Two Cents: Christmas Unwrapped
Elenoa Rokobaro, iOTA and Hannah Raven. Photos: Phil Erbacher via @red_lineproductions
Water into wine? Not a bad lil’ miracle from the season’s much-hyped birthday boy. But centuries have passed, times have changed, and alcohol is out of favour among the bio-optimising gym bros. Our second coming trick then, as performed by ‘The Wizard of Oz’ Adam Mada as part of Christmas Unwrapped, was when an audience member requested his can of lager be turned into milk. Mother Mary would be proud.
There’s a bit more ‘jiggery pokery’ (flying tables, etc.), but don’t turn Krampus-puss if that sort of thing isn’t your Christmas pud: this alternatingly fizzy, smutty, feel-good Very Naughty Variety Show and return debut from Red Line Productions offers many flavours of camp delight.
Re-animating the near-ghosted Eternity Playhouse, with a spirited live band rocking the glitzy red-curtained stage, you also get a serotonin-exploding mash-up of Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston from glam-honey Elenoa Rokobaro (who was Persephone in this year’s Aussie premiere of Hadestown). Hannah Raven, serving bawdy energy with Sugar Claus strip-tease, lip syncs and tit-shimmies her Santa plea for a boob job (‘Heaving hefty happy hooters, squishy gushy lactic shooters!’), while generously gifting an old-timer a chance at busting her corset. An outlier to the cabaret theme, but in a very welcome slot, the programme also includes long-haired bogan-appetit ‘Un-cook Yourself’ comedian Nat’s What I Reckon, who shambolically guides us through a rumpled PowerPoint of all the last-minute prezzie options the cursed Internet provides. Three examples projected on screen: 37 iPhones, a ‘summer horse’, and a Wild Hogs DVD. Drag Race Down Under’s Hollywould Star and show host Courtney Act sing, sass and entertain in their drag wardrobe’s finest, with Courtney’s back-up dancers adding their own frothy character (one reminded me of a cuter, more innocently flouncy Titus Andromedon).
Creeping in with a wonderful ooze of spite and darkness to splinter this dazzling array is iOTA, best known in the theatre world as Australia’s first Hedwig. Poised and abject, their drag-punk persona unfurls a gutter-clown rendition of Leonard Cohen’s ‘First We’ll Take Manhattan’, intercut with exaggerated failed attempts to toss back a cigarette through their black-lined lips (‘…Shit!’). This is followed by a diatribe against their religious grandmother, and then an increasingly demonic impersonation, complete with walking frame. A seething ecstasy of pitch-black heathen contempt, it was this segment that spoke to me most. Blazey Best, who was the ill-used noble Yitzhak alongside iOTA’s Hedwig almost two decades ago, is the capable director of this eclectic moveable feast.
On opening night, the most enjoyable acts didn’t give a flying reindeer about the not-quite-full house, which was possibly drained by Queen Cuntess herself Lady Gaga, who was throwing her Mayhem Ball that same weekend. (One performer seemed rather too sour about it – like, seats are empty, we know?) Most memorable for me will be the glimpses of unassailable insouciant joy: band leader and music director Glenn Moorhouse having the time of his life jamming along, for instance; or the audience member who kept throwing back the most cartoonishly gleeful looks at someone (perhaps Best?) a few rows back. His open-mouthed semaphore in response to iOTA’s act was double-eggnog delicious.
Holidays it may soon be, but the horrors persist. This show understands that naughty is just as necessary as nice.
Christmas Unwrapped: A Very Naughty Variety Show
Red Line Productions
Eternity Playhouse, Darlinghurst
Until 20 December 2025
