Railed! is quite unlike any show I’ve ever seen. And I mean that in the best possible way. It’s not just a highly energetic and thoroughly invigorating exhibition of seriously impressive acrobatic feats and circus tricks. It’s also riotously and raunchily funny. Railed! is being performed in the Augathella Spiegeltent at the Wynnum Fringe by four members of the Head First Acrobats. Namely Cal Harris, Tom Gorham, Liam Dunner and AJ Saltalamacchia.
The show is evocatively (and provocatively) described on the Wynnum Fringe website as a Western-themed circus spectacular, combining trademark physical talents, finely chiselled bodies and hilarious comic timing. The Railed! webpage says to leave your expectations at home…and let the HFA boys steal your hearts. Judging by the wildly (and Wild-Westerly) enthusiastic reactions of the opening night audience, the show’s four athletically and comedically talented performers did indeed steal numerous hearts.
Railed! is loosely framed around four cowboy outlaws who’ve just robbed a bank somewhere in the American Wild West. The show starts with the performers riding hobby horses onto the stage to massive cheers from the audience. An offstage announcement invites the audience to go “bat-sh*t crazy” for their entrance.
The tone of the show is set right from the beginning with another announcement from Cal Harris. “We only have three rules here at Railed! One, no flash photography. Two, turn your phones off. Three, shut the f**k up! Just kidding – you can make as much noise as you like!”
The opening night audience was more than happy to oblige the third rule’s sudden transmogrification from noise prohibition into noise encouragement. Accordingly, audience members continued to express their thoroughly justified appreciation for the performers’ efforts, providing heavy applause and exclamations of awe and delight throughout the show.
With the announcements out of the way, the Western-themed soundtrack kicks in. The outlaws swagger into the onstage saloon with their ill-gotten gains. In addition to swigging from bottles of whiskey and having spirited fistfights, the four perform a range of cartwheels, tumbles and backflips as a taste of what is to come.
The bank robbers then proceed to celebrate their successful heist by performing numerous acrobatic feats involving a range of circus equipment. These include a free-standing ladder, a teeter board and handstand canes as well as a trapeze and aerial straps securely attached to the roof of the Spiegeltent.
I was impressed with Tom’s ability on the trapeze and handstand canes, AJ’s ability on the teeter board and Cal’s ability on the free-standing ladder. I was equally impressed with Liam’s ability on the aerial straps. Especially when he was wearing a Ned Kelly-style helmet that had “withstood” a ricocheting bullet shortly beforehand in a well-constructed sequence of lighting and sound effects.
The performers use an array of props in their acrobatics and circus tricks. A collection of whiskey bottles in the saloon is especially well utilised throughout the show. This includes the performers throwing the bottles to each other and sliding them rapidly across a table. Their most impressive use involves Cal juggling them on top of the free-standing ladder.
As for comedic use of props, a prop cat, which suddenly falls from the ceiling after being accidentally ‘shot’ by one of the performers, is as hilarious as it is unexpected.
One show highlight involves AJ demonstrating both his physical and comedy skills with throwing knives. This is especially impressive when Liam bravely drapes himself over the target. Another highlight involves Cal demonstrating his whip-cracking ability while a hilariously horse-headed (and brief-clad) Tom transitions from fearing the whip’s “punishment” to enjoying it in a Fifty Shades of Grey moment.
Yet another highlight that is equal parts physical ability and comedy involves Cal performing handstands atop an increasing number of vertically stacked chairs. This culminates in him doing a handstand blindfolded at the top of five chairs, while AJ generates laughs at the bottom of the ladder through being an (intentionally) useless spotter. “Don’t try to catch me – just hold the f*cking chairs!”
As clever and effective a theatrical device as the Wild West outlaw storyline is, the Head First Acrobats would be the first to admit that it isn’t the main focus of Railed! That would be the sheer skill and strength of the performers, as they demonstrate a staggering array of acrobatic feats infused with highly entertaining physical comedy that becomes increasingly risqué.
Inevitably, the performers’ shirts come off (and stay off), while the pants change from cowboy jeans into cut-off (very cut-off) denim shorts. Given all this, it goes without saying that the opening night audience became progressively more committed to following the aforementioned noise encouragement proclamation.
Railed! also incorporates clever choreography and laugh-out-loud slapstick (slaprobatics, perhaps?) alongside the feats of skill and strength. These include the previously mentioned ricocheting bullet, a well-constructed slow-motion bar brawl, the aftermath of a dynamite explosion and a hysterically funny chair-based Magic Mike dance tribute. For these sequences, lighting changes and sound effects are effectively employed.
The general atmosphere for the show is successfully set by the soundtrack, including various cowboy-themed tracks and hard rock music. The cowboy-themed music includes a well-known track that is teased (or threatened) throughout the show, only being played in full at the end. (The song involved repeatedly queries a memorably named man as to where did he come from and where did he go.)
If you’ve never seen a shirtless man wearing a horse head dancing enthusiastically in his briefs with an oversized horse ‘member’ between his legs, while an equally shirtless man juggles whiskey bottles at the top of a freestanding metal ladder… well, if you were at the opening night performance of Railed!, then you have now!
At the end of the show, once the noise level from the audience dissipates sufficiently for Cal Harris to be audible (even on a microphone), he issues a thoroughly reasonable request to everyone watching. “If you liked the show, tell all your friends. If you didn’t, then shut the f**k up and don’t tell anybody!”
Well, Cal and crew, I liked the show very much and I’m happy to tell all my friends. And all the readers of this review too! Railed! is hugely entertaining and spectacularly impressive. It deserves as wide (and as noisy) an audience as possible.
Having said that, if you have young children, it’s probably best you leave them at home. Unless you want them to fire more than a few awkward questions at you during the car ride home!
Railed! runs until 13 July at the Augathella Spiegeltent as part of Wynnum Fringe, 166 Bay Terrace, Wynnum QLD 4178.
Tickets are available here!
Website: https://wynnumfringe.com/railed/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/wynnumfringe/
Photo credits: Head First Acrobats Facebook
