Latest Reviews

Outstanding entertainment. Original, compelling, innovative and different. Very different. Exquisitely written and performed, When the Sex is Gone takes you on several familiar and less familiar travels deep into the darkened alleys and valleys of lust.

In his first incarnation, Bradson is a ravaged, much-used hermaphrodite show girl who has done the streets in most major cities, some remembered, some not. If you’ve ever secretly indulged the fancy that your spiritual homeland might be the belle epoch of Toulouse Lautrec and the ladies of the laudanum night – then this show is for you. You can practically smell the opium smoke swirling about you and taste the absinthe as Bradson spits out a commentary of use, abuse and love lost in a spiel that stretches from Victorian Europe to Weimar Berlin to San Francisco of the 70s.

Don’t be fooled, this isn’t a clichéd high burlesque version of turn of the century decadence – it is scabrous, filthy, stylish cabaret. The writing stuns and the songs are fine, extraordinarily rude and tuneful. Bradson comes out in the second half of the show as a Piccadilly rent boy and boxer pre-WWI; a fighter and a lover. The embodying of his characters by a performer who can hold his space for the entire show is a thrill indeed. Bradson’s personas are so compelling that it is something of a shock to find out later that in real life he’s the sweetest straight boy of 26 you could imagine. Bradson graduated from theatre school wanting something he was truly interested in to perform, so he wrote it himself. Lucky us that he did.

Keep an eye out for this one.


Better Bradley Productions presents
When the Sex is Gone
Tommy Bradson

Venue: Butterfly Club* | 204 Bank St, Sth Melbourne
Dates: 25 March - 17 April, 2010
Times: Thu - Sat 10.30pm
Duration: 90 minutes
Prices: Full $22, Concession $18
Bookings: 03 9690 2000 | thebutterflyclub.com | At the door

* Licensed venue. Under 18s must be accompanied by a Parent or Legal Guardian