Guests at tonight’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival Variety Gala will get their first taste of what to expect during the 12-day festival in June.

“It’s a real candy medley,” says new art director Tina Arena.

The Australian music icon has compiled a roster of artists who will present nearly 100 performances that capture the very essence of what cabaret means to her.

“It’s its diversity, and because it takes place in a kind of intimate setting, I think it’s really beautiful because you’re not missing much.”

This year’s program is certainly getting intimate, with a common thread running through several of the shows.

Brendan Maclean’s Finally alone takes the performer to the high intensity scenes of the climax of the 2021 cabaret festival The hotel and former Fringe hit Velvet at the banquet hall of the Adelaide Festival Centre, where he will take his place at the piano and provide the audience with original songs and numbers from across his career. After seeing Maclean perform in The hotel online, Arena knew she had to correlate it for her program.

It’s not a cabaret festival without Marcia Hines, and this year she will be at Her Majesty’s Theater with The Gospel According to Marcia Hines, celebrating memories of his childhood in Boston and his early experiences with gospel music. She will be joined on stage by local singer Charmaine Jones and Gospo Collective.

State Opera South Australia will make its Cabaret Festival debut with a new show How to Kill Your Husband (and Other Handy Household Tricks)a ‘cabaret opera’ based on the novel of the same name by Australian writer Kathy Lette, while the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra will accompany cabaret festival icon Meow Meow in her show Chaos.

International artists include US-based swing band Davina & The Vagabonds, who will take inspiration from the last 100 years of American music in a show at The Famous Spiegeltent during the first weekend.

Davina & The Vagabonds will bring their swing to Adelaide. Photo: Christie Williams

On a personal note, Arena itself brings the previously announced Songs my mother taught me at Her Majesty’s Theatre, where she will sing some of the most heartfelt tunes from her childhood. Arena grew up singing in Italian – she didn’t speak English until she was five – and she’s returning to those roots, with a hand-picked cast with various stories to tell.

“Whether you’re an immigrant or a daughter or son of immigrants, everyone has a story to tell,” she says. “I’m nervous about singing in Italian, but it’s going to be fun.”

She will be joined on stage by Lior, whom Arena describes as “absolutely spellbinding”, Wendy Matthews, Thando, First Nations performer Jess Hitchcock and Sophie Koh.

“We have such a big Chinese community in the country and we still have so much to learn from each other that I thought I couldn’t do this without them,” Arena said of Koh. “She’s just stunning, funny, smart and extremely talented.”

In the pure tradition of the Cabaret Festival, there is also something for those who like a show with a touch of frivolity. Bon Bon Circus brings circus to cabaret, which Arena says is an important part of the genre.

“Acrobats, dancers, contortionists, aerial art! It’s the best of it all rolled into one. It’s visually stunning and there’s extraordinary talent; it’s going to be a visual splendor.

Aerial art with Bon Bon Circus. Photo: Disclose Media

The Pina Colada Rooma late-night event hosted by Reuben Kaye, Yana Alana and Libby O’Donovan in The Famous Spiegeltent, is billed as a decadent tribute to disco icons.

“The Pina Colada Room is going to be this vortex that people go into and can’t get out,” laughs Arena.

“It goes back to a time when things were simpler and it was really about music and bringing people together.”

Arena has spent the last two years engrossed in the stories of Studio 54, so it’s no surprise that it takes Adelaide audiences back to those magical times: “It’s the golden age of boogie and dance.

Comedian and singer Paul McDermott – co-host with Arena of tonight’s Variety Gala – is also destined for The Famous Spiegeltent with The Fun House, “a dark carnival of minstrels and misfits, comedy and music” with guests such as comedians Claire Hooper and Dilruk Jayasinha.

Also on the program this year, Libby O’Donovan with Sister Elisabethwhere the performer delves into a subject that has always fascinated her: nuns.

The quiet side of Rai Thistlethwayte strips the Thirsty Merc singer’s music, while The Shanghai MiMi Band, with Sophie Koh, explores a glamorous club with songs from “Eastern Paris”.

Arena urges audiences to put away the sweatpants and Ugg boots and find something special for Cabaret Festival season.

“We all have something in our closet that it’s probably time to pull out, dust off and put back.”

The Adelaide Festival Center 2022 Adelaide Cabaret Festival runs from June 10-25. The 2022 Variety Gala takes place tonight at the Festival Theatre.