‘I never want to see it again – but I also want to book for tomorrow night’

COMEDY


Creepy Boys | SLUGS
Meat Market, until October 17

This is Fringe at its purest – and this show comes with more content warnings than a film by Larry Clark. SLUGS was nominated for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last year, and rightly so. It’s delirious mayhem from Canadian artists S.E. Grummett and Sam Kruger.

How often do you see the genitalia (some accompanied with googly eyes) of both performers, and see them threatening an audience member at gun-point, then offering another a very raunchy sex service that can’t be printed in these pages? Free candy is also extended to the crowd, so it’s not all R18+ (but it is 99 per cent of the time). There’s deliberately poorly performed puppetry (shout-out to a terribly voiced Joni Mitchell), and the two cosplaying as a horse. Essentially, it’s Play School on crack with a decent dollop of existential doom and dread woven in.

If you’re a fan of comedic chaos with the capability of warping your mind, then I couldn’t recommend it more highly. If you prefer your comedy more middle of the road and TV friendly, then stay far, far away. SLUGS is a paradox of a show. It’s advertised as being about “nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing” but is somehow about everything. It’s breathtakingly stupid but ingeniously clever. I never want to see it again, but I also want to book again for tomorrow night.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

CABARET
Mara Knezevic | Kauboj
The Motley Bauhaus – Cabaret Stage, until October 11

In the hands of a master storyteller such as singer-songwriter Mara Knezevic, a simple tale about a Croatian man’s life and ambition, becomes an enthralling and touching adventure. Two years after first staging Kauboj at Sydney Fringe Festival, the classically trained artist has brought her show to Melbourne.

We hear about a chef-slash-cowboy named Jakov, who lives in the fictional Dalmatian town of Božje Selo. It’s a migrant story of hope and disillusionment. Through spoken word and song, Jakov’s world – brimming with purpose, love, fear and failure – is deftly and vividly created. Electric guitarist Daniel Potaczala strums along. Nostalgia and hints of humour are seamlessly woven in.

Knezevic’s soulful, evocative vocals tackle a mix of traditional folk, covers and originals. Tender original tunes Till I See You Again and Cecilia’s Lullaby enchant, while we’re asked to sing along to an upbeat Kauboj Café and Grill. Professionalism reigns as stage lights flicker and falter and the sound plays up for a few moments. It’s a delightful hour that passes quickly.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

THEATRE
In Bed With My Brother | Philosophy of the World
Meat Market, until October 3

Affectionately known as the best worst band ever, The Shaggs were a trio of young sisters from Exeter, New Hampshire, whose astonishingly inept songs were later reappraised as genius by the likes of Kurt Cobain and Frank Zappa.

That’s the official story, at least. Here, another trio reviews the legacy forced on three women who never wanted their spot in the limelight, but who were made to perform and record by a domineering father.

In other hands, this material would lend itself to satire and condescension, but UK outfit In Bed With My Brother treats The Shaggs with respect while simultaneously trashing most conventions of respectable theatre. If you like your performances truly unpredictable, this is your ticket. Bristling with barely containable energy and randomly erupting into violence, music or comedy, the work suggests that to truly redeem artists with no aesthetic merit requires us to rewrite the rules of art itself.
★★★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

DANCE and PHYSICAL THEATRE
Emma J. Hawkins and Leisa Prowd | Exhibit
La Mama Courthouse, until October 4

Two short-statured women walk on stage, inviting the audience to stare. But how do we see them? Is it with the weight of the caricatures and tropes that come with bodies their size on a stage, or as they see themselves? Can they shed the limitations placed upon them by expectation, or are they restricted by our acceptance of what they can and cannot be? Exhibit is a compelling performance by Leisa Prowd and Emma J. Hawkins exploring the roles of viewer, audience, watcher and watched.

Hawkins and Proud are frequently controlled by other people’s narrow expectations – audiences, directors, casting agents – but in Exhibit claim the freedom to perform to their potential as leading ladies with complexity, emotional depth and charisma. Deeply funny, the comedy is not thrust upon them by infantalisation but found in the performers subverting expectation.

Dance brings vitality and exuberance to the performance, conveying their tumultuous experiences with movement ranging from graceful interludes to urgent, rapidly repeated passages. As our invited gaze is subverted and audience becomes subject, an unsettling mood evolves and the performance moves from comedy to disquiet. It is not so easy to remain passive when we cannot dictate how and when we too are perceived.
★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

THEATRE
Jessie Ngaio | Dirt Church
Meat Market, until October 3

Imbuing cult theatre with a whole new meaning, this part-church sermon, part-variety act has just about everything you could want from a Fringe show: nudity, poetry, music, dance, glo-paint, eco-feminism, body positive queer manifestos, beautiful costumes forged from rubbish, exquisitely shot BDSM films, and … live worms. Also, thankfully, comedy – especially from the church’s first disciple, the delightfully filthy and golem-like “Spider Crotch”. Think ConFest meets end-of-school-camp play, but the camp is for adults only, and the writing is good.

The many rituals in this religion centre around themes such as decomposition, rebirth and revelling in the miraculous beauty of nature, sex and art. We go from weird to earnest to hilarious and back again. A song about the future we’re leaving our children dampens the tone where most of the hour is otherwise playfully creative, constructive and hopeful. Highlights include a crass and absurd opening banger about birthing, and a contemplative descent into the earth inviting us to “consider the worms” – set to a vocal track reminiscent of Yello’s Oh Yeah.

Fringe theatre at its best.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

COMEDY
Ruff as Gutz | Dune but Worse
Trades Hall, until October 24

You’re in for a memorable show when your usher hands you a knife on admission. New Zealand clown Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin’s solo rendition of Frank Herbert’s epic Dune saga pulls off something unexpectedly grand in scale, including an interstellar battle featuring his entire audience. You’ll emerge unscathed but won’t forget the moment.

I’m an Arrakis tourist at best, and if you don’t know your Atreides from your Harkonnens, this will be an experience as baffling as the famously difficult source material.

Dune is hardcore SF, but Dugdale-Martin is equally well-read and irreverent. Their audience is in on the joke: All it takes is a mask of a grumpy Zendaya to prove that love and derision can occupy the same space in fandom. Watching a giant, blindfolded worm chase a random audience member around the room only drives home the ridiculousness of our devotions.
★★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

CABARET
Briefs Factory | Briefs: The Works
Spiegel Haus Melbourne: Spiegeltent until October 18

On a small (cramped?), round stage, a troupe of saucy performers titillates through striptease, while showcasing impressive feats of physical prowess and core strength. Lovers of drag (replete with lip-syncing and banging tunes), circus acts and full-frontal nudity, this is a show for you.

Select numbers are perfection. Glistening aerialist Dylan Rodriguez captivates and hula-hoop legend Jess Love is also a dazzling flying trapeze artist. Fez Faanana, who founded Briefs Factory in Brisbane 18 years ago, hosts the affair as alter-ego Shivannah. Biting quips, filthy lines and general silliness mostly work but frustratingly, occasional stumbles in delivery hinder both the message and flow.

“Dirty laundry” confessions, extracted from the audience, are ribald, comedy nuggets. Prepare for the possibility of flung garments, including still-warm underwear, to strike you in the face. Or for a naked performer to plonk onto your lap. There’s plenty of celebration of self, with Shivannah wrapping up the show by urging those gathered to “look after each other”.
★★★★
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

COMEDY

Elliot Wood | Mrs Lovett’s Famous Meat Pies Grand Reopening Extravaganza

Trades Hall, until October 4

Fancy a bit of cannibalism with your comedy? Elliot Wood has you covered – and it’s no wonder why this show scored a Best Newcomer nomination at the Comedy Festival and has returned for an encore season.

Two centuries on from the partnership with the demon barber Sweeney Todd in the penny dreadful series, Wood (literally) carves out an, ahem, deliciously camp and deranged version of Mrs Lovett. But didn’t she die? No, in Wood’s world she was cryogenically frozen rather than thrown into a furnace. She’s departed Fleet Street and comes to Melbourne to indulge in her favourite pastime: making meat pies filled with the human remains of Todd’s murder victims.

Accompanied by a disturbingly muted assistant named Kitchenette, Lovett engages the crowd to help prepare her signature dishes. While audience participation is rife, Wood ensures that only the willing are brought to the stage (you’re offered a raffle ticket on arrival, and if your number is called and you’d prefer to stay in your seat, the show moves on seamlessly). The gags come rapid-fire and the wordplay is first-rate. One would be wise to not wear white, however: there is a splash zone. While the hour will give your stomach a workout, it’s a shame that the main cuisine on offer in the foyer of Trades Hall this year is almost all pies. You don’t quite leave with a craving for one.
★★★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

EXPERIMENTAL
Chamber Made | The Enormous Radio
The Substation, until October 10

A tiny audience is surrounded by a multitude of vintage radios, each tuning into spectral frequencies whose origin is never clear. Bird calls, cicada chirps and predatory growls dissolve into electronic chaos, while the mind strains to figure out whether these are field recordings put through digital filters, or human-made sounds expertly crafted to pass as the real thing.

Roslyn Oades and Bob Scott’s aural installation is an uncanny meditation on the interconnectedness of the animal, the human and the technological. Most unsettling is when language enters the mix.

At one point, I’d decided that the buzzing of a fly was definitely authentic – and then it began talking. Captions appear on screens to translate the half-comprehensible phrases, which range from menacing to comic (whales, it turns out, aren’t the amiable types you’d expect). It’s audio wizardry reminding us that humans and the things we create are all just another part of nature. There’s no agenda here, no narrative to follow, and it ends without fanfare. Just like life.
★★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

THEATRE
Cat Finch and Rose Bishop, performed by Annie Lumsden | Ghostware
Festival Hub: Meat Market – Craft Room, until October 10

“Loose in the cloud” calls to mind something free-flowing and ethereal, but in the play, Ghostware, its connotations are far more sinister: Gertie (Annie Lumsden) is plagued by a version of her dead sister Bea’s consciousness that is permanently embedded in the digital ether. Thanks to a watertight contract, Bea is here to stay and what’s worse: she pays for herself by continually unfurling sponsored content on her grief-afflicted family.

Back after its debut at last year’s Fringe, Cat Finch and Rose Bishop’s tight one-hander masterfully conjures a time in which manufacturing has all but been outsourced and robotic essential workers are commonplace. That the world-building is so effective is due in large part to Lumsden, who expertly conveys Gertie’s interiority while inhabiting the flights and foibles of various characters – from her eccentric parents to the decrepit lawyer and young hacker she seeks in desperate attempts to rid herself of AI Bea.

Amid a sea of baby-blue packing boxes, we watch as Gertie grapples with the spectres of loss, unfulfilled potential and acute unbelonging. Ghostware is a deeply felt, darkly humorous and strangely affecting play about the things we do to escape ourselves and others.
★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

THEATRE

Mary-Agnes O’Loughlin | Glimpses of Heaven

The Motley Bauhaus, until October 4

In Glimpses of Heaven, Mary-Agnes O’Loughlin draws inspiration (or should that be devastation?) from the battles with alcoholism, drug dependence and mental health issues of her own mother, comedic veteran Fiona O’Loughlin. Fiona’s struggles in the past are well-documented. She’s never been one to shy away from detailing her addiction and a 2013 suicide attempt (she credits Mary-Agnes for saving her life).

A partly fictionalised story, the reality of Mary-Agnes’ truths about her upbringing are laid bare. She performs as Hannah, attending the apartment of her mother – an illustrious musician with chaotic habits (of whom Fiona herself provides the voiceovers) – to pack her belongings. All of the sentimental keepsakes elicit memories from a childhood with a mother constantly in the spotlight and turning a blind eye to the lowlights caused due to her compulsions. The show asks: is unconditional love possible when you’re watching a family member slowly killing themselves? Is any amount of fame and fortune amassed worth it if you seem destined to join the 27 Club, even if you may be a few years past the admission date?

Under the directorial eye of another Australian comedy mainstay, Damian Callinan, there’s also humour to be found throughout the morbid storytelling intertwined with well-choreographed dance and music. Glimpses of Heaven is a tender, vulnerable exploration of the struggles with the concepts of familial love, intergenerational trauma and the catharsis found in forgiveness. While it must come recommended with the caveat of a strong trigger warning for anyone with a history of domestic distress, it’s a very impressive solo debut deserving of a main-stage season in future runs to come.
★★★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

THEATRE
Ryan Hamilton and Georgie Wolfe | F— Your Funding
Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Solidarity Hall, until October 4

What if, over the course of a night, you could agitate for the arts to occupy a more central place in the political agenda and redress inequitable funding models? Such concerns reach an apotheosis at the 2026 Melba Awards, a fictional annual celebration of seriously high stakes in the play F— Your Funding. Hosted by a venerated opera singer and opened by an imagined version of the Victorian arts minister, the night descends into chaos when two cultural terrorists hold them at gunpoint with a list of demands.

F— Your Funding is at its most uproarious when it’s laying bare the arts sector’s greatest hypocrisies. A slide containing a list of morally vacuous donors? Tick. A politician lauding the cultural cachet of Melbourne while refusing to bolster the arts sector in any real, tangible way? Tick.

As the play lurches wildly from farcical hijinks to sincere proselytising about the role of art in a whiplash-inducing manner, it simultaneously lampoons itself and us while paying homage to its intended audience. Leftists too busy preaching to the converted and fighting among one another to organise. Artists making work centred on their latest diagnoses. Clowns.
★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

DANCE
Caroline Meaden | Immacolata
Chunky Move Studios, until October 3

This is a beautifully strange and melancholy solo dance vigil: a restless choreographic grisaille, delicate and disquieting. Caroline Meaden struts and frets, with crisp bird-like movements, then hesitates. Always there is hesitation in this work. Then an arm – or a hand or a leg – begins to wobble. It’s like a part of the body just turns to water.

The dimly lit stage is furnished with only a clothes rack, some biscuit crumbs and a stool, but Meaden keeps mostly to its edges. She is pulled backwards or drawn into the corners, as if kept out of the empty centre by some unseen force.

Immacolata tantalises with the mystery of its significance. What does it all mean? Is there a story behind its troubling silences? In fact, Meaden provides an accompanying essay, intended to be read after the performance, which does explain much of what we see – and gives the work’s air of sadness a touching specificity.
★★★★
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

COMEDY
Holly Bohmer, Mario Hannah and Taylor Griffiths | Nosebleeds
The Improv Conspiracy, until October 18

The Nosebleeds, veterans of improv comedy, know it doesn’t take much to evoke the horror genre, even less to make fun of it. The trio, together for a decade, are back at Melbourne Fringe to take a proverbial (and literal) stab at the evergreen genre with an hour of uneven but charming sketches. Exorcisms become blind dates, séances turn into couples therapy, and haunted mansions turn nipples into weapons. Rather than looking to recent films, the self-described “comedian cinephiles” pull from an older vintage of horror.

It’s Mel Brooks via Henry James. Holly Bohmer is the perfect wide-eyed governess with no fear of her homicidal employer, Mario Hannah is the ever-likeable himbo contacting the dead to learn more about the Titanic, and Taylor Griffiths, who delivers the night’s best punchlines, is uproarious as every manservant with a handlebar moustache or ghost child.

But by the fourth Victorian-era conceit or ill-formed attempt at audience engagement, the show becomes static and its parodies rote. It’s a fun night out, but it’s not quite a scream.
★★★
Reviewed by Guy Webster

THEATRE
Gregory Nussen | QFWFQ
Trades Hall, until October 4

In this brave dissection of self, politics and art, Californian performer Gregory Nussen takes their cue (and title) from Italo Calvino’s metafictional work, If on a winter’s night a traveller. Centre stage is a writer’s desk piled with Calvino’s extended works, and we continue through a series of false starts as Nussen keeps attempting the play they’re “meant” to perform.

It’s a neat framing device for their autobiographical narrative, in which the preordained script of a rigid Jewish upbringing creates visceral and lasting internal conflict for a protagonist whose sexuality and gender identity don’t stick to the script. The most powerful moments draw an elegant through line between the cognitive dissonance of war and propaganda (both historical and current), and the terrifying and complex pursuit of self-actualisation and truth in a world where, too often, two plus two continues to equal five.

There is plenty to like here, but the overall result is too many references and layers – some of them heavy-handed to begin with, then unnecessarily explained – which distract from its beating heart.
★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

VISUAL ARTS and FILM
Youbi Lee | OBANG 오방
ArtPlay, until October 25

If you’re accustomed to picking up after a toddler, this interactive visual arts experience will make you feel right at home. OBANG 오방 combines the Korean term for five, O, with the word, BANG, referring to direction or room. The minimalist space is set up as a halmoni’s (grandmother’s) house, with individual stations representing the kitchen, bedroom, toilet and living room, alongside a partitioned area for the bathroom.

Familiar household elements ignite sensory play: a mini kitchenette, a bed, a clothing line and a blow-up bath. Tactile elements feed curiosity: plastic puddle decals, a dumpling steamer, silk manchester, a straw hanging and a wooden puzzle. The experience is low stimulation, with gentle traditional music and a wall projection adding an audiovisual dimension.

The space is modest, which creates a safe and contained environment, but limits the number of families that can engage simultaneously, and the amount of time you can occupy an active toddler. As you leave, respect halmoni’s home by leaving the space as you found it, which is a good lesson for the young.
★★★
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

COMEDY
Blak Out: An Indigenous Comedy Showcase
Trades Hall, until October 4

Blak Out is an ideal comedy show to see early at Fringe. It offers a range of performers delivering a taste of what they offer, leaving the audience hungry to seek them out elsewhere at the festival. The featured comedians hail from all over the country, and with a mix of four performers each night there is a satisfying variety of styles.

When I attended, Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi performer Jacob Keed opened with a laconic storytelling style to ease the audience in, followed by Gamilaroi comic Ben Moodie. His material skewed darker with quick jabs that met their mark. Ngarrindjeri actor/producer/comedian Kimmie Lovegrove’s personal material offered a tempting preview of the material in her solo show, which will open later in Fringe.

Kamilaroi performer Cameron Ribbons, the MC for the evening and the closing act, stole the show on this night by hitting a sweet spot of storytelling and punchy jokes. His re-enactment of crocodile spotting was the perfect crescendo.
★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

DANCE
Weichen Cui | In Green, In White
Dancehouse, until October 3

The Chinese folk legend of Lady White Snake is forever shedding one skin for another. The most recent retellings shift the focus from White Snake’s mortal lover to her demonic servant, Green Snake, recasting the bond between mistress and maid in terms of enduring female friendship and homoerotic desire.

Choreographer Weichen Cui explores this queer transformation in a new duet with Jiawen Feng. At first, the performers are silhouetted behind separate screens, isolated, wearing costumes informed by tradition. As if reflecting the evolution of the story, the two figures are gradually brought together – culminating in a final serpentine tangle of limbs.

There are interesting moments, such as the use of waacking to playfully disrupt a fan dance. But overall, the episodic structure feels slow and over-formal, arresting the flows of desire it seeks to release. It might also be a little long – compressed to half an hour, this duet could bring its strongest moments into more volatile contact.
★★★
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

DANCE
Joyce Liu | INTERLINK_SYSTEM
Dancehouse, until October 3

Joyce Liu stands before us in the gloom, a tangle of red wires trailing from one arm, fingers twitching. Finally, we get it: she is actually controlling the soundscape, summoning jackhammer bursts and ominous bass drones from a body that barely seems to move. As the noise intensifies, four creatures wake inside a plastic greenhouse behind her. They claw at its walls, tearing them open. Free at last, the juddering young humanoids – all in their underwear – begin feverishly coupling in a sort of grotesque orgy-of-Doctor-Moreau.

Liu – also director and choreographer – builds a convincingly creepy laboratory atmosphere, with smoke and wildly sweeping lights lending urgency to the action. There’s also some irony, even comedy, in the monstrous debauch – though it does go on and on.

I do think, however, we could have stayed with that opening image of the human wired for sound a little longer, perhaps giving the idea of an interlinked system more room to unfold – before rushing into the bioengineered bacchanal.
★★★
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

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