AFTER DARK

 

2 August 2026

Susan and I are still exploring what Perth has to offer and one unexpected pleasure came via a friend who’s much better at scouring Instagram than I am. She spotted a notice about a mini-cabaret festival being presented by the City of Belmont. The suburb, known as Belmont Park when I was growing up, is out near the airport and I don’t remember ever have had a reason to visit there in days gone by. The only aspect I do remember was that it had a race track and was close to the river. The council have created a flyer that summarises its history: https://www.belmont.wa.gov.au/docs/ecm/museum-suburb-booklets-belmont.pdf

After Dark was a limited season collection of performances in the Council’s Glasshouse building with discounted prices for ratepayers. We’re not but the prices were perfectly reasonable so we took a punt on a couple of shows.

The first, Skinny, was present by Michelle Pearson, a young woman with a rich and powerful voice and a tough story to tell about body dysmorphia. If that sounds like a miserable night out, trust me, it wasn’t. With a deeply personal narrative, it was a show to make you sigh in recognition of weight struggles and smile at her wit and bravery.



We chose the second show Vocal 4 because I’ve known the Music Director Denis Follington on and off for years. He’s been a jazz pianist and a music theatre teacher for decades. Also, we liked the idea of seeing four experienced and (dare I say it) older women singing together on stage. Sadly, it didn’t come off because the two jazz singers ironically just didn’t have good voices anymore. The two singers with music theatre backgrounds made better sounds and had stage presence.



Still, as I said in a previous post, that’s the risk of live performance. You win some, you lose some. Regardless, it’s congratulations to the staff of the City of Belmont who put this program together.

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