Bettie Bombshell – A Night of Burlesque.
Space Theatre Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
June 18-19 2026.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Hoots and hollers, screams and shrieks as each item of costume slips and slides away. Bettie Bombshell is your mischievous Emcee of the Burlesque. With a smirk and a smile and a beckoning palm to raise the roof, the Glam Reaper promises a night of burlesque like no other and she and her company of burlesque artistes deliver with all the panache and sexy sassiness of the sensuous art of the striptease. That’s what it's all about Bettie tells us – tease and glamour, timing and fun and on opening night of A Night OF Burlesque in the Space at the Adelaide Festival Centre, Bettie Bombshell will set off a blast of entertainment with all that slap on the bum cheekiness that makes burlesque a panacea to banish the blues. What one can expect from the Number 1 burlesque artist in Australia and Number 2 in the world is a top-class night of whip-cracking wicked desire, a sumptuous banquet of star-studded burlesque.
Lyla Labelle
Bombshell has handpicked four of Australia’s classiest, sexiest and best burlesque artists to give her show that special zing. Blonde siren Lyla Labelle does it with a boa, luring the victim to her seductive charm. There is an air of defiance and dominatrix control to her steady art of authority. Like a spider luring its prey to the web, Labelle has you in her lair. Winchester Angel is a devilishly daring vixen with her fire-eating to set her act aflame. This is burlesque with flair. As the strippers of the vaudeville era told Gipsy Rose Lee, “Ya gotta have a gimmick”, Karlee Tiana Misipeka takes them at their word with a Barbie number in a remote controlled car all pink and sugary to titillate and delight.
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| Rhys Lightning |
For a change of mood, Bombshell introduces a new work to the accompaniment of girlfriend Rain on guitar, providing a snake charmer’s seduction to the prowling artiste. Bombshell traverses the boundaries of burlesque to show that it is more than feathers, boas and fans. Her show teases; it entertains and it educates. It is liberating, empowering and political. And finally for something entirely different Rhys Lightning moves with serpentine swiftness, the Satan of male strippers strutting with peacock bombast and muscular athleticism.
The night ends with a celebration
of the artistry and sheer fun of burlesque and a night to fill the room with
joy and laughter. To bare all before a room packed with strangers is more than
an act of teasing and impish fun. For an hour audiences are entranced, enticed
and edified. It is an ultimate act of self determination and self-expression. From
devilish playfulness to the artful languor of the striptease, Bettie Bombshell
and her guest seduce and surprise in a fun night of desire and delight.
Photo of Bettie Bombshell by Georgia Maloney
