Meow Meow (the artist formerly known as Melissa Madden Gray) is both a throwback and an innovator. She is not only a master interpreter of the Weimar canon including Weill, Brecht and Spoliansky, but a songwriter/performer charting a new cabaret tradition with esteemed collaborators such as Iain Grandage, Thomas M Lauderdale from Pink Martini and Megan Washington. Not only that, she is also a formidable actress and comedienne who revels in audience interaction, the more excruciating and humiliating, the better.

Meow Meow’s Pandemonium with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, at the 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Photo © Claudio Raschella.

The ”pandemonium” was on show from the beginning, when the star arrived late and in an off-stage balcony, forcing pianist Mark Jones (in company with Ben Hanlon on bass and Alon Ilsar on drums) to belt out abbreviated excerpts from Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under the banner of the dapper Nicholas Buc joined in the fun, tossing their music sheets in the air in...