Review: There is Nothing Like a Game! At the Banquet Room
June 16, 2025
Review: The Adelaide Cabaret Festival’s 25th Birthday Bash at the Banquet Room
June 22, 2025
A Show So Big, It Needs Its Own Safety Warning
If cabaret were a weapon, Reuben Kaye would be a fully loaded glitter cannon aimed squarely at your expectations, your politics, and your heterosexual comfort zone. With enGORGEd XXL, he doesn’t so much break the fourth wall as kick it down in $4,000 six-inch heels and kiss the rubble.
This isn’t a show – it’s a feast of ferocity: oversized, outrageous, and pulsing with charisma.
The title doesn’t pull any punches, neither does Kaye. The moment he walks onstage before an 18-piece orchestra worthy of a Marvel finale, helmed by composer and music director extraordinaire Shanon Whitelock, you know you’re in for big band, big personality, and even bigger truths.
Reuben performs like a drag queen fired from a confetti cannon – glam, loud, and striking its target dead-on. Nothing, from systemic oppression to Elon Musk’s cosmetic catastrophes, is off-limits and no punchline over-dressed. Meow…
Among the emotional highlight reels is a tale of his childhood bully, reimagined with wicked humour as a monologue that careens from hilarious to devastating. The audience explodes – not just in laughter but in the thrill of comedy as catharsis and revenge. And he’s doing it in a ball gown.
He does not mince words regarding the fallout of his infamous The Project stint – that scorching Jesus joke that rattled conservatives. He does not apologise; he detonates. His critique is razor-sharp, uncompromising, and electrifying. It’s not an apology. It’s a reclamation.
Beneath the rhinestones and blasting riffs lies cutting political commentary that slashes through apathy with surgical glitter. Kaye tackles everything from queer rights to religion, using cabaret as a Trojan horse for hard truths, coated in champagne and confetti.
Each punchline has a sting but never a sermon. He knows when to shift from scorching satire to a roof-raising note that sends the crowd and spirits flying.
enGORGEd XXL is not for pearl-clutchers or the faint of heart. It is theatre with teeth, stilettos, and a hunger for justice – equal parts camp comedy, activist manifesto, and queer disco sermon.
You will depart exhilarated, exhausted, and perhaps pregnant with thought – and certainly hoarse from laughing.
Arrive hungry. Depart emotionally full.
*With a lovely shout out to John Glenn and Zac Tyler for introducing him to Adelaide Cabaret Festival 10 years ago, welcome 2026 Adelaide Cabaret Festival Director, Reuben Kaye!
5,000 Stars
Lia Loves.
