What the Fandango?!

written by and starring Robert Hofmann

Just in time for Pride Month, Australian opera singer and cabaret star Robert  Hofmann brings his abundant talent and saucy attitude to New York City in his intimate club show, What the Fandango?!

His watchcry is “The opposite of courage is conformity,” and to polish his non-conforming credentials, he adopts five different characters involving costume, wig and voice changes without leaving the stage during this one-hour cabaret. Call him New York’s latest “slow change” artist. Tall, with an owlish face and big eyes, Hofmann speaks with a quivery voice, accompanying his delivery with fluttering hands and sly, sidewise glances at the audience.

For this, his American debut, Hofmann applies his baritone to a Whitman Sampler of songs, some familiar, some original and new, all accompanied by master accordionist Will Holshouser, billed for the evening as “Ben Dover.”They share their versions of the Stephen Sondheim standard “Losing My Mind,” and his novelty song “The Boy From….” Also, Cole Porter’s “Too Darn Hot,” which Hofmann certainly earns, having departed the just-ending Aussie summer to run smack into the just-starting Manhattan summer.

Among the delightful and less predictable choices: Noel Coward’s “Nina,” about a Latina who finds nothing romantic about Latin America.

Hofmann also includes several of his original songs, including the tango-flavored title number, which offers an alternate rhyme for the likes of luck, buck, and duck.

His patter is only mildly naughty, consisting of gentle, nougat-centered jokes about gay life that would be familiar to the fans of Bert Savoy. If he wants to make a splash with the West Village crowd, he’s going to need to concoct material with more of a wicked edge.

What the Fandango?!
plays through June 29 at
the Revelation Gallery
at St. John’s in the Village,
in Greenwich Village.