Carlotta: The Party’s Over @ Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide 8/6/2025
She’s cheeky, she’s naughty and forget about political correctness! The party might be over but Adelaide audiences will never be over Carlotta! A trailblazer in her eighty two years of life this woman has done so much in the entertainment and cabaret spaces, and not forgetting her advocacy especially for the transgender and LGBTQIA+ community, so winning the 2025 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Icon Award was no surprise. Carlotta is a legend, an icon and so well loved in Adelaide.
Accompanied by a three piece band led by the talented Michael Griffiths who as Carlotta explained “got me out of retirement for this!” it was a night of cabaret nostalgia. Entering the stage to a thunderous roar and applause the show was a mix of song and storytelling with all the glitz and glamour in true cabaret style. Carlotta’s sharp wit and don’t give a fuck attitude (she is, after all, allowed to be) made for an hour of hilarity not for the faint hearted or overly sensitive. She was direct, unapologetic and nothing but Carlotta!
We were taken back to a time where a spade was a spade and what felt like a simpler time. In what seemed simpler was also not so simple. Carlotta told her stories of life in the 1960’s where being transgender was not common, the fight for acceptance was the real goal not like labels are today. Taking us through her time where it all started at Sydney’s Kings Cross Cabaret show Les Girls, the clubs and RSL gigs across Australia right through to all of her achievements in her illustrious career. Many a tale was told, revealed and sung all with her customary dry sarcastic humour and mandatory glamorous costume changes.
Singing songs that resonated with her life and history it was a sentimental trip down memory lane. From Everything’s Coming Up Roses from the story of Gypsy, Peter Allen’s I Go To Rio and I Still Call Australia Home, Barry Manilow’s I Write The Songs, Gloria Gaynor’s I Am What I Am as well as changing the lyrics of Frank Sinatra songs to reflect her life; The Lady Is A Tramp and My Way which she was given a standing ovation.
Mid way through the show there was a Q and A where she answered audience questions. Asked of her greatest moment she responded with “One of my greatest moments was receiving the Member of the Order of Australia so now I can put AM at the end of my name.” Carlotta AM. One of the last questions was about what she thought of the new age of Drag Queens. In this one moment of the show were she spoke so fondly and proudly of the new generations of drag she showed her sensitive and motherly side much appreciating the question.
Carlotta: The Party’s Over didn’t disappoint. She was brazen to the point of not giving a fuck. It’s what we wanted, what we expected and what we got. Carlotta ended the night with the Elaine Strich song I’m Still Here to her second standing ovation of the night. She said ” This will be the last time you see me.” Much to the crowds huge sigh of disappointment. “I can’t do this forever!” That night we wished she could!
Cabaret Festival Review By Anastasia Lambis
Photo Credit: Claudio Raschella