Following a record-breaking 2017, Brisbane Powerhouse’s adored Wonderland Festival returns for 11 salacious nights of revelry from 22 November. Now in its fifth year, Wonderland Festival brings together talented performers for a unique carnival of comedy, burlesque, circus, music, magic and more.

The 2018 lineup sees several festival favourites return, including Bombshell Burlesque, whose titillating new show Heatwave is guaranteed to sizzle; the darkly seductive threesome from Babushka with a wickedly funny cabaret, Happily Ever After; and cabaret chanteuse Mama Alto, with a powerful tribute to jazz icon Billie Holiday. A proven launchpad for new works, this year’s festival features four world premieres, including guaranteed crowd-pleaser Two Man Tarantino – all eight films in one hilarious hour of comedy and chaos performed by Emily Vascotto and Stephen Hirst. Also premiering at Wonderland is a new work under construction by psycho-siren Leah Shelton, directed by renowned UK performance art provocateur Ursula Martinez, Bitch on Heat.

Additional highlights include The Wonder Wombs – New Zealand’s all-female circus renowned for eating binaries for breakfast; and award-winning mentalist and magician Matt Tarrant in Honestly Dishonest. Stretching their vocals will be some of Brisbane’s best homegrown female singers in the ultimate romantic ode to city with I Left My Heart in Highgate Hill, and vaudeville vamp Christa Hughes will take audiences on the journey from that elegant first sip of the Speakeasy Siren to the despair and pain of the Dive Bar Diva in Beer Drinking Woman.