Across from him, Mark Winmill, better known as Captain Kidd, sounds just as relaxed. Eighteen years into Briefs, the cult cabaret force they built from the back room of a Brisbane bookshop, this still counts as work.

“Well, if you haven’t been to a Briefs show,” Fez says, “it’s circus, it’s drag and it’s burlesque.” A beat. “We’re the naughty kids on the theatre table.”

Right now, those kids are back in Melbourne, taking over Spiegel Haus Melbourne with 'The Works', a late-night remix of their greatest hits and newest provocations. It runs deep into the night as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, slotting in at 10pm, a time that asks something different from both performer and audience.

“It’s a late-night party,” Fez says. “A queer glitter-bombing, physical theatre offering.”

That last part matters. For all the sweat, skin and chaos, Briefs has never been about shock for the sake of it. It’s about control, rhythm, and knowing exactly when to push and when to pull back. 'The Works' digs into nearly two decades of material, but it’s not a nostalgia trip. It moves like a night out that gets progressively stranger.

“We love bringing back the signature acts,” Winmill says. “Big ensemble numbers, feather fans, strip teases, the water act at the end. But people who come back, they want something new too.”

So the show shifts. Old favourites sit next to fresh chaos. New collaborators, like Melbourne drag theatre-maker Bendy Ben, fold into a cast that spans generations and disciplines.

Fez describes it like a recipe that never quite settles. “We’ve got our core ingredients, but we’re always adding something new. A party needs ebbs and flows. Otherwise it’s just one note.”

That rhythm is what keeps Briefs from collapsing under its own excess. One minute it’s high-gloss spectacle, the next it’s something softer, then suddenly you’re laughing harder than you expected to.

Image © Sean Breadsell

“It’s theatre for the people,” Fez says. “A space where you can undo your seatbelt a bit.”

Back in 2008, Briefs wasn’t a company. It was a party.

“It was an escape from the norm,” Winmill says. “Friends bringing acts, people making cocktails, food everywhere. It was rough, messy, ridiculous.”

That energy stuck. The show moved from warehouses to clubs, then onto the global circuit, including Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it found its audience. What travelled wasn’t just the format, it was the tone. Cheeky, political, a bit feral, unmistakably Australian.

“People want a good laugh,” Winmill says. “They want to leave with sore jaws.”

For years, Briefs has been summed up as “Cirque du Soleil meets 'RuPaul’s Drag Race'”. It still gets the point across, but it doesn’t quite land anymore.

“That quote’s decades old,” Winmill says. “It’s nice, it’s timeless. But we’re more punk than that. More renegade.”

Fez agrees, though he sees the value in it. “Back then, people needed a reference point. Now, the job is reminding people how diverse drag actually is.”

On stage, that diversity shows up everywhere – in bodies, in styles, in how gender is bent, stretched and occasionally blurred. It’s not a statement piece. It’s just the room they exist in.

“We don’t cast for diversity,” Fez says. “That’s just our community.”

For a show built on provocation, 'The Works' isn’t trying to pick a fight. If anything, it’s doing the opposite.

“There’s so much going on,” Fez says. “Mental health, housing, war, everything’s in your face from the moment you wake up. People need respite.”

Image © Sean Breadsell

So the agenda shifts. Less confrontation, more release.

“You can sit there and unpack it all,” he says, “or you can just laugh your way through the night and reset.”

That’s where Briefs has always thrived, in that space between meaning and pure escape. The trick is making it feel like both at once.

Even the naughtiness is a kind of illusion.

“People swear they’ve seen me nude on stage,” Fez says. “I’m actually quite prudish. It’s trickery. Suggestion.”

Still, the line moves. What feels outrageous at 7:30 doesn’t land the same at 10pm, and Briefs knows exactly how to use that.

“It changes what people think is appropriate,” he says. “And that’s interesting in itself.”

Eighteen years in, they’re not pretending it’s the same rush as it was at the start. It’s something else now. “Not for the Centrelink bonus,” Fez says.

But there’s pride there. In the scale of it, the people they’ve built it with, the fact they’re still here, still selling out rooms, still surprising themselves.

“We’re in our legendary era,” he says.

Even over the phone, that much is clear.

“I think people should come,” Fez says. “Not just to us. To theatre. It’s part of looking after yourself.”

“Go out, have fun, be a bit stupid. That’s the whole point.”

'Briefs: The Works' is on at Spiegel Haus Melbourne until 19 April.