Wrestling with Melting Sugar
The evening was a hot occasion, if I remember it correctly. My party and I, consisting solely of my pageboy, photographer, strapper and handy amanuensis, landed in the Melt club stairwell, to queries at the door regarding whether we were performing in the show. Our attire was not particularly outlandish to our minds, coconut casual; as suited a salute to Senor Coconut , venerable interpreter of sounds. So with bemused belatedness we negotiated another flight of stairs being careful not to pull a stitch in our brocade or soil our cuffs. We promptly ordered the house Lemongrass & Ginger martini, made with all due delicious languor, and saw the show had started and the crowd was stuffing itself into the nethermost reaches of the stage-end of the venue. It was raining outside and the moisture in the air combined with the body heat generated by pressing crowds and Latin dancing performers alike was fast turning the room into the tropics. The club is called Melt need we say more ? Quite a personable venue. Much of the heat was generated by the show, and as soon as we acclimatized and our vision came back into focus we could see that it was high sugar content that was feeding the furnaces. Sugartime was on the scene.

Sartorial splendor on these purveyors of fine burlesque acts in Sydney extended this eve to mantilla buxoms, flamenco operetta coquets and Luchador henchmen; in short, ladies and wrestlers. A snappy bill of whimsy and sultry delight. As Russal, 'the wrestling wrastler', Beatie's motto goes "tiempo del azúcar viva !"

The slender stage was graced by La Vivanna who, slender herself, combines Carmen with cockerel in such comic measure as to make a fruity night nutty. By the end of the night Latin dancing lessons had taken place in the confines of that balmy nest, and the boys who only wanted to wrestle and the girls, who first wanted to dance, found a middle ground somewhere on the dance floor, a dance floor so aptly created and catered for by Mr Mai Tai (Tiki Two), castaway DJ whom has found himself dandaicly beached in the pleasurable Sou-south Pacific. We are fortunate to have his entrancing melodies here. He is an education. In fact a dance-off ensued and members of the crowd were called up to participate. Frida danced with bare-chested mestizo and lacey courtesan flounced with caped combatant. The beautiful mixed with the happy and haunted like gypsies in the night. The goodlookin’looked good. Lola did an antique pole dance with a wobbly post, which added a wow factor as the crowd gasped to see if she would topple, but no, “any one who can do the splits on a window sill stage like that is the performer’s performer !”, a keen observer was heard to utter. Daredevilish, the sort of fun to be found at the burlesque ! The antics continued, the beat beat on. This little isle throbbed well above the street and well below the equator, well into the night. Sugartime in the cocktail made the eve sweeter, and a bit of burlesque amongst the balmy palms passes those Sydney Pacific nights nicely.