And like last year, Fez Fa'anana and the boys of Briefs didn't disappoint.
I would have sworn that the show didn't actually go for 90 minutes because the time just flew... it seemed like no sooner had they started than we were screaming and hollering along with the finale (I realise now that last year's show was 2 hours long, so it was actually shorter than I thought it should have been).
Unlike last year where I was sitting off to the side, I had a prime seat, essentially sitting at the end of the catwalk/stage, so I had a perfect view of everything.
There were also some changes to the line-up this year... Captain Kidd has just come back after injury, so his solo segments had been swapped out for other pieces... and Dallas Dellaforce has been, to quote Fez, "voted off the island", in her place was an equally blonde and fishy queen whose name I didn't catch (something beginning with J I think)... but she was suitably fierce.
Evil Hate Monkey, Thomas Worrell and my personal favourite, Louis Biggs, all return doing that voodoo that they do so well.
As much as my heart belongs to Louis, I'm also more than a little in love with Fez. You don't ever fuck with Fez though... as one gentleman, who was fiddling with his phone after Fez gave explicit instructions to put phones away, found out to his chagrin. But Fez is a brilliant, funny, warm and naughty diva... and his (I honestly keep wanting to refer to Fez as a she, like you do with drag queens, even the ones with beards, so my pronouns might slip a little) magic act is adorable and has brilliant comic timing and no small amount of skill.
But as I said... my heart (and parts further south) belong to Louis (that's him just to the right of Fez in the photo)... from the moment I bought a ton of raffle tickets off him (and didn't win the opportunity to do a tequila shot of his well stuffed underwear clad body... #jealous), to his schoolboy routine with the Rubix cube, yoyo and crocheted surprise to his turn as one of the tumbling dogs, to the new act with, I think, Lachlan as skipping, tumbling bogans... all the way through to the finale and the backless/thong sequinned number that he wears oh so well. But beyond the body... and it's an impressive body, it's his naughty, bubbly, exuberant personality that won my heart yet again.
The other new act is the new drag queen, and while she was good, and from a distance a totally convincing woman... just like last time, it was kind of my least favourite part of the show. The number was visually interesting,
Monkey was as crazed and inappropriate as I remember... but I don't know if I realised last time how incredibly skilled he was, particularly when he's jumping up and down on pointe in ballet shoes. That takes some serious skill, and some tough feet.
I also ended up being his banana humping victim during the ballet number, which I suspected might happen, but the reality of watching the little, essentially naked, ball of fur and energy fix you with his gaze, stand on you and thrust his sequinned codpiece in your face is entirely something else.
The two most magical acts of the evening were both courtesy of Thomas... first he gave a breathtaking performance on the silks... not I've seen a lot of aerial work this year, but this is the first time it's actually been on silks... and it really is beautiful to watch, especially when it's as stunningly lit as this was and as expertly done. Then he returned at the end to do a routine on the aerial hoop... and put his contortionist skills to excellent use.
There's a particular move that he does where the hoop is spinning and he's spinning but had one foot on the floor... it's quite honestly my favourite move of the routine, if not the night... it's just amazing.
That's the thing about Briefs though, while they don't take the show as a whole seriously and feed that energy and sense of fun back to the audience in a big, bad way... everybody does everything as well as they possibly can. Everybody is at the top of their respective games and they make you WANT to hoot and holler and cheer and clap until your hands are still tingly over two hours after the show has finished.
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