Review: Ginava's Messy Friends

Part podcast, part drag show, Ginava’s Messy Friends is a curious blend of behind-the-scenes chatter and onstage glamour. This dichotomy really works. The conceit is that Ginava interviews each of their messy friends to ask them about their craft, inspirations and aspirations; these chats are then woven in between their solo and group performances. A discussion about needing to make the audience happy is followed by a split-filled, Beyoncé-plus lip sync; a talk about what ‘camp’ really means precedes a kitschy performance by a ‘blind’ date beauty queen. This is a delicious mix of drag, burlesque, blurring of gender norms and uncompromisingly confronting personal trauma: a Sesame Street-esque monster binges from a trash can before purging through uncanny movement and heart-breaking poignancy.

Where Ginava’s Messy Friends really excels is in the costuming and make-up which perfectly complement how these performers use their bodies. Swirling and swaying, vogueing or hip-hop, it’s difficult to know where to focus – on the intricate and sparkling costume details, the pitch-perfect faces or the ways they command and occupy the stage. In the end, it’s easier to sit back and take it all in for the kaleidoscopic fever dream it is.

Ginava’s Messy Friends evokes a late-night dive bar in its DIY sensibilities, and delivers a show that is sometimes gruesome, sometimes plaintive, always intriguing.