Jeffrey Self & Cole Escola Present 'Desperate Houseboys' at Seymour Centre

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Tue 18 Feb 2014 - Fri 28 Feb 2014

Jeffrey Self and Cole Escola first hit the cult headlines with their viral comedy YouTube hit VGL (Very Good Looking) Gay Boys . With word of their quirky humour spreading like chicken pox in a country school, Logo (US cable TV network) threw a contract in the boys' laps. The resultant Jeffrey and Cole Casserole TV sketch comedy enjoyed equally underground success for two seasons from 2009 through 2010.

The pair's latest incarnation is the stage production "Desperate Houseboys " showing at Sydney's Seymour Centre from Feb 18 through Feb 28. Examine those dates and yes, this production is being played out as an accoutrement to the 2014 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations. The Mardi Gras parade on March 1 may be the big ticket item but the festival itself has evolved to a far grander scale. Running from Feb 7 until March 2, Mardi Gras' 2014 calendar is crammed with peripheral events.

But back to our two heroes, Jeffrey Self and Cole Escola are two characters who like wearing wigs but not clothes, or at least according to their promo. Desperate Houseboys is a giggle a minute show about a potential show. It's also a riotous parody of the gay genre, at least from this writer's straight perspective. There's no shortage of camp self-deprecation plus plenty of not too subtle digs at mainstream society.

The sets are absolute minimalist and the speed of the production relies almost entirely on two slick performances plus the edgy wit of a cuttingly clever script. That wit by the way is no slow drip feed of humorous one liners. It's a non-stop rat-a-tat-tat of wise cracks. I may not have been guffawing out loud, although plenty of the audience were, but I did find myself unforcedly snickering and smiling for the entirety of the 1 hour performance.

That audience is understandably gay-oriented but hey, this is a queer production. Who cares? Leave any homophobic prejudices at home, fork out a respectable $35 and laugh along with that gay patronage inadvertently laughing at themselves. Desperate Houseboys is a light, breezy and moderately bawdy production that never for a moment pretends to take itself too seriously.

#cabaret
#chippendale
#LGBTIQ
#humour
#performing_arts
#city
#theatre
#theatre -reviews
#february
!date 18/02/2014 -- 28/02/2014
%wnsydney