Great season of shows at Perth Fringe World

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Over the weekend Peter played 3 concerts at the Perth Fringe - 2 matinees for children and one big kids night out - all were sold out and Peter thoroughly enjoyed himself - here's a link to a great review - 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/full-coverage/fringe-world-2015/a/2630...

CHILDREN'S EVENTS
Wash Your Kids in Orange Juice ★★★★½
The West Australian Spiegeltent | Review by Kate Prendergast

To begin with, let's get the facts out of the way: Peter Combe is the Australian legend of children’s entertainment - king of the kids since the 1980s.  This is a man who has produced seven gold albums, two platinum albums, performed sell-out shows at the Sydney Opera House (twice) and claimed three ARIA awards.

The Fringe World Spiegeltent rejoiced in his silliness.   Accompanied by Phil on keyboard and the lively all-singing, all-dancing troupe of girls from the WA Performance School, Combe filled the space with his matchless warmth, humour and vivacity.   "Would you like some jelly and some ice-cream in your socks?" he asks us in marvellous outrage. "Would you like porridge in your trousers?"     "No!" shrieks back the audience - no indeed.

Maintaining the attention of children under 10 years old is quite a feat, as I'm sure any parent is well aware. But, Combe is a veteran and master player of that game.   He had bubs in the audience waving their chubby arms in glee, toddlers thumping out their boogie in the aisles, 10-year olds doing circles around him with blue balloons and, notably, a conspicuous gaggle of twenty-somethings ringing tenor their cassette-playing, newspaper-hatted, "bellyflop-in-a-pizza" childhoods.

The show’s finale was crowned with old-time favourites Spaghetti Bolognaise, Mr Clicketty Cane, Juicy Juicy Green Grass and the enormously catchy Newspaper Mama.   Car rides home will resound with renditions thereof, but the only uncertainty lies in whether it’ll be the adults or the kids leading the sing-song.

It may be that this review is infected with the bias of extreme nostalgia from an original Combe fan. But, honestly, there is not one on this continent who hasn’t a special place in their heart for this composer of anthems for the Australian youth.   Bless him. Bless him and his quirky berserkey turkey from Turkey.