Queer PowerPoint: A Star-Wipe For Your Thoughts?
Image: Image: Melt Festival
Death by PowerPoint? Not when the queers get hold of it. Melt favourite Queer PowerPoint returns to Brisbane with a gloriously unpredictable night of niche obsessions, cooked theories, secret passions and spectacularly unnecessary slide transitions.Â
The concept is deceptively simple: give queer artists, thinkers, performers and delightful weirdos ten minutes and Microsoft’s most corporate presentation tool, then stand well back. What follows could be cultural criticism, a personal confession, an elaborate conspiracy theory or an argument nobody knew they needed to hear.
The topic changes with every presenter – and there’s no way of knowing who you’ll hear and what you’ll learn, but the pleasure of this show lies in watching someone pursue an idea with total, infectious commitment.Â
Slides, charts, memes, questionable citations and the occasional star-wipe turn the familiar language of meetings and quarterly reports into a vehicle for queer imagination. The format makes room for comedy without demanding stand-up, and for genuine insight without ever feeling like homework.
Created by Xanthe Dobbie, Harriet Gillies and Thom Smyth through Unfunded Empathy, Queer PowerPoint has built a cult following around Australia. Its touring life has taken the format through multiple states and festivals, proving there is no shortage of queer people ready to transform an ordinary deck into high concept chaos.Â
Brisbane audiences have already embraced the show at Melt in 2024 and 2025, and this year it graduates to a new home in the Powerhouse Theatre.
Queer PowerPoint captures something central to contemporary queer culture, the urge to analyse, remix, over-share and make community out of the wonderfully specific. It is smart without being self serious, ridiculous without being disposable, and different every time because the presenters bring their own lives and fixations to the screen.
Come for the comedy, stay for the moment a deranged looking slide reveals an unexpectedly persuasive idea. You may never look at bullet points the same way again.
28 October, 7:30pm Â
Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm Â
brisbanepowerhouse.org
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