YUMMY: Unleashed | The Edith Spiegeltent | Until Feb 9 | ★ ★ ★ ★
The delicious cast of YUMMY have returned to Fringe World for a delectable feast of fun, with a showcase of Melbourne’s best drag, circus and cabaret stars.
Lighting up Fringe World in festival’s past with YUMMY and YUMMY Deluxe, this year the cast are experimenting with new flavours and old favourites in YUMMY Unleashed.
As with the troupe’s previous outings, YUMMY brings a joyful, celebratory hour of fun and frivolity, serving up a selection of hors d’oeuvres in the shape of solo and group numbers that are sure to satisfy almost any audience.
Opening with a high-camp, tightly choreographed group number, the audience knows immediately what’s on the menu. Sparkle, costumes, high camp and high talent, this cast has a lot of offer.
Hostess Valerie Hex serves as maitre d’ for the evening, guiding the audience through the evening’s selections with a few tricks of her own up her sleeve, particularly a magical number set to Prince’s classic When Doves Cry.
Drag artist Jandruze makes a surprisingly sensual sandwich with the audience, and newcomer Adam Malone showed us what he’s got with some impressive feats of acrobatics.
Hannie Helsden, a human ray of sunshine, shows some impressive handling skills of both her many hoops, and the audience’s hearts. Burlesque royalty Zelia Rose is an absolute superstar, whipping her ponytail as she mesmerised the audience with her ability and charm.
In true YUMMY style, the soundtrack is pitch perfect for the celebratory tone of the performance. Queer artists provide much of the soundtrack for the hour-long extravaganza… mixing the dreamy theme of the Final Fantasy series into SOPHIE’s wonderfully erratic Ponyboy was a stroke of pure genius (in my nerdy opinion, anyway).
Having seen Deluxe and the show’s original iteration, Unleashed hasn’t added too many new items to the menu. The powerhouse performance brings a basket full of favourites back to the spiegeltent, but returning fans shouldn’t expect an all-new show.
If you haven’t seen YUMMY, or couldn’t get enough of their previous outings, Unleashed is a decadent feast of talent that shouldn’t be missed.
See YUMMY: Unleashed until Sunday 9th February.
Leigh Andrew Hill is an editor at OUTinPerth, with a BA from the University of Western Australia in Media Studies & Art History. Since 2005, Leigh has studied and practiced journalism, film-making, script-writing, language, contemporary performance and visual arts. Leigh is also a freelancer writer, and producer and presenter on RTRFM 92.1.
