Twisted Christmas | GALORE! Presents
Doris and Dolores. Image credit: Chloe Callistemon
As is customary at indie Queer events like GALORE! presents Twisted Christmas, I ran into at least four people I knew as I made my way to a seat. This is always a delightful feeling – arriving to an event knowing I’ll find at least on member of my extended Queer family. And this felt especially fitting given the festive nature of the night.
GALORE! heralds itself as ‘Brisbane’s underground cabaret’ a night of performance dedicated to the weird, wacky, and wonderful of what Meanjin’s independent and emerging arts scenes have to offer. As such, their Christmas spread was quite a mixed bag. A variety of forms and levels of experience and polish were available to the GALORE! audience. We’re guided through this seasonal smorgasbord by our elven MC, Maddy – a staunch unionist direct from the North Pole who’s (1) truly and deeply jaded by capitalism’s co-option of the holiday and (2) concerningly quick to guarantee we’re all on the naughty list this year. Their grizzly demeanour is delightfully grounding in amongst the wackiness of the night’s acts.
Verotica Deluxe and Nadia Jade Sugar are Kamp Krampus. Image credit: Chloe Callistemon
Speaking of the acts, I have already mentioned that they were quite assorted. I am not exaggerating when I say this. Audiences were delighted and scandalised by drag performance, pole dancing, stand-up and musical comedy, clown, burlesque, circus, and even marshmallow eating. I wish I could cover each act in depth, but we would be here until next Christmas so I’m going to cover my and (what I feel) were the audience’s favourites. I do want to give special props to a few moments of pure Christmas magick before I do, including but not limited to: a rivals to lovers story starring Jack Skellington and The Grinch, the twirling of nipple tassels to John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over), a mouth full of too many marshmallows (so many more than you’re currently imagining), and a pair of Krampus (Krampuses? Krampussies?) using the promise of a free air fryer to drag an audience member to Christmas hell.
Red Devotchkin. Image credit: Chloe Callistemon
The first of these highlight performances comes from a performer our MC referred to as “The Duchess of Chermside” otherwise known as Rebel Lyons. My interest is immediately piqued given I too operate out of the Northern suburbs, a working-class left-wing Queer behind enemy lines. The audience is treated to a parody of The Twelve Days of Christmas called The Twelve Months of Marriage. This parody details the early bliss of a marriage – presumably Lyons – and its eventual downturn and collapse (we hit divorce around the ninth day of Christmas). It’s a hilarious reworking of the original and was so catchy I found myself humming it on the way home. But that’s not all! We get some stand-up from Lyons about the downfall of her marriage and a blow job contest they were a part of (and won) while at a John Waters camp. A knee-slapping story that leads into perhaps the highpoint of the night – a balloon swallowing act followed by a parody of Frozen’s Let it Go reworked into the mind-meltingly funny Let me Blow. We never saw Lyons bring the balloon back up and we still do not know where it went, and I think that kind of mystery is what Christmas is all about.
Doris and Dolores hit the stage and I’m transfixed. They’re having a party, but not a Christmas party (Christmas has been cancelled), it’s a gender reveal party. The pair from inside their matching white dresses and under their matching floppy cane sunhats ask the audience what we think it will be: a boy, a girl, a Lovecraftian terror whose sex is unknowable? I place my money on the third option, and I was right. The hats and dresses are abandoned, and we come to learn that Doris and Dolores are not ladies who lunch, but rather goblins who seek the abolishment of the government (and God and money and the family and men and heterosexualism). With suburban propriety abandoned the duo thrash about to the music for the rest of their performance – it is delightfully camp and truly twisted. I loved it and so did the audience.
All-in-all GALORE! presents Twisted Christmas was a night of charming, compelling, and very strange entertainment. But really, how much stranger could it be than the psychic and emotional rollercoaster that is visiting your family around the holidays for some Queer folks? Not much.
