YUMMY, Decadence: 10 Years of Yummy.

Drag performer and producer Valerie Hex comperes and features in this smashing show. The audience needs to strap themselves in for quite a dazzling roller coaster ride of drag cabaret, burlesque, circus arts, acrobatics as well as live music. This show is unequivocally camp, highly unapologetic and provides an extremely celebratory space for queer, non-binary, trans, and culturally diverse performers. The mood is often satirical, impish, and taunting and the effect is always exhilarating and exciting.

Each artist contributes to the show by displaying their particular and often very idiosyncratic talent. Highlights included Hannie Helsden’s performance with hula hoops. Helsden juggles an extraordinary number of hoops with precision and finesse and creates astonishing visual imagery. Her effervescent demeanour makes her presence on stage very bright and bubbly. The awesome and often incredible trapeze performance by Jarred Dewey provided another great highlight in the show. His flair and confidence combined with his ability to suggest that he is in mid-air flight is nothing short of mesmerising. The world class contortionist, Soliana Ersie, provides another incredible treat in this show. Her agility is literally unbelievable, and the audience feels like their eyes are playing tricks on them. 

The show also included fabulous and fun performances by multidisciplinary artist, Jandruze, drag/cabaret/burlesque artist, Bendy Ben, burlesque artist and “Fitzroyalty’, Milo Hartill, burlesque artist, Velma Vouloir, and conceptual performer, Cerulean. As Valerie Hex points out, YUMMY is a production enterprise that did not expect longevity. Yet Decadence is a show that celebrates a very important ten-year milestone, and it feels like an honour to take part in such wild and wonderful history.

Patricia Di Risio 

Photographer: Georgia Moloney