Melbourne Fringe Festival 2024: Finucane & Smith’s Global Smash Club Review

24 October, 2024 timchuma 0 Comments 1 category

After all these years the show has not lost its power to shock, amaze and delight.

Saturday 19th October, Trades Hall – ETU Ballroom

While I didn’t really see it until 2005 when burlesque had to actually force its way onto stage in between “rock” acts in the pubs I had seen the Town Bikes at the “cry-baby” show at the Tote which is how I eventually ended up seeing the Burlesque Hour at the end of 2005 at the Famous Speigeltent.

Burlesque in that area was 100% defined by the 1950s cheesecake style and if you did anything different at all it was rejected. I do have more photos but was directed to take them off my website by a single performer under circumstances I shall not go into.

Dawn from Hi Ball Burlesque/the Australian Burlesque Festival is a rock though, much respect to still be in the game as even Anna GoGo is no longer go-going at this point (she was writing a book). They were always straight with me.

There is a book about my time in the Melbourne burlesque scene. It is stashed in the State Library of Victoria as I do not want to look at it anymore.

It’s not all bad! The Boklesque show I saw recently was the funniest shit especially since I knew all the tropes.

I am sure Imogen Kelly does not remember me at all. I knew she had some issues with her health but did not know the cancer treatment was that invasive. Both of her performances in the show were great but I liked the one with this particular song the most.

The show actually started for me when I was waiting to go into Die Roten Punkte across the hall (I was almost ejected from a burlesque show on my birthday there one year but that’s a story for another time.) Due to the performers having to enter from both sides of the ballroom some of them had to run down the stairs from their dressing room and then back up to make their entrance on the other side.

I did get an email from the Melbourne Fringe organisers to arrive early and that general admission was not guaranteed a seat. I was just across the landing so it was not hard. Also I made sure to get a seat as I can’t stand these days.

There was a show before the show with seemingly random performances by the various acts that seemed to start from nowhere just like in the old Weimar Republic days.

I did get a hug off Moira Finucane, she really helped me out by giving me a ticket for a show she was doing earlier in the year when I was in between jobs and had nothing so it was great to see her and the show again as the one at the Chinese Museum was a different type of show, no drop sheet required for the first six rows for a start!

It was great to see Piera Dennerstein involved in the show, I had wanted to see the shows she was involved in around the place but they always seemed to be hard for me to get to or I did not have the money. I ended up seeing a lot more of her in this show than I thought I ever would but I am not complaining!

Speaking of nudity why is it considered shocking when people you do not expect to be nude are so but young and fit people get a free pass? Doing all that life drawing over the various lockdowns has re-wired something in my brain that I crave looking at different bodies now and also much larger ones these days as there is more to draw and you can really go crazy with the big swoops and swooshes in your artwork.

The concept of this show is old friends and new so the older original Burlesque Hour sketches were mixed in with newer ones from people the production has made along the way with the newest one being Kate Marie Foster who got her own solo at the end of the show.

My favourite of the classic sketches was the Hello Kitty one and you could tell how old it was due to the phones they use during the act. This is also one of the acts that I saw the performers coming up the stairs outside to go into the show for the previous performance.

The acts did not all use the main round stage in the middle with some to the back or off to the side. I was sitting on a chair on the floor so I had trouble turning around for some but it was still good.

Having the two different bars open during the show let it continue and you could nip off when you felt like it and didn’t have to hold your empty drink during an act.

While most of the backing tracks were recorded there were some with Xiao Xiao on cello and a keyboard player for Zitao Deng and Mama Alto’s numbers.

It was great to see both Zitao Deng and Mama Alto in the show together as I had missed seeing Mama Alto in two previous shows and not actually talked to them for years. I made sure to say hello after the show and say how well I remember the show at Luna Park in St Kilda and riding on the carousel while Clare St Clare was singing.

They did end up saving the milk jugs act right until the end as it made the most mess that needed to be cleaned up. People were screaming but you could hear that they loved it at the same time. Moira got to be a demon with this act.

Once again I remember that there were things in the original show like Romeo doing the whole drag king thing before it was even called that or indeed existed in the way it does so now. It was good to see that character again even for a brief time.

I will try to get to some of the acts by the performers but will have to see how I go with work and other plans. Even seeing them here was a big treat and I am only a little bit annoyed that another band that I love decided to do their big art show with multiple artists painting figurines of them and not announce it until 2 weeks before their show when I had already booked this but it is done now. I still went to see Jet in Outer Demons. Also I finally got to see Die Roten Punkte do their own show after 17 years of seeing them in other people’s shows!

This was their last show of the year and this particular performance was the very last show of that run due to no Christmas show so I guess you have to wait until 2025 now. All the best, over and out.

Rating: 5/5

Show details:

Genre: Cabaret

Show Length: 75min + pre-show

Featuring a cascade of stars across the season:

Queen of Provocative Variety & Empress of Burlesque Bizarre Moira Finucane

Performance Art Legend Maude Davey

Butoh goddess of dark fever dreams Yumi Umiumare

The voice of angels Mama Alto

Las Vegas crowned Queen of Burlesque Imogen Kelly

Astonishing Starlet Zitao Deng

Uber cello virtuoso Xiao