Adelaide Cabaret Festival – Baby et Lulu

Baby et Lulu, a couple of unabashed Francophile chanteuses, put on a show that leaves their audience feeling as refreshed as a bottle of sweet white wine rather than Cabaret’s standard night on the red.

Abby Dodson (Baby) ex of folk-pop band Leonardo’s Bride and Lara Goodridge (Lulu) of experimental string quartet FourPlay are a blonde and brunette team who clearly enjoy performing together. Their sense of joie de vivre is so infectious they’ll have even the most jaded habitué of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival Ra-da-da-da-da-ing along to ‘Chanson D’Amour’ as they let loose a type of Andrews Sisters enthusiasm and energy on stage.

The Festival Theatre Stage as a venue (which in itself gives some audience members a thrill) provides naturally superior acoustics to most other venues in Adelaide and the band driving Baby et Lulu’s buoyantly engaging set list make the most of it. They are a multi-talented bunch unafraid to come out from behind their instruments – in fact one of the many highlights of the show is the sax player walking into the audience with the house lights up as he works an acoustic solo. An inadvertent highlight is double bass player Mark Harris delivering Muppet Show ‘Mahna Mahna’ backing vocals to ‘C’est Magnifique’.

Forget the deliberately exaggerated accents and listen to them sing, “If you love me, let it happen” from ‘Hymne A L’Amour’. Just imagine yourself picnicking on The Left Bank with someone you love – Baby et Lulu will do the rest.