After sold-out seasons across Adelaide and Perth, production house Tone & Cheek have brought Club D’Amour: Back Door to Sydney Fringe Festival—this time with Drag Race’s Spankie Jackzon playing the coveted part of the Madam of The Night.
It’s Spankie’s second appearance at Sydney Fringe Festival, after a very successful world premiere of her debut solo show, Just the Tip, last year. But while Club D’Amour: Back Door might share some of the same foundations as Just the Tip (like drag, music, and humour), it couldn’t be more different.
Take, for one, that it’s set in a French brothel, with Madam Spankie at the helm (which, “is so on brand,” she laughs).
“In Club D’Amour, I’m the hostess with the mostest, and these are my beauties who work in the club,” Spankie Jackzon explains to Not Safe For Queers. “And it’s kind of a journey through lots of different kinks and things that are a little bit taboo; we go from ‘milk maiding’ to spanking to fire to candle wax and everything in between.”
It’s a show which has proven to be very popular across Western Australia, with Spankie’s role usually being held by none other than Perth’s very own Fay Rocious.
“I’m really only just filling in,” Spankie insists. “The normal hostess is an amazing and talented Perth queen, Fay Rocious, and she’s incredible. And I cannot really fill her shoes in the dancing realm, it’s a very hard thing to take on. But I think it’s just one of those things I’ve just kind of brought my Spankie-isms to and made my own.”
She continues, “I wanted the madam of the brothel to be very intimidating. Like, I’m nearly seven-foot, so I was like, if you were going to come to the brothel, you wouldn’t f*ck with me.”
The rest of the cast consists of a variety of performers across dance, burlesque, and circus—many of whom Spankie has the utmost respect for. “It’s the real talent of the people who have these disciplines, that’s the thing I love every night,” she says.
“Like, I’m still that person literally peeking through the curtain, gasping at people hanging in mid-air (with no safety cords, no nothing), or people putting fire down their throat, or swinging on a hoop, or singing upside down. It’s just a crazy show filled with such spectacularly talented people, and I’m just grateful to be a part of it and just add a little bit of sparkle…and, you know, get my ass out,” Spankie laughs.
“It’s such an incredible show. It’s the dynamic, it’s the lighting, it’s the music; everything’s just really well-thought-out and really well-put-together. But, yeah, it’s definitely a wild ride, but who doesn’t love a wild ride? When you come to the fringe festival, that’s what you’re paying for, right?”
Catch Spankie Jackzon in Club D’Amour: Back Door (and its sister show, Happy Endings) at the Sydney Fringe Festival until Sunday 15 September. Tickets on sale now.