Dunstan Playhouse
June 17, 2018

During the period that she has been artistic director of the Cabaret Festival, Ali McGregor has always programmed a tribute show to a famous songwriter performed by an ensemble of the cream of the crop of artists at the festival. Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill have featured at recent festivals, but this year’s selection of Tom Waits was inspired. Waits represents the best of Americana, writing songs about people living at the margins of American society – the losers, gamblers, hookers and petty criminals. However, Waits writes about his characters with such affection that he cloaks his anti-heroes with a dignity that draws you to their stories. ‘Waitophiles’ McGregor and musical director Charly Zastrau, in combination with a well-chosen cast of misfit performers who could have come straight from the pages of a Waits song, presented a seamless tribute and the best one of its kind in recent memory at the Cabfest.

Leading the performing pack was Mikelangelo, who looks like the love child of Elvis Presley and Boris Yeltsin, and one whose gravelly baritone was a perfect fit for Waits’ up-tempo numbers like When You Dream, Going Out West, and Hold On. With a Catwoman-like...