Briefs: The Second Coming

Dec 21 2014 | By More

✭✭✭✭✩     Fabulously Fierce

St Andrew Square: Fri 19 Dec – Sun 4 Jan 2015

Drag artistes, award winning Vegas boylesque and edgy humour are whipped together in Edinburgh’s Christmas Speigeltent by the beautiful Briefs boys in their first visit to the city outside of the fringe.

“A little bit of butch with a **** load of camp on the side” is how the glorious hostess Shivanna introduces Briefs: The Second Coming. And she is not wrong.

The burlesque fan dance routine given the Briefs treatment. Photo: Vimeo

The burlesque fan dance routine given the Briefs treatment. Photo: Vimeo

Starting life as an underground club event in Brisbane, Briefs aims to bring together the misfits, freaks and office workers to dance, laugh and let their weaves down.

Uniquely, for such events, Briefs has managed to bring the underground to the foreground without losing its edge. The show opens with a traditional burlesque fan dance routine that has been given the Briefs treatment: sharp, high energy choreography and a banging beat, in this case Technotronic’s Pump up the Jam.

This nod to the traditions of burlesque continues throughout the 70 minute show. There is a twist on a traditional tease and peel routine performed by the very naughty Evil Hate Monkey and his banana. And a beautifully awkward geek who does things with a yo-yo that you’d never imagine possible, whilst solving a Rubik’s cube.

Shivanna seamlessly links the pieces together, working the crowd with a bitchy cynicism that only the best drag queens can get away with. She knows how to handle her audience, encouraging them to view the show: “through your eyeballs not your iPhones”. Important advice, as you really don’t want to miss a single moment, especially during her magic routine where she masterfully pulls tricks and sarcasm out of her hat.

Dogs and Bitches

She later exercises this control over her fellow performers during the outrageous ‘Dogs and Bitches’, a competitive routine where each queen shows off her hound’s acrobatic and choreographic skills. Evil Hate Monkey is at his evil best here, degenerating the piece into a moment that pushes far out beyond the boundaries of bad taste.

Just as there was a Spice Girl for every teenager, there is a Briefs boy for each audience member. You may fall for the charms of the beautiful Louis, easy to do when you see him spinning above your head topless and in skin tight Levi’s during his aerial routine.

Trash bags will love Dallas Dellaforce – fierce, fabulous and unafraid to tackle media gender perceptions using comedy and cat walking. And then there’s Captain Kidd, a tattooed, glittered boylesque god who cavorts in a giant birdbath before wowing the crowd with his trapeze skills.

With an average ticket price of £30, Briefs is a little on the pricey side. However this is no ordinary cabaret: these boys are seriously talented. And as Shivanna mockingly informs her audience after a particularly risqué moment “trauma is included in the ticket price”.

Top tip – buy a raffle ticket. In fact buy ten: the prize is sooo worth it. Be warned: losers will be ‘jeallloous’.

NB: There is a 20% discount on tickets for anyone who lives in an EH postcode.

Running time 1 hr 10 mins (no interval)
The Paradiso Spiegeltent, St Andrew Square.
Friday 19 December 2014 – Sunday 4 January 2014
Fri 19-Sun 21: 9.30pm, then 7.30pm (Wed 31: 5pm). Not Thurs 25, Mon 29, Thurs 1.
Details and tickets: www.edinburghschristmas.com

ENDS

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