GET DRAGGED INTO THE SWEATSHOP

Australia’s best boylesque circus injected a huge amount of colour and fun into the opening weekend of the 2022 Brisbane Festival.

Fresh from the Edinburgh Festival, Sweatshop will get you grooving in your seat. With an hilarious opening number by the stunning Kween Kong from RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under 2022, you know you are in for a great time. Kween Kong proves she is not just a pretty face but has talent to boot with those high kicks, drop splits, and clown work.

Hosted by powerhouse singer and queer cabaret wine-o aunty Tash York, Sweatshop has a cast of talent that will make your draw drop in wonderment. How does Charlie Love perform his incredible boylesque pole act in stilettos taller than my calf without breaking an ankle? Drag Queen Nastia looks like she has no bones with that kind of bendiness! Christian Nimri must be the love child of Xanadu’s roller skaters. And the only explanation for the height Dale Woodbridge Brown achieves in his backflips and tumbles is that he must have been born with springs in his feet!

The jaw-dropping acts aren’t always about the highly skilled dancing and circus, either. Jaws can drop from disgust too. Like when Dale Woodbridge Brown threads a tube up through his nose and into his mouth. One end of the tube ends in a cocktail glass and the other end is sucked on by Tash. It’s so gross it’s hilarious.

Sweatshop by Brisbane-based company, Briefs Factory International, is at the Brisbane Festival until 4 September 2022.