The Girly Game | The Gold Digger | 25, 31 Jan, 1 Feb | ★ ★ ★
Local drag stars Donna Kebab, Perri Oxide and Sassie Cassie present a panel game show where different guests join them each night to play a series of games and engage in some fun and frivolity.
Donna serves as the host of the show, while Perri and Sassie are the team captains. The guests of the first night were local drag performers Ginava and Skye Scrapper. Adams Apple joins in as Donna’s hard working minion.
After opening up with a lip-sync number, where we wondered if the artist’s flimsy costumes would stay together, and we got to see a lot more of Perri Oxide that we would have preferred, things got down to business as our team captains took their places alongside the guests.
No expense was spent on the costumes or the props, and the tables and signs quickly began falling apart. Everytime a guest hit their hand down on the desk, you wondered if the precariously balanced wooden table tops would catapult into the audience.
As the night progressed Donna Kebab’s costume started disintegrating, but none of this really mattered, it just added to the glorious and wonderful mess that was unfolding.
The various games allowed the participants to show that they’ve got a lot more to offer than the lip-syncing we most often seeing them undertaking. The Girly Game displayed their comedy chops, as they threw shade at other local performers and saw who could drop the best one-liner.
If you’re familiar with Perth’s local drag scene and have an intimate knowledge of who’s who, and who’s done what, there’s a lot of laughs to be found in the take-no-prisoners show.
Most of the audience at the opening night seemed to be familiar with the phrases, characters and places that were central to the comedy, but for audience members who had stumbled into this show set at the epicentre of the local drag scene, they were probably wondering what it was all about.
This show would move up a notch if some of the guest came from outside the drag realm, the clash of drag culture and performers from other realms has a lot of potential, and a few extra panelists could have easily been fitted in… but they’d probably have to invest in an actual set first.
From reading challenges, to physical tasks, improv-comedy to trivia, Donna Kebab put the contestants through their paces and tried keep the show moving, but it clocked in at almost 90 minutes, 40 minutes longer than the advertised running time.
Late night shows at Fringe are expected to be slightly debaucherous, chaotic and crazy and this one ticketed all the appropriate (and slightly inappropriate) boxes.
It was filled with enthusiastic vulgarity, freed nipples, shameless sexual chatter and questionable inhaling of substances – check in with our local drag talent for some late night mischief for three more performances.
See The Girly Game on 25, 29 January and 1 February. Tickets on sale now.
Graeme Watson is an editor at OUTinPerth. He has a background in writing, dance, theatre, radio and film working as a performer, producer and writer. He is a casual academic at ECU, and writes for a variety of publications. Graeme has been working as a reviewer since 1997.
