Briefs: Dirty Laundry – Sydney Spiegeltent(NSW)

Presented as part of the Sydney Mardi Gras Festival 2024.

Reviewed by Bradley Roe

Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park

Season 20 February – 15 March

Tickets: https://sydneyspiegeltent.com/briefs

A fun and fabulously queer night awaits you just in time for Mardi Gras all thanks to the Briefs Factory collective!

A night of HUGE laughs, HUGE fun, HUGE talents, and very FULL briefs! Briefs: Dirty Laundry is the newest instalment by the Australian creative collective known as Briefs Factory. This crazily entertaining clash of cabaret, circus, drag and queer art was set to take us through our dirty laundry, and ‘air out’ any bad memories from the past few years.

The opening night was a buzz with Queer famous faces, family, friends, and supporters of this amazing collective. The excitement built rapidly as the Spiegeltent doors opened, and the full house came rushing in met by the scantily clad cast in their silk robes selling raffle tickets, taking photos and welcoming us to the scintillating show. (Hot tip: get in quick, or you’ll be stuck at the back!)

Briefs: Dirty Laundry at Sydney's Spiegeltent. Images by Briefs Factory/Ven Tithing.

The lights dimmed, the fun group number began, and we were transported to the camp world of the briefs factory. Our host Fez Faanana had the audience’s attention from the moment we stepped foot in the tent, welcoming, joking and showing us how to act at a Briefs show and held that attention throughout the entire night. Something this company has done extremely well is introduce who they are, what they intend to do, and what we need to do to best enjoy every moment of it.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge how Fez and the cast did their acknowledgement of country, it wasn’t based of ‘a script from a council website’ but was a truly heartfelt and a meaningful way to acknowledge our First Nations people and their traditions of storytelling and community.

Fez Faanana wasn’t the only fabulous Drag artist to be a part of this sensational show either. Nastia, Enter Serenity and Captain Kidd were all stunners on stage, each with their crazy energy and unique talents. A special shout out to the iconic behaviour of Kidd throughout the night, who kept us gasping, giggling and gagged at the insane things they can do with hula hoops!

a fun, hilarious, awe inspiring and unapologetically queer night of theatre!

The crazy talent did not stop there with four incredible circus acts that kept the crowd engaged, enthralled and entertained. First up was Rowan Thomas with Cyr Hoop, a deceptively difficult act, that kept increasing in difficulty and decreasing in clothing! We had the hilarious balloon swallowing by Dale Woodbridge, and dangerously daring loops act by Enter Serenity. Each act was absolutely mind blowing and full of energy from start to finish.

However, the show stopping performance on Lyra by Thomas Worrell was the highlight of the show. Although it didn’t have the high energy of the other performances, he truly enamoured every single audience member with his immense skill in this artform. He received the loudest response from the audience at the conclusion of his performance which was well deserved. These circus acts were polished, flawless and displayed a high level of performance skill.

These performances were intertwined by high camp and high fun dance numbers that were truly a pleasure to witness. Each member of the audience and cast were having a blast as they laughed along with Brett Rosengreen’s Fab daddy and his cheeky boy-lesque number. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but the insanity that follows the raffle draw is worth every cent you spend on tickets. Buy them up and hopefully you will win a bag full of goodies, and a special treat!

Briefs: Dirty Laundry is a fun, hilarious, awe inspiring and unapologetically queer night of theatre! It is a night you will not soon forget, and one that I would recommend to all adults looking for a bit of cheekiness. Each cast member is at the top of their game and is having as much fun as you are in the audience. Go see this show, it is a fabulously cheeky night out! 

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