Deborah O'Toole's cabaret show explores her twin passions - singing and art - in a show exploring the less obvious kinds of love songs - nothing about first love or love-gone-wrong, and plenty looking at the deeper parts of the heart. She draws more from the pop songbook than from the more traditionally musical-theatre-type stuff that normally hits cabaret, and intersperses it with personal commentary and with drawings on her ipad that are duplicated on two screens out the front. Accompanied by the skilled Caleb Campbell, she sings a range of emotional pieces strongly and clearly, communicating right to our hearts in ways funny, soulful and all ways full of heart.
One nitpick - the time spent at the ipad means time not directly engaging the audience, and the mix between the two feels slightly off when she'll start drawing mid-song - the joy of experiencing these songs together is to be engaged between performer and audience, and breaking the connection, however briefly, means there's a certain amount of reset that needs to happen. But O'Toole does create something beautiful out of it with personal charm and flair, and it's a fine launch for the Canberra Cabaret festival.
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