Clara Cupcakes, chameleon of comedy across Australia, in what appears to be her Dolly phase, returns to FRINGE WORLD with Good Time Corral. Coming into opening night, this seems a late-night promise of barely contained chaos. With friends and special guests.
The twang of blue grass country as the audience enters. The rooting tooting hostess professing that it’s 2023, she’s ready to host her first variety show. She’s been in plenty, never hosted. Which has morphed, from concept to fruition, into half a game show as well.
Clara was going to buy more props for the show, only to discover the Reject Shop in the city has closed since last she was here. That’s where you get all the best cowboy hats, she advises. Perth has changed. Then, second discovery made, K-Mart has the same stuff, just with better packaging.
Continuing the Western theme, Clara mentions sheriffs tracking down rascally varmints. Though still ACAB, but we’re playing the sheriffs for funsies. And pirates are really cowboys of the seas, also wearing jaunty hats. No Johnny Depp here though, one of those movies was enough.
The kind of whip-smart ad-lib journey down the rabbit hole Clara clearly excels in.
Or that time Clara finds a burger ring without a hole. Let’s send it to the Vatican to check for miracles. Maybe it can get Benedict canonised.
Guests! Tonight, we have national burlesque icons Adam Ext, Kitty Obsidian, and Veruca Sour, and cabaret chanteuse, direct from Oxford, Jamie Mykaela. From LED whips to candy necklaces, double denim to ukulele Dead Kennedys, each performer shines individually, before together becoming Clara’s game show contestants.
One of the games a fashion challenge, with K-Mart’s finest paper streamers and tablecloths. Two minutes to runway, no time for sewing machines or hot glue guns. Jamie and Adam take the win with a suitably absurdist salute to David Lynch, “Laura Palmer in Green Plastic”.
Veruca’s tablecloth construction falls apart, and Clara deducts points. Comes the immediate and believable retort, it was a tear away for burlesque. The perfect analogy for this show. Advertised as the wildest hootenanny in town, the piano-wire tension between the art and chaos beyond is clearly visible throughout.
Madcap, irreverent, right on the line between very, very silly, and very, very intelligent.