Subtitles Not Included | Thalia Novela
A thunderous applause fills the theatre from the many fans in the audience and the love for Thalia in for her debut show is very present – her comedy is excellent, the costumes and burlesque routines are exquisite.
A Very Naughty Christmas | Woodward Productions
This is a clever, funny, adults-only burlesque-meets-musical-theatre. It isn’t high art, it won’t test your powers of concentration, and it’s probably not going to inspire social action—but it gets 5-stars from me. Sometimes we just need an enjoyable night out.
Murder on The Dancefloor | The Mystical Menagerie
Murder on the Dancefloor was a burlesque show with a fun, interactive twist. Before the show began, we were given a piece of paper on which to make our best guess of whom the guilty party was and how they committed the murder. We then witnessed an excellent line-up of local Brisbane performers, with each act containing a weapon as the through line connecting the performances.
Blanc de Blanc Encore
Blanc de Blanc Encore delivers a high-paced 100+ minutes of variety-style entertainment, ranging from song, dance and European-style clowning, through to foot-juggling, Chinese pole and aerials. Be ready for a quick and entertaining ride.
Briefs: The Classics | Briefs Factory
As a shameless Briefs groupie, I’d seen all the acts before, but that didn’t matter in the slightest. All the performers know how to work the crowd and respond to the audience’s energy, camping up acts and whipping us into a frenzied applause at the drop of a hat. And of course, Shivannah kept the show moving at a high pace with her winning commentary and stunning outfits sourced from op shops around the world.
Ensnare Burlesque | Wynnum Fringe 21
On the Wynnum Fringe Podcast series, Ophelia explained ‘inclusivity’ being a big driver for her project Ensnare, and this was definitely achieved. Showcasing a deliciously diverse set of bodies, skills, and genres, it was clear that at Ensnare, everyone is welcome and celebrated.
Banquet | Chevron Showgirls
I’m a sucker for sideshow, and there were some very neatly presented skills on the stage. Better than that, the sideshow was wrapped up in beautiful daydream, where beauties wandered in and out of vision doing nonsensical, fabulous, dangerous things. Sideshow is often a showman’s trick, a five-minute throwaway routine with a big bang finish. This was different, it played with the skills, made them into little stories, eddies in a dream. It was very nice indeed.
Apocalipstick | Polytoxic
Apocalipstick used drag and gender-fuckery to engage the audience through laughter, the absurd, and the excess. There is nothing better to make someone think about serious issues than to make them laugh! Laughter sits with you in a light vein and it makes you come back to the funny sketch again and again looking for one more laugh. Drag invites laughter by highlighting the contradictions of gender through the excess: hoping for a fuck, office tape and markers become the perfect beauty tools for a face-lift and make-up, and thin-glass toxic masculinity is the weapon of the man looking for acceptance in the wolf pack.
The G.O.A.T. Show | Shock Therapy Productions
We sit on fold-out chairs on the front lawn of an abandoned house on Chevron Island. A table piled with iceberg lettuces sits beside a temporary stage. Our hosts, two men in neon coloured suits, are offering pickled onions from the jar, sardines from the can and melons ripped apart with their bare hands. They take it upon themselves to gently whack some audience members with fly swatters, despite the lack of flies. Ah, yes, hospitality.
WonderWombs | The Dust Palace (NZ)
This is top quality contemporary neo-burlesque. Full of provocations that subvert stereotypes of 'woman', it is righteously sex-positive and utterly refreshing for it. Yeah these girls are hot, but it's never about who is watching, it's all about how good it feels within.