Now in its fourth year, Opera Australia’s Opera Up Late has become an annual fixture of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras – a very Aussie answer to the UK’s panto season.

Both view the world through a queer lens, Julian Clary ruling the roost at London’s Palladium, just as Reuben Kaye does here. Their styles of delivery might be different, but both couple their cerebral sense of humour and razor-sharp wit with a disarming quality that makes their particular brand of smut and innuendo palatable to a mainstream audience.

Reuben Kaye in OA’s Opera Up Late. Photo © Carlita Sari

What makes Kaye the perfect host for Opera Up Late is his genuine love for the art form, even if that means some of his remarks, many of them improvised, are in-jokes. “Has anyone seen La fille du regiment?” he asks, adding “She was felt last night!”

When his jokes pass over the heads of the audience that, thrillingly, includes many first-timers to the opera, he proudly owns it, declaring, “The best part of that joke is that it was only meant for the five people who laughed.”

That said, there is...