About the Creator

.

Talk and Tease was created by, and is owned and produced solely by me, Scarlett Furi. I'm a Sydney born performance artist, vaudevillian show producer, and published poet. Born in Paddington from bohemian parents, I grew up in a haze of second hand smoke on the Persian rugs of artists, drag queens and fallen socialites.

Some of my earliest childhood memories are listening to my mother and God Mother/iconic adult entertainer Elizabeth Burton, gossip in Elizabeth's Surry Hills kitchenette. They would smoke rollies and talk through their problems whilst I marveled at Elizabeth's old striptease promo shots and her impressive lounge-room jungle of unruly growing houseplants.

At 10 yrs of age I began trapeze training with close family friend Chiquita the Fire Eater in Chiquita's warehouse home. This ignited my love of performing aerial acrobatics.

My first taste of the artistic power of nudity came at 16, performing to 700+ oldies deep in the suburbs, as a fill-in back up dancer in a popular RSL Cher Tribute show. In the song "Half-Breed" I was to gracefully parade the stage in an extravagant white headdress and a long flowing white robe. 

Moments before I was due to wait in the wings, the stage manager realised they had in fact forgotten my costume. All they had was the headdress. In a panic, the leader singer fashioned me a "costume" from humble twine and a mere strip of shimmering, partially opaque material, torn from the headdress. I now had a genital covering and what could only be called a "nipple tube". 

Too naive to know better, I emerged on stage as rehearsed but now in the most scantily clad culturally appropriated costume the burbs had ever seen. The flimsy whisps of see-through material doing little to hide my melanin rich features. 

The crowd was frozen in presumably a mix of confusion and awe. The silence was palpable. You could have heard a pin drop.

Mid number, I had an epiphany: "Maybe it's because I'm naked?". My teenage self pranced the stage even more proudly. Most likely I was never the same. 

At 18, I again found herself as a back-up dancer (back-up dancing is clearly a gateway profession), this time in a raunchy revue performing at the Summer Nats in Canberra. My big performer moment was dancing to 'Car Wash" in a one piece swimsuit whilst spraying the crowd with soap suds. It was a classy (and fun) show.

On the finale night of the festival, our dance troupe was booked to perform a feature show on the elevated main stage, televised on towering screens to the ten thousand punters ogling from below. Naturally, two of the stars did a no show after partying all night with a group of Holden Torana enthusiasts. The troupe was down an act and little Scarlett was all they had. 

And so I performed my first ever strip tease; a completely improvised topless routine to a small stadium worth of men who had been drinking in the dust for four days without a woman in sight. I was given a crash course in the "art-of-tease" by the choreographer (something like "give them what they want but keep them wanting more") before being shoved out on stage armed with nothing but a top hat and a can-do attitude. 

My routine finished. I did my big reveal. As I was exiting the stage, a thunderous "boo" erupted from the crowd and they began throwing tinnies at me. The masses were enraged that all I took off was my top and top hat. A rush of satisfaction arose inside me as I had a taste of the performative power and impact of the flesh in a way most performers will never experience. I admit I wanted more.

With these formative experiences, it is no wonder that after my early adult years pursuing aerial acrobatics, I eventually slipped, tripped and fell back onto a career in burlesque.

After the birth of my son, I made my first feature length debut as a burlesque show producer in the Adelaide Fringe. Despite a successful sold out season, I soon renounced the Sydney burlesque scene. As a single mother, I wanted to focus on more stable employment and enrolled in university. That did not last.

Upon realising I prioritised dance tours over university exams, and spent more time drawing pin-ups than taking notes in lectures, I dropped out of law school...and I hardly ever regret it.

That same year I turned my focus to creating Sydney’s premiere burlesque dinner show experience in Kings Cross- during the height of Sydney's shameful lockout laws. I pressed on persevering through the covid lock-downs. After some various other trials and tribulations...I emerged in 2025 as the sole owner and producer of Sydney's longest currently running, and most popular burlesque cabaret dinner show. Just like Talk and Tease, I still call Kings Cross home and I have no plans to leave. 

Apart from being as a show-maker, my favourite career highlights include shooting a fetish calendar in the Italian Alpes for a Danish lingerie brand; acting in various productions including the awarding winning Sci-Fi film “Risen” in 2021; and my most recent and perhaps favourite achievement: becoming a paper published poet (twice). 

When I'm working, you will find me cuddling my sphynx cat or my son and staying up too late, or literally smelling the Roses at the Botanical Gardens which is still my favourite place in the whole world.