Award-nominated Bowie-inspired Starman cabaret tour waiting to descend on NZ skies

Sven Ratzke in Starman
Supplied
Sven Ratzke in Starman

As the Bowie song goes 'There's a Starman waiting in the sky'.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to connect with Sven Ratzke, whose cabaret show Starman is heading to New Zealand shores from September 1st, there's also a journalist waiting to talk to him as well.

When we finally catch up, Ratzke has just come off stage and is profusely apologetic.

Starman by Dutch-German cabaret artist Sven Ratzke is already a European hit and is heading here
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Starman by Dutch-German cabaret artist Sven Ratzke is already a European hit and is heading here

Looking at his hectic global tour schedule, it's no wonder the 40 year-old Dutch German singer and entertainer has trouble working out where he is and when he's supposed to be somewhere.

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Described abroad as the "love child of Eddie Izzard and David Bowie", Ratzke's an in-demand name having had a successful stint at the world-famous Edinburgh festival. The show Starman is described as a "wild, irreverent and scandalous ride into the centre of one of the world's most bohemian and exceptional rock artists." But, in his lilting Dutch-German accent, full of gentle pensive charisma, Ratzke is insistent it's no straight tribute show to David Bowie.

Channeling his inner Rebel, rebel, Starman by Dutch-German cabaret artist Sven Ratzke
Supplied
Channeling his inner Rebel, rebel, Starman by Dutch-German cabaret artist Sven Ratzke

"What we did with the show is we took the music, and we took the universe of the Bowie, especially in the 70s when he was all these alter egos and constantly changing his appearance and character because for me that was very theatrical, almost like an opera. He had a lot of mystery. I mixed that with my own kind of performance and my own kind of style, so I take the audience on a sort of a trip."

Taking in figures like Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, telling stories, flamboyantly patrolling the stage and making Bowie's iconic music the soundtrack to the whole thing make this night of cabaret into something entirely different, but yet also familiar.

Ratzke's a life-long entertainer, discovering his joy for adopting the persona of others from a very early age.

"I was always in the middle of the attention when I was a child and I gathered all the grown ups together and wrote my own plays - everybody had to do what I told them.

"I never wanted to box myself into one thing - but I think cabaret is a very fertile style, you have to be smart in all kinds of stuff to be musically very good, and you have to be fast. You have to be really personal, and I think that is why cabaret is now a very important genre because we have all this mediocrity and all this stupid stuff going on; a lot of people don't want to stand out any more and in cabaret, I think a lot of people do, you need a voice."

The show had to seek approval from Bowie himself, and Ratzke believes that was forthcoming because Bowie saw something of a kindred chameleonic spirit in Ratzke.

"You know, I think what it is all about to be an artist is not to sit there and sing over and over the same material where you already know that it works. But it's to take all these risks and say 'You know what? I had a big success with this, but now I'm going to do something else'.

"But even I as we speak I am doing this - I'm only coming to your wonderful country with this show for the first time and that's it. I could do this for six or seven years. I could tour the world with this Starman show but there's a point when I say 'No you know, I have done it and I wanna do something completely different again'."

The Thin White Duke's death in January 2016 didn't cause Ratzke to think twice about whether to continue with a show he'd first performed the previous October.

"It's a very personal show, I would say - I'm not pretending to be Bowie or anything, I bring his songwriting to life. Of course, there was another pressure on the show because before he could have walked into the room every night, it could have happened. Now he was gone, it gave the show a different layer, an emotion."

Regardless of the emotional weight now imbued in the show after Bowie's passing, Ratzke is hopeful that audiences will simply just have a good time. As ever, we have some way to go to live up to our trans-Tasman cousins, who've already embraced the show.

"I hope I don't offend you, but what I like really about Australia is the audience is really open-minded and they're really into personalities. They really like you when you are standing up out there and have mixed theatre with entertainment. In Europe there is always this attitude of 'You have to be a theatre guy, or a cabaret guy or a pop guy or whatever' and I really like to mix all these genres. We got a nomination for the show there, so really that was incredible. As for New Zealand, who knows?"

No pressure then....

Starman plays the Taranaki Arts Festival on September 2nd, before heading to Christchurch from September 8th before finishing up in Auckland from September 14th as part of the Auckland Live International Cabaret Season.

Sunday Star Times