Have you seen The West’s review of Peter Combe’s Wash Your Kids In Orange Juice shows? You can check it out here or check it out below – we are absolutely thrilled that the Pro Performance Troupe got a mention in this great review, and are very proud of our young performers for their first professional performance and 4.5 star review.

 

Wash Your Kids in Orange Juice

For some of these dancers it was their first time performing onstage for an event of this nature, and what a debut it was!

Performing in the historic West Autralian Idolize Spiegeltent, an incredible venue for all performers, even well-established ones, was a fantastic experience. We would like to thank the wonderful technical staff at the venue, Fringe World organisers, and Peter Combe and his keyboardist Phil. Everyone involved in the shows went to great lengths to help our dancers feel comfortable and happy onstage, and the performers themselves demonstrated great maturity and dedication, which was reflected in their wonderful performances. The girls sang, danced and acted for each show and along with their families, worked very hard to put on such a slick and professional performance!

Review

Wash Your Kids in Orange Juice ★★★★½

The West Australian Spiegeltent | Review by Kate Prendergast

To begin with, let’s get the facts out of the way: Peter Combe is the Australian legend of children’s entertainment – king of the kids since the 1980s.

This is a man who has produced seven gold albums, two platinum albums, performed sell-out shows at the Sydney Opera House (twice) and claimed three ARIA awards.

The Fringe World Spiegeltent rejoiced in his silliness.

Accompanied by Phil on keyboard and the lively all-singing, all-dancing troupe of girls from the WA Performance School, Combe filled the space with his matchless warmth, humour and vivacity.

“Would you like some jelly and some ice-cream in your socks?” he asks us in marvellous outrage. “Would you like porridge in your trousers?”

“No!” shrieks back the audience – no indeed.

Maintaining the attention of children under 10 years old is quite a feat, as I’m sure any parent is well aware. But, Combe is a veteran and master player of that game.

He had bubs in the audience waving their chubby arms in glee, toddlers thumping out their boogie in the aisles, 10-year olds doing circles around him with blue balloons and, notably, a conspicuous gaggle of twenty-somethings ringing tenor their cassette-playing, newspaper-hatted, “bellyflop-in-a-pizza” childhoods.

The show’s finale was crowned with old-time favourites Spaghetti Bolognaise, Mr Clicketty Cane, Juicy Juicy Green Grass and the enormously catchy Newspaper Mama.

Car rides home will resound with renditions thereof, but the only uncertainty lies in whether it’ll be the adults or the kids leading the sing-song.

It may be that this review is infected with the bias of extreme nostalgia from an original Combe fan. But, honestly, there is not one on this continent who hasn’t a special place in their heart for this composer of anthems for the Australian youth.

Bless him. Bless him and his quirky berserkey turkey from Turkey.