Late Night Lounge at the Sydney Opera House

After the cinema we took a train down to Circular Quay for a late night cabaret at the Studio of the Opera House.  I had been invited by the management to attend the ‘opening’ of its newly installed lift, which is part of a $38 Million refurbishment.  (That’s small beer, surprisingly.  The Opera House wants $800 Million to fully re-fit the building.  If they get the money the Opera House will be shut for two years while its insides are ripped out, altered then replaced … a bit like the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh.)  But the first phase is more or less finished and I was invited to be there last night.

I’m not quite sure how one opens a lift but we were there, using it to descend to the club-like ground floor where we enjoyed a decent enough mix of acts: a small jazz band, ‘street wise’ Aboriginal lads in a hip-hoppy dance group, purportedly dangerous, politically incorrect American stand up (do midgets freeze to death more quickly than ordinary folk?  They certainly thaw out quicker … you can fit them in a microwave), comic singer, Latin combo and one piece of genuine brilliance … Miss Lark: beehive, large breasts pushing out against her bodice, played a tune on the saw then did sexually ambiguous and provocative bird impressions.  Truly nutty.  Oh yes, and a dancer channelling Thunderbirds puppetry to a mournful aria on tape.  That was quite affecting to be honest.
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