Briefs: Bite Club featuring
Sahara Beck.
Director and co-founder Fez Faanana.
Co-founder and Key Creative Mark
“Captain Kidd” Winmill, Rehearsal director and Ensemble Thomas Worrell. Luke
Hubbard – Nastia- Ensemble. Dylan Rodriguez- Serenity- Ensemble. Rowan
Thomas Ensemble and featuring Sahara
Beck and her band. Produced by Cluster Arts The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. November 21-23.
Bookings 62435711 or canberratheatre.com.au.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
“Are you ready to party Canberra?” Briefs co-founder and host Fez Faanana cried out. A chorus of deafening whoops rose from the adoring crowd in the Playhouse. Briefs return with their outrageously proud celebration of difference and identity. This time however the tantalizing and teasing troupe of performers inject their familiar glitter and glam with a sparkling innovation. Their decadent blend of luxuriously costumed drag, cabaret, circus and cheeky burlesque delight their audience throughout a night of spectacle, physical theatre, circus skills and humourous banter from Faanana.
Sahara Beck
For the first time the Briefs
boys have spiced up their divine decadence with the introduction of captivating
seductress of song, singer/songwriter Sahara Beck. With a voice that haunts one
moment, soars the next and weaves a web of accompaniment to the acts, Sahara
Beck is a dazzling star in Briefs repertoire.
Backed by three talented musicians including her younger brother on keyboard,
Beck gives the show a tight structure and an added gloss. Her original songs
are a powerhouse of emotion from the sultry to the seductive, the joyful to the
jubilant and the soulful to the dynamic. Beck is Briefs’ Muse. Her voice spins Rowan Thomas’s circling of the Cyr
wheel, Thomas Worrell’s agile aerial act on the trapeze, Mark “Captain Kidd’
Winmill’s audaciously mischievous splashing in a chalice of water, Dylan
Rodriguez’s (Serenity) heart-stopping backflips in stilettos and former gold
medal winning diver Luke Hubbard’s (Nastia) perfectly controlled hand stands.
 |
| Thomas Worrell |
Fantasy and frivolity flavour the night with a feast of fun. It’s a spicy banquet of classy irreverent cabaret, made even more delectable by the stunning talent of Beck. It is an innovation that breathes new life into Briefs and fits in perfectly in the Playhouse setting. Faanana breaks the fourth wall with his banter with the audience and an unsuspecting raffle winner is enticed onto the stage in a fairy tale scene surrounded by each member of Briefs: Bite Club demonstrating their finely tuned talent.
But it is not all floss and gloss and romping campery. Faanana’s opening acknowledgement to country and his Pacific roots and later appearance in a Miss So Sorry 2020’s sash offer a touch of political bite in a show that is slick and sassy. Briefs; Bite Club and featuring Sahara Beck has transcended its journey from humble beginnings to Spiegeltent performances to a proscenium stage, but the show has lost none of the artistry of the talented team, and with its latest inclusion of the remarkable Sahara Beck, Brief’s Bite Club is a dish well worth the tasting. But be advised, the show is billed for audiences over 18 and strictly for the open-minded who would not be offended by full frontal male nudity. Blink and you’ll miss the moment on the Cyr wheel. Brief’s Bite Club is ultimately a celebration of what it means to be human. It is in the acknowledgement of each member’s talent and in the lyrics of Beck’s songs. Brief’s Bite Club is an affirmation of acceptance and Entertainment with a capital E.
Photos by Lachlan Douglas
