The arts and activism

Anthony Wallace cuts a charismatic figure, overlooking the crowd who swarm to his bar, preparing his DJ tables for another Friday night instalment of ‘Fellas in Frocks’.

As work in the performing arts grew increasingly difficult to find, Mr Wallace opened the 86, a cabaret bar in Fitzroy.

“I shook a lot of cocktails in my time, but had very little cabaret bar experience,” he chuckles.

Nearly six years later, the 86 is a roaring success, with handfuls of drag queens rotating through the bar’s popular ‘Fellas in Frocks’ Friday night spectacular.