The Depot is one of the brand new pop up venues especially constructed for the Adelaide Fringe Festival and since its opening, it’s attracted large crowds down the west end of the city. Tonight, a huge stage has been erected for the venue’s first major scale concert, featuring the talents of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. I’m here for The Whitlams and once I got over the fact that people had paid upwards of $145 for the ‘VIP’ tickets, I was quite settled in to see the Sydney band perform with the ASO.

Musical comedy – not everyone’s cup of tea, and certainly not mine. So it goes without saying that I had my reservations walking into The Austral’s extraordinarily tiny Red Room late on a Thursday night to see a show advertised as “an hour of the UK’s wrongest comedy songs.” My skepticism grew as Kunt himself graced the stage- a giant, gangly fellow decked out in a fluro yellow rave style jumpsuit, sporting a gold tooth and a ridiculous nylon wig that truly looked like it had been sewn onto his head. I didn’t know what to think. But then Kunt opened his mouth and hot damn… it was glorious.

The other sibling. You know the one. They’re more popular, they over-achieve and they’re incredibly annoying and mean to you behind everyone else’s back. Usually they’re older than you or they’ll be the newest addition to the family, in which case, you’ll feel like you’ve been kicked to the kerb like yesterday’s trash. It’s this trope that comedy duo, Smart Casual, bring to the Adelaide Fringe Festival for their 2013 season.

I challenge anyone to spend their evening with Peaches ‘n’ Gin’s newest show Big Band Burlesque and not be completely blown away. Really, what’s not to love about burlesque? Beautiful women slinking around the stage in stunning costumes, teasing the audience with their provocative dance moves as they slowly unveil item after item of clothing. Throw in Capitol Swing, an enthralling big band complete with stand-up bass, trumpet and saxophone, add Lady Cara, the buxom, bratty hostess with a great set of lungs and you have my recipe for one hell of a night out.

Greg Fleet is a funny guy, there’s no doubt about that. I saw him ten years ago and he had the crowd in absolute hysterics from start to finish, so I was intrigued to see how the times had treated him and whether he still “had it” a decade later.

From what I read online and heard from friends who attended Women of Letters in Melbourne and elsewhere, these are shows that you need to buy tickets quickly for, to avoid missing out. Tonight, as the Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire curated event took place at the Spiegeltent, I couldn’t seem to get someone to take my plus one, leading me to believe that somewhere in Melbourne, a spurned WoL lover was choking on his or her latte.

Around 2011, comedian Dave Callan started dazzling his audience by breaking it down to his own rendition of Beyoncé’s Single Ladies. It made such an impact that he came back this year with an entire show dedicated to the art, history and ultimate hilarity of dance crazes through the ages. A Little Less Conversation is a physically demanding, visually pleasing and truly hysterical show that extends to all generations and senses of humour.

Bring a little bit of class and culture to the Adelaide Fringe.

Photos by John Goodridge

On Wednesday night, Triple J breakfast co-host Tom Ballard filled the Rhino Room with his notorious cheeky humour. My Ego is Bigger than Your Ego, a feature of the Adelaide Fringe Festival, is a trip down memory lane of sorts, enlightening audiences with tales of his life-long quest for attention.

I know how daunting an opening night of a run of performances can be; you’re in front of a crowd full of strangers who haven’t been at the rehearsals (if you’ve had many before the gig) and there’s every chance that things can – and often will – fuck up. This is the case tonight, when the four piece comic sketch act that is the Lords of Luxury took to the stage in the organised-derelict surrounds of Tuxedo Cat. Having just come to Adelaide from the Fringe World in Perth, the Lords had a small crowd tonight, their first of three shows.

It’s Adelaide Fringe Festival time again, meaning our beloved sleepy city has exploded into a drunken frenzy and cavalcades of eclectic artists have emerged to showcase their skills. The festival’s opening night brought hundreds of rebellious underagers to the streets, an impressive fireworks display and parade, and for me, a night of amateur magic.

I’ve made no secret of it; I love Doctor Who. As far as TV shows go, the BBC series is one of the only shows I am ridiculously dedicated too, probably to an unhealthy extent. With the Adelaide Fringe Festival opening this weekend, I find myself headed to the Box Factory Community Centre on a Saturday afternoon for my first Fringe show, totally revolving around the iconic sci-fi series.

With the skies flashing lightning and storm clouds brewing, Mother Nature joined the theme of Fire to herald the opening of the Adelaide Fringe. Forty thousand people lined King William Street to watch the spectacle.

Our photographer John Goodridge was in the midst of it all and brings these photos.

Being the progeny of influential songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen would no doubt have one draw back; how do you live up to expectations? Judging by the size of the turn out for Canadian musician Adam Cohen’s one-night-only Adelaide Fringe performance on Thursday, and the enthusiasm of the crowd, Cohen clearly has a following of his own. Performing at the Idolize Spiegeltent, the performance was sure to be a unique treat.