Briefs: The Works - Melbourne Fringe Festival 2026
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https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/briefs-the-works
Date Reviewed: 02/10/2026
I’ll try to keep this review brief, though not as brief as the time it took the performers of Briefs: The Works to take off their briefs.
At Melbourne’s Spiegel Haus, the performers don’t just meet the audience. They introduce body parts most of us reserve for people whose surnames we know.
Briefs began in the back of a Brisbane bookshop in 2008. Whatever they were reading, it wasn’t a guide to public decency. Eighteen years later, The Works revisits the company’s past, with remarkably little left covered.
Shivannah, Fez Faanana’s drag alter ego, hosts with filthy humour and flashes of wisdom. In a world busy sabotaging itself, we are reminded why celebrating one another matters. It’s a generous sentiment, delivered between considerably less wholesome activities.
“The more noise you make, the more clothes the performers will take off,” we are warned. There is enthusiastic woo-hooing and foot-stomping. In fairness, we were given the terms and conditions.
Audience participation includes a raffle. Hot tip: give your tickets to the extrovert in your group. There are worse things than losing. Winning, for instance. Our winner looked embarrassed, though perhaps she was playing along. My mortification would have required no acting.
The Dirty Laundry segment airs our written confessions as complimentary therapy. Someone admits buying the last chocolate doughnut and making a child cry. Other contributions read out are much raunchier and I wonder whether the therapist should charge.
The talent hardly needs the undressing. Dylan Rodriguez dances through the air like a Greek god, making extraordinary strength look effortless.
The comic hoop routine is another highlight: Lucille Ball with tattoos, struggling with her equipment until she removes the apparent obstacle, her clothes of course. The hoops ripple along her body as though they are waves in the sea. I can barely keep one around my waist without injuring the furniture. Admittedly, I haven’t tried naked.
But clothes are flung off so regularly that I start hoping someone will do something shocking and put a shirt on.
Then come bouncing crotches at face level, occupied laps (without consent) and a tail travelling from backside to mouth to an audience member’s face. A handshake would have done me. On second thoughts, perhaps not.
I enjoy a filthy joke. Here, too often, the anatomy is the joke. These performers can hold a room without sitting on it naked.
Are the highlights worth it? Rodriguez’s aerial work and the hoop comedy certainly deserve an audience. The cast also includes Benjamin Butterfly (aka Benjamin Lionel Stuart-Carberry), whose career began with The Australian Ballet. There is serious training beneath the silliness.
Whether you enjoy everything between those highlights depends on your appetite for relentless raunch, some tackiness and intimate introductions. This is for adults who love drag, circus and being recruited into someone else’s striptease (sometimes the teasing section is forgotten). Don’t bring your mother. Or, as Shivannah suggests, “Bring your enemies.”
My friends supplied the closing verdicts. Our immediate reactions: “It wasn’t that bad.” “We made it.” “I’m scarred for life.” (The last one was from the one who got sat on)
Three responses. Conveniently, something for everyone.
Highlights
- The numbers that are less based on jokes and more based on skill: Greek-god strength, character acting, etc.
- Shivannah's occasional wisdom
- The accessibility of the performers before and after the show.
Who's it for?
Adults who enjoy drag, skilled circus, filthy comedy and relentless stripping. Extroverts who consider audience participation a prize. Give them your raffle tickets. As mentioned previously, don’t bring your mother, unless she's from the Seventies and you’re prepared to discover things about her you’d rather not know. Or, as Shivannah suggests, “Bring your enemies.”
Reviewed by Mary Sinanidis