★★★★★
"HIGH TEA with BOOFF was next level! A festival programmer's dream... brilliant!..a week like no other!"
The Mackay Festival of Arts
HIGH TEA with BOOFF is a work of installation clown theatre. The show tours with its venue – a richly detailed lounge room replete with custom-made furniture, bespoke chandeliers, shared stories, and piping hot tea. The work deploys auto-biographical storytelling and narrative-driven clowning.
BOOFF is a regal, mischief-loving, high-status impresario. Disarmingly charming and resplendent in full-face makeup and a tailored suit – he looks as if he may have sprung from a lost collaboration between Barry Humphries, Lewis Carroll, Tim Burton, and Julian Clary. With a twinkle in his eye, a glint of mischief, perhaps even buffoonery... BOOFF wants you to love him, and he wants you to laugh with him as soon as you do. Physically and verbally ridiculous, BOOFF can't blend in, but then he doesn't really try.
Anchored in true shared stories, the audience experience is akin to a visit with your favorite aunt – a surreal tea party that's partly scripted and partly improvised. As a character, BOOFF is a larger-than-life personality whose company, all people are equal and equally worthy of reverence or ribaldry. The heart of the show's appeal is BOOFF - who is both other-worldly and transgressive, at once strong and vulnerable, uniquely himself while also emblematic of us all - in the way that actual clowns are reflective of the universal human condition.
HIGH TEA with BOOFF has been created to service the global festival, community, and corporate markets – oscillating (depending on the audience) between a PG – R Rating. BOOFF resonates with various program platforms, from contemporary performance programs to queer, comedy, theatre, cabaret, and arts festivals, to community and corporate events – even on a barge floating down the Brisbane River; the possibilities are limitless.
The production is housed within an air-conditioned custom-built 20ft shipping container that expands to create a 6m x 5m venue. The container is a high-cube style unit - with extra height than standard - that has been richly transformed down to the finest detail.
Humbly boasting a 208 SOLD OUT Performance Season across 5 Festivals in 2021/2022 – during the COVID19 Pandemic – BOOFF has returned from his holiday off the beaches of Barbados and is looking forward to hearing audiences once again exclaiming to their friends – "I Just Got BOOFF'D!"
★★★★★
"Such an amazing talent - BOOFF for Prime minister!"
Audience Member
★★★★★
"We went to HIGH TEA with BOOFF in Townsville with a group of 6 and had just a superb 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
★★★★★
"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
PAST & UPCOMING TOURS
The Mackay Festival of Arts, QLD - 2023
Circfest22 Meanjin, QLD - 2022
The North Australian Festival Of Arts, QLD - 2021
The Noosa Alive Festival, QLD - 2021
Carins Festival, QLD - 2021
Redland Performing Arts Centre, QLD - 2021
CREATIVE TEAM
Creator, Co-Writer & Performer: Clint Bolster
Co-Writer & Director: Damien Cassidy
Producers: Cluster Arts
Associate Producer: Rob Tannion
Corporate & Event Enquiries: Allie Wilde
Production Designer: Josh McIntosh
Lighting Designer: Jason Glenwright
Sound Designer & Technical Manager: Guy Webster
Production Manager & Stage Managers: Ben Mills, Allie Wilde, Marissa Hillar and Liam Cairnes
Videographer: Tnee Dyer
Photographers: Justin Ma & Barbara Lowing
Costume Designers: Joanne Farer & Barbara Kerr
Wig Maker: Elise Pontion
Wig Stylists: Rebecca Anthony & Michael Green
Clown Nose Maker: Tony Kishawi
Makeup Designer: Julieanne Edwards
Script Sound Board: Penny Everingham
HIGH TEA with BOOFF has been assisted by The Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts funding and advisory body and the Queensland Government through the Arts Queensland Showcase Program and Playing Queensland Quick Response Grant.
FOR CORPORATE & EVENT BOOKINGS
CONTACT
Allie Wilde
Director
allie@wildeapplause.com
0414 437 741
FOR FESTIVALS, TOURS & VENUE BOOKINGS
CONTACT
Debbie Wilks
Director
debbie@clusterarts.com
0433 554 801
Kate Malone
Executive Producer
0448 115 698
STAGE MANAGER
WIG STYLIST
★★★★★
"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 scrumptious tea room in respectable suburbia. A black-and-white Instagrammers daydream, the tea room is filled with beautiful knickknacks and great curiosities, and a set of ostentatious parlour chairs with just room enough for ten. Upon arrival, we pour each other a delicate cup of an aromatic black tea and snack on quintessential Australian cookies. The choice of digestive or iced vovo is charmingly surreal and quite like we've entered 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 was 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 the perfect magic theatre tricks, making 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 BOOFF should be the most coveted invitation of any budding socialites dance card."
Nothing Ever Happens in Brisbane
★★★★★
"OMG, we LOVED BOOFF!"
Audience Member
★★★★★
"Another magical HIGH TEA with BOOFF - BOOFF was enchanting as always, uniquely entertaining!"
Audience Member
★★★★★
"What a truly hilarious evening with BOOFF. Our faces are literally hurting from laughing so much!"
Audience Member
★★★★★
"HIGH TEA with BOOFF Is a rare and splendid opportunity to step briefly off this troubled planet and go BOOFFing.
My first BOOFF was a few months ago at Noosa. I was BOOFFED again last night. And I'm getting another BOOFFING on Saturday night. Oh god, I hope this isn't habit-forming...When BOOFF was live-streaming during the first COVID lockdown, I won the BOOFF MEMORIAL PINEAPPLE DISH prize. He autographed it for me, but it rubbed off, so I took it to last night's show to be re-signed. BOOFF is simply World-Class!"
Audience Member
★★★★★
"In an age where clowns reveal our hidden self, BOOFF is both sharp and insightful, yet aware of the provocations designed to unlock insights. BOOFF invites us to unite as we focus on the particular, the unusual, and the rare. BOOFF is a masterwork that will leave you feeling uncomfortably settled."
Paul Bishop
★★★★★
"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. A fantastic team to work with, and 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!"
Cairns Festival