Ginava’s live show, Messy Friends, is an alternative drag/cabaret troupe that will perform at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. They recently had an award-winning run in Australia – including Winner of Best Overall Cabaret Award at the Adelaide Fringe 2024 and Best Show Award at the 2022 Fringe World Festival. The show is chock-full of the lip-syncs, the burlesque, the dancing, and the costumes that have become synonymous with drag and cabarets, but the show also addresses more poignant topics. Here, Ginava writes not just about the show but also how performance can be cathartic for your mental health and the audience.
Messy Friends is not just a drag show; it’s more. Of course, there are a lot of drag shows that make this claim, but when we set out to create this show, we promised ourselves that we would do our very best to offer a vibrant, multi-faceted exploration of the queer experience.
And so we set out to blend lip-sync, burlesque, dance, and documentary-style videos to create a live “Drag-u-mentary.” And, not to blow our own horns, but we really do think we’ve achieved that.
“Messy Friends is not just a drag show; it’s more.”
Ginava
We (Ginava and Flynn V) are privileged to work with a group of immensely creative minds and talented performers. The show first took shape in the artistic circles of Perth, Western Australia. It has since evolved into a platform for storytelling, self-expression, and community. We hope our unique blend of humour, heart, and high-energy performances keep resonating with UK audiences as much as they have in our home country.
We’ve worked hard to make costumes in Messy Friends as eclectic and dynamic as the performances themselves. Each outfit is meticulously designed and crafted, many in-house by Ginava. These costumes often reflect our personal narratives and artistic visions as a collective. That said, travelling with such an elaborate wardrobe to the other side of the planet is a logistical challenge! But it’s a labour of love that we hope pays off when the audience sees the results on stage.
For us, the costumes are more than just attire; they are integral to our storytelling. Each piece helps to convey a character’s identity, emotions, and journey to add depth and richness to the performances. We hope that the audience is not only entertained by the visual spectacle we’ve given our all to create but also drawn into the deeper narratives we have worked so hard to bring to life with costumes and performances.
On the surface, the most immediately memorable thing about Messy Friends is its vibrant visuals and high-energy acts. However, speaking to our audiences, the longer-term takeaway is how the show delves into more poignant and serious topics. The show addresses issues that we’ve faced, including mental health, the challenges of growing up queer, and the journey towards self-acceptance. These themes are explored through live performances and documentary-style video segments interspersed throughout the show. We aim to give audiences an introspective insight into the whole character, not just as a drag performance but also as an understanding of where each performer is coming from.
One of the core reasons we made this show is that we wanted to create a contrast on stage between the visual documentary elements and the live performances. In the video clips presented on stage, we’ve tried to be as vulnerable as possible to offer an intimate glimpse into our lives, revealing struggles, triumphs, and personal stories. By sharing these sensitive and personal moments on screen, we invite the audience to connect with us on what we hope is a deeper level, and via that, we hope to foster empathy and understanding.
It was hugely fun but also a massively demanding creative challenge for us to turn the revelations within the video segments into live performances. For example, in one particularly intimate clip, Ginava shares a deeply personal story about their personal history of eating disorders. How better to show that than with a performance where a human-sized puppet eats out of a rubbish bin and vomits confetti and pom-poms – all accompanied by thumping alternative techno music? This is one way we have worked to juxtapose trauma and triumph to symbolise the resilience and strength of the queer community.
So, we hope audiences will agree with us when we say that Messy Friends is more than just a drag show. What we hope our audiences take away from the show is that it’s a celebration of life, diversity, and friendship. And the more we perform it, the more we believe in the power of the show’s blend of performances and video elements. Ultimately we really hope that we’re able to offer our audiences a poignant and powerful exploration of the queer experience. Each costume, dance, and story is a testament to the creativity, resilience, and authenticity of the stellar cast and team we’re lucky enough to be part of.
As Messy Friends continues to perform around the world, our dream is that it becomes a beacon of hope, acceptance, and joy for all who experience it.
Messy Friends will be performed at 20:55 in Assembly George Square Gardens (Piccolo Tent) from 1 – 25 August 2024.
