Review: BRIEFS: BITE CLUB, Southbank Centre

It's taken three years but the Briefs cabaret crew have finally returned from Down Under with not just a new show but a new direction too.

Briefs: Bite Club, on the face of it, is similar to previous Briefs outings. Shivannah as the compère holds the evening together while her co-creator Captain Kidd plus Dylan Rodriguez, Brett Rosengreen and Louis Biggs showcase a series of highly-skilled drag/cabaret acts covering aerial, juggling and burlesque.

The major new addition this time around is Queensland chanteuse Sahara Beck. Shivannah recounts how they met during the pandemic and, impressed by her music, decided to collaborate on a project together. Briefs: Bite Club is the fruit of their artistic loins and represents as, Shivannah says, a change in gear for his troupe.

Beck's band is a constant presence throughout, soundtracking many of the routines from the back of the stage. She sings alongside three male musicians, all of whom adhere to the night's drag dress code; the bearded bass player looks particularly dashing in a full-length frock that your mother-in-law might keep for Sunday best. Beck also takes part in some of the turns and, in a show highlight, sings "21st Century" while sat astride one of the straps.

Briefs fans will have seen some of this show already - not least Kidd's showstopping bird-bath act which combines splashy acrobatics with trapeze-borne balletics. Rodriquez is a highly talented aerialist and Rosengreen - a man who somehow looks more like more like Ryan Gosling than Ryan Gosling does - is sheer cabaret gold, a luminous presence that lights up the stage with his lithe and precise movements.

The addition of Beck and original songs is very much a mixed blessing. On the one hand, she has a powerful voice and the music adds welcome layers of engagement to the more visual acts. She brings welcome fizz to the proceedings especially in a new routine which combines the hilarious burlesque talents of Biggs, the singer's cute acting and a self-powered treadmill. Beck is also delightful during the mid-show raffle when the audience winner is treated to something which is both wonderfully whimsical and the finest group effort on the night.

On the other, the sound mix meant that the lyrics were hard to hear and the musical arrangements came across as too laidback and underplayed to make much of an impression. The numbers contain little in the way of hooks or catchy choruses to accompany Beck's resounding torch singer vocals and there seems to be no obvious verbal or tonal connections between the song topics and the acts. Overall, the music is generally forgettable and, in the moment, sounds like something that might be played over the end credits of a Scandi noir TV series.

Briefs co-creators Shivannah and Captain Kidd may want to look to their laurels if they plan to continue with their Bite Club concept. To extend the former's metaphor, it is debatable whether this show moves the company up or down a gear. Kidd's birdbath act is eye-catching but is also getting a little long in the tooth (we remember seeing it in 2013). Much as the friendly press night crowd enjoyed hearing about the intricacies of the Australian benefits system, Shivannah might want to mine seams of comedy that are more relevant to an international audience. Finally, a live band is rarely a bad thing in cabaret but, diluted by Beck's unremarkable musical contributions, this latest Briefs creation has lost a considerable part of the company's trademark edginess. As it stands, Bite Club is not so much a sharp-toothed chomp as more of an energetic gnaw.

Briefs: Bite Club continues at the Southbank Centre until 31 July.

Photo Credit: Lachlan Dylan

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