IF you were David Bates's bank manager, would you loan him more than $500,000 to buy an 86-year-old portable vaudeville hall?While
performing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival in the mid-1990s, Bates fell in love with the Belgian-built wood-and-mirror-panelled venue known as the Famous Spiegeltent. At following festivals, Bates rented the space from its owners, a Scottish brewing company, to put on shows. He eventually decided to buy it. "Each year I thought it would be a one-off venture, but unintentionally she (the Spiegeltent) took over my life," he said yesterday. In 2001 Bates bought the 350-seat Spiegeltent "for the price of a house in St Kilda". Because no bank would guarantee him a loan ("They thought I was crazy"), the brewery allowed him to pay in instalments, which he eventually did. Bates said the Spiegeltent was "an extremely precarious business, every event I do I'm at risk". But there is nothing he'd rather be doing. This year the Spiegeltent is back for its sixth Melbourne
International Arts Festival with cabaret, music, talks, and the successful acrobat show, La Clique. La Clique is an international group of acts brought together by Bates and his creative producer, Brett Haylock. Some
performers have emerged from the cabaret circuit, others learned their craft as buskers. "We see a lot of performers at the Spiegeltent and for La Clique we're looking for a particular type: people who have humour, danger, are sexy and highly skilled," Haylock said. One such act is AmyG, a roller-skating, ukulele-playing comedian from New York. She performed with La Clique during its recent New York season before heading to Melbourne. Each night, AmyG executes her tricky act on the Spiegeltent's 2.4m-diameter stage, the audience at tables around her. "It's more exciting for a performer than a traditional stage because of the intimacy of the audience," she said. "Every night you're in their lap." Bates said that despite a heavy international schedule, the Spiegeltent had resumed "its complete love affair with Melbourne. Each night we've had a lot of our old friends, Spiegel devotees, who are happy we're back. Every year, same time, same place, it's like a homecoming." The Spiegeltent is at the Arts Centre forecourt in Melbourne until December 17.