REVIEW: BRIEFS THE SECOND COMING
4.5 out of 5 stars
Ladies, gentlemen, and all those yet to make up there mind, it’s time to roll up for the quirkiest cabaret circus in town- the Briefs boys are back! On their third visit to Melbourne and lighting up The Famous Spiegeltent at Arts Centre Melbourne, they’re as loud, proud and funny as ever, presenting cabaret, dance, drag, circus tricks… it’s RuPaul’s Drag Race meets an Aussie Cirque du Soleil.
An award winning act at Perth FRINGE WORLD and winner of two Green Room Awards, they established themselves as a leader in cabaret and circus on the world stage at Edinburgh Fringe in 2013 and haven’t stopped since.
Opening with a raunchy but still beautiful and graceful fan dance, the Briefs boys are introduced and stripped down to their tighty whiteys, before launching into a series of scenes from a raunchy yo-yo and rubik’s cube strip tease to the drama of the dog show, a mini treadmill on stage, slapstick humour, sexual tension and so much more.
Expect your mouth to hit the floor from their awe inspiring tricks, as Thomas Worrell takes circus to new heights, performing aerial stunts with silks and a hoop. The audience was genuinely too excited and shocked to clap at some moments, with mouths open so wide that I’m sure sassy host Shivanna (the performer more commonly known as Fez Fa’anana) would love to make a sharp, witty and rude comment here – the kind of spectacular smutty humour that makes the crowd roar with laughter. It’s a little dirty, its witty, it’s got an essence of mean queen, and it helps the audience let their hair down and get into the show. The spectacular climax of the show is once again Captain Kidd, also known as Mark Winmill, the King of Burlesque in 2011 at the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame, first of his name, taking to the stage in a spectacular aerial bird bath routine that gets the audience wet – literally. Be brave and sit in the splash zone – the first few rows of seating have convenient plastic sheets underneath them to protect you from his playful splashing and sassy moves. Culminating in one last full cast dance number, clad in sequinned Australiana jumpsuits, the boys from Brisbane bring it home to No More Tears (Enough is Enough) by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer.
The only disappointment of this show is that it is a revised version of the same show, with a few refinements and cuts, that has toured to Melbourne twice previously – that doesn’t mean that this show is any less funny and flawless, just that if you have seen it before, it will feel familiar in it’s fun. But Brief fans need not fear, the boys and a few new cast members have recently begun touring their new show, Briefs: Close Encounters, premiering at Adelaide Cabaret Festival and in London and Auckland in 2017 before crash landing at Sydney Festival in 2018 – let’s keep our fingers crossed and our bodies ready in case they bring it to Melbourne!
Catch Briefs at the Spiegeltent until 22 April, or check out one of the other shows Briefs Factory are putting on – Club Briefs and Brat Kids Carnival on select dates only. More info and tickets: https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018/shows/briefs and https://www.briefsfactory.com/tour-dates
This article first appeared at: http://www.theatrepeople.com.au/briefs-the-second-coming/ on 9 April 2018.
