★★★★★
“HIGH TEA with BOOFF was an exceptional one-of-a-kind performance. It is like nothing you have ever experienced before, and one you won’t soon forget! A definite must-see for all festival goers.”
The North Australian Festival Of Arts – Townsville

HIGH TEA with BOOFF

HIGH TEA with BOOFF is a work of installation clown theatre. The show tours with its venue – a richly detailed, Tim Burton-sequel lounge room packed with custom-made furniture, bespoke chandeliers, shared stories and piping hot tea. The work deploys auto-biographical story-telling and narrative-driven clowning. It has been created to service the festival, community and corporate markets – globally.

The production is housed within an air-conditioned custom-built 20ft shipping container that expands to create a 6m x 5m venue. The unit is a high-cube style container – with extra height than standard – that has been richly transformed. Welcomed by our eloquent and otherworldly host, audiences enter the space by any local social distancing measures.

Anchored in shared stories, the audience experience is akin to a visit with your favourite aunt – a surreal tea party that’s partly scripted and partly improvised. As a character, BOOFF resonates with the work of artists like Julian Clary and Dame Edna Everage, a larger-than-life persona in whose company all people are equal, and all are equally worthy of reverence or ribaldry.

★★★★★
“Such an amazing talent – BOOFF for Primeminister!” – Audience Member

★★★★★
“We went to HIGH TEA with BOOFF in Townsville with a group of 6 and had a wonderful time!!! One of my friends on the walk home said she would die happy now that she has been BOOFFED!!!” – Audience Member.

★★★★★
“Simply wonderous! Stunningly dark, delightfully twisted with a hint of romance!” – Audience Member

2021 TOUR DATES 

The North Australian Festival Of Arts

07/07 2021 – 11/07 2021

14/07 2021 – 18/07 2021
https://whatson.townsville.qld.gov.au/events/nafa/high-tea-with-booff

The Noosa Alive Festival

21/07 2021 – 24/07 2021

https://www.noosaalive.com.au/whats-on-noosaalive/booff/

Cairns Festival

02/10 2021 – 05/10 2021
https://www.cairns.qld.gov.au/festival

Redland Performing Arts Centre
02/12 2021 – 18/12/2021
https://www.rpac.com.au/what-s-on/all-events/high-tea-with-booff/

★★★★★
“Welcome to a perfect tea party: excellent china cups, high-quality brews, and just the right amount of scandal. BOOFF has outdone himself, outfitting the most delicious tea room in respectable suburbia. A black-and-white Instagrammers daydream, the tea room is filled with beautiful knickknacks, fabulous curiosities, and a set of ostentatious parlour chairs with just enough room for ten. Upon arrival, we pour each other a delicate cup of an aromatic black tea and snack upon quintessential Australian cookies. Choice of digestive or iced vovo is a charmingly surreal and quite like we’ve stepped into an episode of Neighbours circa 1985.   This is not so much a show as an intimate gathering, where we catch up and share gossip and stories. We are treated to a beautiful trip down memory lane, where the stories are all most genteel, at least mostly genteel, with a touch of the macabre and a heavy dose of the ludicrous. A delightfully imposing clown, when captured in the intimate setting of the tea room, BOOFF becomes even larger than life. I felt quite giddy; it’s such a space to step into, an otherworldly experience. If you were to enter this beautiful parlour from the chaos of a summer festival, you would be instantly transported to another world entirely. In this, BOOFF has done that most perfect magic theatre tricks; he has made the outside go away and the inside somewhere else. As I write my reflection, I am sipping upon a tea that was gifted as I left the parlour;” A Ceremonial Sample of Finest Loose Leaf tea”, And so it is that I am left with an impression of consummate finesse. Every detail is complete, every element of the perfectly manifest. HIGH TEA with BOOFFought to be the most coveted invitation of any budding socialites dance card” – Nadia Jade – Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane

CREATIVE TEAM

Creator, Co-Writer & Performer: Clint Bolster
Co-Writer & Director: Damien Cassidy
Producer: Rob Tannion & Debbie Wilks – Cluster Arts
Production Designer: Josh McIntosh
Lighting Designer: Jason Glenwright
Sound Designer: Guy Webster
Videographer: Tnee Dyer
Photographers: Justin Ma & Barbara Lowing
Costume Designer: Joanne Farer
Makeup Designer: Julieanne Edwards
Script Sound Board: Penny Everingham

★★★★★
“HIGH TEA with BOOFF was exactly what the doctor ordered for Cairns Festival. Staff, crew and audiences across all ages and backgrounds were at once mystified and left in stitches and sometimes shaking their heads, wondering what just happened. The sights and sounds associated with the work created a buzz in our region that is still rippling and has ignited many ideas for capacity building and development within our own region. A fantastic team to work with, communication lines are always open and negotiable – it just makes the experience even sweeter. Can’t wait to see what else Booff comes up with” – Roz Pappalardo – Artistic Director – Cairns Festival 

PRODUCED BY – CLUSTER ARTS

CONTACT

Rob Tannion
Producer
[email protected]
0439 931 892