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Review: Briefs – Close Encounters

A whirling conglomerate of circus skills, burlesque and high-camp theatrics, Close Encounters is an asteroid belt of sassy, sexy mayhem.

Jun 10, 2017, updated Jun 12, 2017

It’s the latest show from Brizzie boylesque band Briefs, and it’s funny, flirty, kooky, trashy, a little bit haphazard at times (balls are dropped, hoops fly into the audience) but a whole lot of fun.

The show opens with those signature five notes from the Close Encounters film and a space-age dance routine that morphs (curiously) into a jungle number.

From Barry White to Cut Chemist, the soundtrack is as eclectic as the talent on show – and there’s no doubt these guys have talent.

Thomas Gundry Greenfield gives a truly beautiful dance performance while removing a surprising number of sloganed singlets; Mark “Captain Kidd” Winmill shows impressive strength and elegance, seductively stripteasing on the corde lisse; Thomas Worrell’s cerceau routine is utterly mesmerising, his final spin a complete mind-boggle.

Although her participation in the dance routines seems a bit half-hearted, the show’s compère, Fez Fa’anana, is at her glittery, eyelash-fluttering best when she interacts with the audience, warmth and wit sparkling.

There’s no obvious coherent theme: the Close Encounters spacey stuff is referred to in a couple of routines involving astronauts and space pods, but there’s also a mad scientist, some complaining about lack of arts funding, a crazy clown-bunny and, even more bizarrely, some club-juggling cavemen.

The show’s surreal elements are, however, the humour highlights: Dale Woodbridge-Brown is hilarious as the crazy bunny harassed by ringing clocks, and his wacky dancing to ’90s club classic “Ride on Time” had the audience in stitches. Harry Clayton-Wright in a nightie doing horror-film poses was also very funny (if completely random), and crackpot as it is to feature a Rubik’s cube in a cabaret act, Louis Biggs somehow managed to make it sexy.

If you’re up for a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, the Briefs band have it in spades. What’s lacking in spit and polish (and some routines are polished to the super-shiny max) is more than made up for in loveable, cheeky-chappy charm.

Close Encounters is showing at the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent until Sunday. See more Adelaide Cabaret Festival reviews and previews here.

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