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HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
@ Adelaide Festival, Adelaide
28th February 2025
(Live Review)

Review by Colin Reid

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More than 30 years since Hedwig and The Angry Inch first made its debut off Broadway in New York it is heralded as the musical showpiece of this year’s Adelaide Festival and is playing at the appropriately named Queens Theatre Monday through Saturdays until March 15.

Hedwig, the story’s main protagonist, is played by the very wonderful Seann Miley Moore who you may remember from season 10 of The Voice Australia.  He is simply amazing and does an incredible job of carrying the tales narrative and performing lead vocals to the songs that describe Hedwig’s life and their transformative journey.  In case you are wondering, that middle name was adopted in deference to the one and only diva of childhood Disney fame Miley Cyrus!

Hedwig starts out as Hansel Schmidt, a child born in the midst of the cold war in East Berlin, on the wrong side of the wall, to an emotionally cold and distant mother and an American GI who soon abandons the family.  It is a story of a personal journey through a crisis of identity, a search for belonging and a need to find the other half that completes them.  Seann takes us through the story of Hedwig’s life and we follow the attempt to process childhood emotional neglect; adolescent youth and development of sexuality, the lovers and the loss of love following the botched gender reassignment that leads to the ‘angry inch’ that is left behind in their crotch.  Betrayal again rears its head as Hedwig, now in the USA, first seduces the nerdy Tommy, then teaches him guitar and a love of rock music only for Tommy to steal all of Hedwig’s material and attain the fame that ought to have been Hedwig’s.

The production is superb. From our entry into the outside courtyard of the theatre we are taken to mid-west America and the trailer park living that Hedwig’s life has succumbed to.  All staff speak with mid-west accents and stay in character through-out. The outside bar area has booths built to resemble the inside of caravans and there is even Hedwig’s own caravan for us to visit. It is complete with high healed shoes, David Bowie Aladin Sane poster, blond wigs and pink cowboy hats.  The seating inside the theatre itself, depending on the amount you’ve shelled out for your ticket, is classified between ‘Sugar Daddy’s’ and ‘trailer Park’ – welcome to Kansas!

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All the action revolves around a gig Hedwig is playing in a small local venue whilst Tommy plays to a huge stadium over the river.  The circular stage has a sunken pit for the band, which by the way are outstanding, and a raised section where Hedwig performs and this leads to a staircase and a mezzanine from which Seann regularly regales the audience.  At its base there is a doorway which Hedwig regularly opens and listens to snippets of Tommy’s triumphant gig wafting across the ‘river’.  As much as Hedwig craves acknowledgement from Tommy it never comes and Hedwig’s torment isn’t healed.

Don’t worry if you aren’t too familiar with the story. The music alone is fantastic.  Like a glam punk musical extravaganza couple with some soulful and heart wrenching numbers.  All of the backing band are superb as is the simply fabulous Adam Novello as Yitzhak who provides Hedwig’s current love interest and deliveries wonderful moments of comedy, devastatingly beautiful vocals and fair degree of hurt and spite at his treatment from Hedwig.

Amidst the tragedy of Hedwig’s losses and betrayals there also so much warmth and humour from Seann.  They engage the crowd and bring us into their world.  Glitter falls from the sky and balloons too.  Wigs are distributed to the crowd and the audience dance and sing with the Hedwig.

A wonderful show, A story of gender, love, sex and success. A performance full of great, great music, comedy and tragedy as Hedwig finds their place in the world.

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Follow HEDWIG
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AMNPLIFY – DB