Review: FEAST FESTIVAL 2015: STORM IN A D-CUP Is First Class Cabaret

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Friday 27th November 2015

Amelia Ryan has had great success with her cabaret show, Storm In A D-Cup, recently topping it off with a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where she again had both audience and critical acclaim. She has brought the show back for one more night, and it was no surprise that the venue was sold out, with around half the audience, when asked, acknowledging that they had seen the production before.

Ryan has plenty of very personal source material for her show, beginning with her immediate family; a father who came out as gay, and his new partner, her transgender step-mother named Angela, whom Ryan refers to as Trangela. Her mother, meanwhile, consoled herself with the man renovating the house. The country town of Bombo is, it seems, far from boring.

A degree from the Victorian College of the Arts did not immediately lead to a glittering career in the performing arts, unless you include her short career pole dancing and lap dancing, which she refers to as "crappy lappies". The disasters continue. Never lend her your car. She has destroyed five so far, had her licence suspended, and her parking fines are monumental.

Her anecdotes, confessions, and revelations are interspersed with songs that sound rather familiar, because they are. Ryan has rewritten the lyrics of a range of songs, from a multitude of sources, making them fit her story. Naturally, her lyrics are as quirky and as much fun as her narrative. The audience doesn't get off unscathed, either. She first appears wrapped in a towel, organising people to hold it while she dresses behind it, one man gets a "crappy lappie", and three more become her backing band. This hilarity nicely balances some more poignant moments.

This is a highly polished production from a total professional. Offsetting all of the awkward parts of her life, so far, is the positive of turning all that around by using it as the content of this show, which has won awards, garnered great reviews and, as well as going to the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe, and also has played to full houses in New York. Having made it there, if the song is to be believed, there will be no stopping her now.

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