Perth’s Big Gay Games – Live Edition | The Court Hotel | Until 10th Feb | ★ ★ ★ ½
Back in 2018 Ian Odlum launched Perth Gay Social Club, an events organisation that began running speed dating nights and other activities for the local LGBTIQ+ communities. In February 2020 he decided to turn his hobby into a business only to find the challenge the following month of Perth being sent into a lockdown over COVID-19.
Undeterred he created a series of online events to entertain people during this period and a live YouTube Game Show featuring local identities was a huge success. Now Perth’s Big Gay Games has made the move to a live event for Fringe World 2021.
Each week four contestants will battle it out in round of Pictionary, charades and general knowledge trivia, fighting for a spot in the show’s grand final during the last week of the festival. There’s also mountains of audience participation and interaction in this laid back and fun evening.
Facing off in round one of the competition was drag queens Donna Kebab who appeared in a lovely long dress with flowing blonde locks, and Fay Rocious, who was channeling the aesthetic of the 1983 KISS album Lick It Up – by going make-up and wig free.
On the opposing team was a Burlesque performer Autumn Daze and a handsome young man named James.
The first round of the games saw Fay Rocious show off some pretty impressive drawing skills whipping through seven challenges with time to spare. Autumn also deserves credit for managing to communicate ‘Bermuda Triangle’ to the audience.
Donna Kebab struggled, and while miraculously the audience did manage to recognise her abstract representation of the Eiffel Tower, as the round progressed her artistic skills were revealed to be lip-syncing not drawing. James fell flat when he hit an obstacle drawing a bunch of celery, the fact he had to ask the host what celery was showed he was coming from behind in this challenge.
The charades round was impressive with Fay successfully communicating the act of building IKEA furniture and James giving an incredibly impressive mime of ‘a barrel of monkeys’.
The trivia round saw Autumn get a head start on the other contestants when she was the only player who could name the ground the AFL was played on in 2020. Fay Rocious lost a point in the ‘last person to put their hand in the air loses a point’ challenge.
None of the contestants could name any of the four movies that both Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have appeared in, while I managed to name Joe vs the Volcano, Sleepless and Seattle and You Got Mail from the audience, but I had worked in a video store in the 1990s so I had the advantage.
This was a fun night, hosted by the delightful Ian Odlum. It’s the kind of show that you take a bunch of friends along to, drink a few beers and have a lot of laughs. Fay Rocious was the victor after facing off against Autumn for a spot in the final in a three-question tie-breaker.
We headed off into the night and the glow of other Fringe World shows, smarter than when we entered The Court an hour earlier, now knowing that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks collaborated a fourth time on Ryan’s 2015 directorial debut Ithica.
See Perth’s Big Gay Games until 10th of February. For tickets and more information, head to fringeworld.com.au
Bonus Meg Ryan Trivia: In 1999 US indie band released a song called Meg Ryan.
Graeme Watson is an editor at OUTinPerth. He has a background in journalism, creative writing, dance, theatre, radio and film working as a performer, producer and writer. Graeme writes for a variety of publications and has been working as a reviewer since 1997. He used to work at Filmshow Video in Kelmscott on Sundays.
Update: 20-01-21 Sections of the original review have been removed following reader feedback.
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