The Fringe Bar is packed and pumping with joyous, excited energy. Lily Catastrophe has lots of fans from several years of burlesque, pole and stand-up comedy performing in Pōneke, and they are out in force.

It makes me realise how different audiences can be – a couple weeks ago in Bats Studio, I was one of a supportive audience that was serving golf club vibes, with an average age of about 60. While demographically I may fit into that audience too, Lily’s people at the Fringe tonight are my tribe. Every age, every gender expression, every shade of hair – we are united in our support of one seriously amazing woman.

Lily hits the stage, hair flying, in an outrageous costume to introduce herself and what to expect from her show. And then she’s off, delivering a burlesque number, poetry, comedy, dance, and reading excerpts from her best-selling book (maybe one day she really will write it!) – and singing.

In this show, Lily takes us through her life, from childhood to deciding to ‘socially transition’ with its enormous amount of admin, to finally deciding to get on a surgical waiting list for bottom surgery, to realising this was pointless in Aotearoa. She reads us a poem based upon a letter from the health service explaining what they would and wouldn’t do, and why. It makes for grim listening as the stats in it are as alarming as they are true. At this point she decided to go private overseas, and touches on fundraising support she received, realising how loved she is and finally, the trip and the surgery itself.

Catastrophe by name, her style is hovering on the edge of frenzy but never quite tipping over. What makes her so watchable, apart from being genuinely good at all of the styles of performance she embraces, is her genuine charm and vulnerability. A charismatic combination that lights up the stage, carries the audience along with it and makes some very hard to hear realities palatable, while still hitting home.

Lily finishes with a song that the whole audience joins in on, a song about there being a place where anyone can go to just be themselves. At a time when the demented actions of a few weaponised morons are jeopardising the freedoms of people they don’t understand or care about, it is ever more important to wrap our love, support and protection around each other. It is a joyous way to end an uplifting show.

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