A festival should be kicked off with a party and there will be one on stage in the South Bank Piazza September 1 with the return of the hit show There’s Something About Music.

It was a sell out twice in 2021 at Brisbane Powerhouse and it’s the perfect show to reboot for Brisbane Festival – a local production with local talent including our first couple of song Luke Kennedy and Naomi Price. Add the extraordinarily talented Irena Lysiuk and First Nations singing star Marcus Corowa and a hot band with Mik Easterman on drums (he’s a crowd favourite) and you have a formula for fun.

The show is a homage to romantic comedy soundtracks and is another production hatched by Price and Adam Brunes who have come up with some amazing ideas. They have given us Christmas Actually (a tribute to the music of Love, Actually), Your Song (a tribute to the music of Elton John), among others.

Naomi Price has stepped back occasionally to direct and she now serves as artistic director and co-founder of The Little Red Company which is based at the Judith Wright Arts Centre in Fortitude Valley. But she’s back on stage for this show and says she is delighted to be opening the festival.

“We feel very attached to Brisbane Festival,” Price says. “If we’re not performing in it, we love watching, supporting our colleagues and friends. It’s a big honor to be opening this year and we have a good solid run.”

There’s Something About Music is on from September 1 to 10 in the South Bank Piazza where they triumphed with their previous Brisbane Festival show, Skyfall, a tribute to the James Bond theme songs. That was a huge hit and featured Luke Kennedy abseiling into the venue in true 007 style.

There’s Something About Music is described as “dripping in nostalgia” and as “the ultimate romcom mixtape”.

“Originally it was 90s teen romcoms I was obsessed with,” Price says. “But we extended that. If you have been on a dance floor in the 80s, 90s, or 2000s you will know the songs in this show. The last bit of the show is a big mega mix of all the songs you’d hear at a wedding and if you’re not up and dancing to Sweet Home Alabama at the end you must be made of stone.”

Price and Kennedy, partners in life and music, were last on stage together in Skyfall which played Brisbane Festival in 2021.

“We’re not in shows so much together now,” Kennedy says. “In this one the four of us sing together and it’s a lot of fun. “

Kennedy has a couple of big numbers including I’m Kissing You which featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet.

“That’s not quite a romcom,” he says. “I also do She which Elvis Costello sang on the soundtrack of the classic British film Notting Hill.”

As well as Notting Hill there are numbers from My Best Friend’s Wedding, Bridesmaids, When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman and other films.

Naomi Price says songs from these films are very familiar.

“All By Myself from Bridget Jones’s Diary is burned into everyone’s brains,” she says. “So is The Way You Look Tonight from My Best Friend’s Wedding. There are moments from movies that are so impactful because they are tied to music. They are underpinned by these iconic musical moments.”

With a full house the show will be performed to 1000 people inside the South Bank Piazza but Price says anyone around South Bank will hear the soundtrack being blasted out from the venue.

“They will think – what on earth is that show?”

Part of the fun of the show is also that it ends with a wedding. The audience gets to vote on which of the singers get married at the end and that adds a bit of spice to the whole affair.

For The Little Red Company this is more of the same and what we have come to expect from them. But Naomi Price says she wants to attract a new audience too.

“We want to welcome people who have not seen us before,” she says. “We think everyone knows who we are but when we do festivals, we get a whole new audience.”

Price says the company has grown and is busier than ever and that “Little Red is a bit old and tired Red at the moment”.

“We are flat strapped,” she says. In a good way. There is the announcement of a new show soon, they will be doing this year’s The Lord Mayor’s Christmas Carols at Riverstage again and they will be taking their Yuletide show Christmas Actually on the road for a four-city tour later in the year.

But right now, the focus is There’s Something About Music (a play on the film title There’s Something About Mary in case you missed that) and it will soon be party time in the South Bank Piazza. And we’re all invited.

brisbanefestival.com.au