Top Spot
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Top Spot

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The name Miss Friby has come to mean many things in the cabaret world – “high end entertainment” is how their website describes them. And as each performance, each show, each appearance passes, Miss Friby’s persistence towards creating such a standard is very clear. Their 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival show, Top Spot, is set in a typically intimate Fringe environment, allowing thorough exploration of the audience and a close-up inspection by said audience of the wonderfully charismatic style of show creators Stephanie Marion Wood and Elizabeth Dawson-Smith.

In this production, Wood and Dawson-Smith work together as Gloria and Delia, two budding superstars who find it especially hard to sh-sh-share the stage. After several failed murder attempts, they realise this may be their only chance at true stardom and with gritted teeth, come together for an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza.

As Delia, Wood has a penchant for all things brutal, and doesn’t come on stage without a suitcase of armory. Such is the life of a dedicated cabaret star. Her first solo shed light on this particular way of life, as she sang of her desire to “eliminate the competition”. On the other hand, Dawson-Smith lives and breathes the drama on stage as though it engulfs her off stage as well. She earnestly recounts her greatest moment studying dramatic arts as her crab song, and proceeds to a hilarious Russian crab song that has its own brand of sexy.

The second half sees Gloria and Delia performing their “greatest hits” together, including a “magic” routine that has to be seen to be fully appreciated, and the interactive crowd experience What Would You Do For a Cocktail? A word of warning: don’t try to outshine these divas. A wickedly funny and creative hour of entertainment from two women you’d do well to keep on your radar.

BY JEN WILSON