Bearing all

Martyn Badoui says he doesn’t usually get out of the house much.

The singer-songwriter says working on his music keeps him so busy, it is a rare occasion that he ventures out.

But over this Mardi Gras season, it seems Badoui will rarely be at home. On Saturday nights, he is performing his show Mary’s Faery at Mr Mary’s in Redfern and, at the end of the month, he will perform his one-man Mardi Gras cabaret show, Bear Uncut , at Bar Me.

Mardi Gras is the best opportunity when you are a young man trying to get heard, he says.

At Mr Mary’s, Badoui is performing a range of characters and cabaret fare for what he calls very much a bear crowd.

I never really associated showtunes with this crowd, but this stuff is more of their camp vintage and it goes down well, he says.

In Badoui’s one-man show Bear Uncut , he performs original music to make a statement about where he feels he fits into modern Australian society.

Well, I am a bear and in the show I am being uncut and raw and honest through my music, he explains.

There is also a certain irony of being half-Jewish, and yet being uncut -“ that is probably all that needs to be said about that, he quips.

Badoui, whose father was Lebanese and his mother Jewish, explores his family background in Bear Uncut , and what it has meant to him in the wake of the Cronulla riots and scare-mongering over people of Middle Eastern backgrounds.

When everything was going on, I didn’t think about sides, I just felt the whole situation was terrible, he says.

When the violence erupted, I felt I had to get some of this out of my system, and chose to express myself through my music.

Mary’s Faery is on at 8:30pm every Saturday through Mardi Gras at Mr Mary’s, 106 George St, Redfern. Bear Uncut is on 21 and 28 February at Bar Me, cnr Brougham and William St, Kings Cross. Bookings on 9368 0894.