Are you a loud gay or a quiet gay? This is the question that 2024’s Queer Revue dares not to ask. Light, quippy and chock with fresh humour, ‘Home and A-Gay’ is a senseless delight. Directors Ewan Cooper-Frater and Will Winter, alongside producers Sophie Kuijper and Kiara Butera have cultivated a solid night of laughs that left me feeling lighter and brighter. An opening number gives us our premise for an intermittent plot — Harmony (Charli Robinson), the new queer on the block — has to choose. Are they a loud gay — partying, talking, dancing, glittering? Or are they a quiet gay — crochet, tea, Hozier, in bed at 7pm? Fresh out of the closet, they’re already back between two worlds.
This throughline marks a ‘keep watching and you’ll find out!’ continuation throughout the night, and the rest of the revue showcases some truly talented writing and inspired performances. The entire cast of performers amply demonstrated vocal talent, comedic chops and onstage presence. Each cast member had their own brand of hilarity. Heathcliff Ryan, whose characters included Gay Anton Ego and Secret Gay-gent Gay-mes Bond, and Willian Darby a.k.a. Bethany Baker, lover of Red Rooster were standouts, both with impressive character work and delivery. Zach Alloggia’s physical comedy was also outstanding, as well as Finnegan Wallace’s incredible ad-libbed nonsense during throughline scenes.
Wallace and Robinson gave excellent vocal performances as a duo. The pair’s Taylor Swift ‘You Belong With Me’ parody that kept making references to spelunking had me in such extreme fits of cackling that I’m giving it its own new paragraph to do it justice. For my tastes Queer Revue’s performers have the ultimate good quality as a cast: they are so clearly enjoying themselves as much as we are. Congratulations also to the crew and design team for creating a simple and elegant set and wonderfully smooth transitions that are the key to a snappy set of skits.
Which brings me to mention the excellent quality sketches of the night. My personal highlights included Wiggle Mafia (“my most esteemed Wiggle…”), Deep-Fried Lover (with Zac Alloggia as the Red Rooster), and of course: Feliz Navidaddy (“Let me fuck your daaaad!”). There were some sketches that ended more rapidly that the audience could keep up with. I could sense the disappointment around me when there was not in fact a full 3-minute sketch about Carabiner Barbie. However, the sketches became more varied in length after intermission and the audience were able to settle into a groove with the performance. Many of those present mourned the absence of a bean sketch, which Queer Revue has been loathe to be without in recent years. However, there is an extended bit involving Lurpak butter and interpretive dance.
I feel the necessity to remark upon the light-hearted glee of ‘Home and A-Gay,’ not only in the throughline plot but in the sketches themselves. Each year minority revues must choose a ratio between the heavier realities of being a marginalised group and the ridiculous joys of sketch comedy. In this year’s ‘Home and A-Gay’ the overt absence of homophobia as subject matter seems a statement in itself. The choice gives the whole production an airtightness, a yap about our culture that isn’t defined or dependent on the forces that oppress us. In the fictional town of the throughline plot, straight people have been entirely removed from the equation. The queer community doesn’t face non-queers in the story, instead we instead face each other, and smile. With this in play, sketches pulled from anecdotes and classic gay-culture experiences are playful, pantomime and effortlessly funny. Queer-orientated theatre often gets heavy faster than you can stop it, and before you know it you’re upstairs at Belvoir crying your eyes out after Holding the Man. Queer Revue 2024 wants gay people to have an uninterrupted good time, and I find there is something quietly revolutionary in that.Queer Revue 2024 is a lot of fun. There were more excellent and absurd bits that I could reasonably discuss without committing the cardinal sin of reciting the plot. I truly want to give those of you who haven’t seen it yet a chance to discover the jokes for yourself- because the quality does not falter for a moment. Congratulations to the entire team on a cohesive and clever production.