I’m more than just a twink

How good is your gaydar? In dubious terms, the very concept of being able to detect, assess, and indicate the level of queerness permeating from someone that you know, i.e., parents, siblings, extended family members, friends, or workmates doesn’t necessarily equate to accurately identifying what their sexual orientation is.

Award winning musical theatre performer, writer, and disability support worker, Zak Vasiliou, who heralds from Adelaide, is a gay man contemplating over what age is it no longer permissible to assert oneself with twinkhood. In his debut autobiographical stand-up comedy show, Twinky Twinky Little Star, Zak leans into some thoroughly surprising, emotionally vulnerable, traumatically unappetising, impeccably entertaining, and gulitlessly honest callbacks interlaced with authentic and natural timelessness, intimacy, and nostalgia, as he recounts childhood memories filled with clever, edgy, twisty punchlines that tries to explain how it was his parents missed every obvious cue alluring to his queer identity, and also dispel the obsessive inclinations the queer community is beholden to with using animal terminological categories to label different types of men you feel attracted to.

Performing his final two shows from tomorrow night at the Adelaide Fringe Festival before flying off to Melbourne, Zak carefully subverts into his multitude of different skillsets while keeping away from overused tropes familiar to those who know everything there is to understand already about queer cultural references. This is accompanied by a PowerPoint slideshow presentation that uses video, photographs, and audio Zak has collected since his youth where everyone can watch his most tender, poignant, and unforgettable moments growing up including footage of him doing a nine minute megamixed rendition of ABBA’s Mumma Mia in Rundle Mall.

Zak spoke at length with Utterly Queer As!‘s Jarad McLoughlin, where he shared an embarrassingly adorable memory of doing his first live radio interview at Radio Adelaide on the September 14th, 2010 episode of Roundabout for their Live Music Fest segment, whereby as a 13 year old ‘naviely narcissistic’ high school student, he got to perform 5 songs in a row, starting off with ‘Hellalujah from Shrek’! But before that, Jarad asked Zak how he was feeling at the moment.