Ozstar Airlines .


Saturday 18th March


Some fun to finish this journey with! I hadn’t planned to see this event, but stumbled on it as I wandered around the Garden of Unearthly Delights on the final Saturday night of the Festival. I didn’t want all this to end and felt the need to be part of these dying moments of the Fringe. Standing outside the famous Spiegeltent I was drawn to the ridiculous exaggerated laughter of Stacey and Tracey from Ozstar Airlines. They were dressed in flight attendant's uniforms, wearing headset microphones and talking about turbulence and in-flight entertainment. What were they doing with Hula Hoops?

These two girls were circus performers. I’m not really sure about the flight attendant link, but their uniforms reduced during the show to sparkly shorts and tops as they juggled, danced and hula hooped their way into the crowd's hearts. Their sophisticated sound system, consisting of an iPod and some speakers, together with their pronounced Australian accents and bawdy humour endeared them to the swelling crowd. Some of their acts were polished and others, well you wondered if they had ever attempted them before. They improvised beautifully, incorporating a small child into their act, and deftly guiding him back to his caregiver when it became dangerous for him to be on their ‘stage’.

Their most charming moment came at the end of their show as they performed an amazing feat of Stacey standing on Tracey’s shoulders, twirling six hula hoops around her midriff, then somehow getting the hoops to separate and move along various parts of her body. Poor Tracey on the bottom looked somewhat dishevelled at the punishment but smiled through gritted teeth the whole way through. The dismount was not the most elegant manoeuvre I had ever seen, but hilarious.

After this act, who could deny them some coins in their oversized sacks with giant dollar signs printed on the side in sparkling gold. And that is what this performance was, Pure Gold.