Look past the razzle-dazzle
intelligence at work here. And for all gay comics in Australia, there is a notion of being under threat.
Valvo is as gay as they come, and is super happy with his handsome doctor boyfriend.
He is lucky to have a supportive Italian family, who have never had an issue with his sexuality. Australia, however, is currently in the middle of a savage debate about gay marriage – which is underming the rights of all gay people to a normal life. In the light of this, Valvo’s shiny, silly gay normality is a political act.
He doesn’t talk much about the marriage equality debate. but it is there in the background, colouring his thoughts on how he fits into his lively Italian family and influencing his ideas about whether he wants children of his own. He has a brilliant story about being forced to buy an expensive baby monitor for his brother. Why should he pay for other people’s milestones in life when he is not sure he will be able to enjoy his own. CLAIRE SMITH Assembly Checkpoint (Venue 322) JJJJ Known to London cabaret audiences as a regular compère at the Café de Paris and elsewhere, Australian-born Reuben Kaye brings his first solo show to the Fringe and it’s a doozy. Kaye strikes a colossally fabulous pose, all bat-signal eyes, Joker-grin mouth and chandelier jewellery atop outrageous outfits placing him somewhere between dandy, drag queen and toreador.
After tenderising us with gale-force charisma and a blizzard of bad-taste gags, he belts us with a bravura medley of ZZ Top and Brecht and Weill, high-kicking his way into audience members’ laps and expertly dealing in the moment with devotees and sceptics alike.
Backed by his stonking
0 Reuben Kaye wins over his audience with ‘gale-force charisma and a blizzard of bad-taste gags’ band, the Kaye Holes, and dynamic lighting, it’s an irresistible explosion of highoctane entertainment.then, subtly, without our quite noticing it, the show cruises out into deeper, riskier waters. Through heightened anecdotal storytelling, Kaye takes us back to an immigrant childhood rich with classical culture, and high school years laced with that combination of longing, anxiety and self-discovery known to all teenagers but especially acute for the gay boy in the locker-room. Oh so seductively and empathetically, we are aligned with the aesthetically, erotically charged gaze of the adolescent outsider, sharing in his body’s weird and powerful negotiation of overlapping pain and desire, then swelling with pride at his defiant embrace of the fabulous armoury of glamour.
It is all the more impressive that this feat of expressive queerness is achieved without describes this show as “part exorcism and part enema”, which seems curiously accurate but, troublingly, it’s still unclear which one of those aspects I enjoyed. RORY FORD remotely dialling down the razzle-dazzle, skipping a high note or missing a highly comic beat.
With a set list ranging from Liza Minnelli’s Sailor Boys to a reclaimed Iggy Azalea hit – and a convincing proposal for a new Australian national anthem – it is a show and a half that also manages, despite Kaye’s explicit protests to the contrary, to “do something meaningful”. BEN WALTERS several unfortunate scriptural misinterpretations of his message of peace. He’s supported by Mary Magdalene, who, as in the gospels, has nothing to say (but gives looks that speak volumes).
The energy starts high, with a wind machine and a Bee Gees medley, and only gets higher: there’s palm-frond burlesque, a Sermon on the Mountain Bikes (“time to destroy those fatted calves!”) and a breathless account of Passion Week, along with cheeky updates of liturgy and inspirational reworkings of pop lyrics. The lack of tonal or formal variation makes for diminishing returns over the hour but the vibe is infectiously amiable, and the humorous strike rate not bad given the sheer volume of gags, puns and innuendo. When in doubt, tone the other cheek. BEN WALTERS