth out the transition from comedy to tragedy.
Alongside Charles Sanders and Libby O’Donovan, Jamie is truly a jewel in the Adelaide cabaret crown – short of the end of days, be sure to catch him next time he performs.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Last Days on Earth
Conceived and created by Jamie C Jewell
Director: David P Jobling
Music Director: Carol Young & The Paramedix
ANZ Hub Precinct, The Ballroom, Light Square, Adelaide
11 & 18 November
Feast 2012
10 – 25 November
