This festival has it all

EXPERIMENTAL
COOKED – Ari Angkasa’s Suspicious Fish ★★★★
Fed Square – Amphitheatre, until October 17

Tucked away in the labyrinth of Fed Square is a performance space that’s foregrounding the melding of food and art. Kicking off the COOKED: Hot Nights series is Ari Angkasa’s Suspicious Fish.

A makeshift curtain of tea towels parts to reveal filmmaker and performer Ari, our resplendent, charismatic host. A movie is being filmed right before our eyes, occurring behind a screen where two characters (Margot Morales and Blu Jay) are on a date. Ari is the waiter, chef Narit Kimsat is plating up snacks (including to audience members) and DJ Ruby is setting the scene.

The film unfolds like a fever dream, becoming increasingly unhinged as the focus turns inward to Ari.

It isn’t always clear where the show is going, and at times the execution doesn’t match the sophistication of the ideas being teased out, but the conceptual humour is exceedingly clever, the delivery simultaneously provocative and slapstick.

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Nothing is beyond pillorying in Suspicious Fish – heterosexual love, Asian fusion restaurants, the racial discourse that has smelly lunches as the pinnacle of oppression.

Particularly mesmerising is the performers’ meticulous use of the space. By sashaying in front of the projector at key intervals, we see them both as shadows and corporeal beings.

The film unfolds on two levels, as the show revels in the multidimensionality of people who straddle myriad identities and refuse to be pigeonholed.
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

THEATRE
Twenty Million Thousand Leagues Under the Sea ★★★★
Pummel Squad, Trades Hall, until October 6

The shaggy dog tale of a hapless used car salesman whisked off on a world-spanning adventure is secondary to the playful and inventive stagecraft illuminating this minor gem. Two performers and an onstage tech/musician carry us beneath the waves and towards the stars with little more than a few felt-tip pens and an overhead projector.

Science fiction devotees praying for a Jules Verne-aissance be warned: the aggressively low-tech outing rarely strays into the same waters as its (sort-of) namesake. It’s more deeply influenced by the moment of whimsy that tore through the early 00s. Think Daniel Kitson, Josie Long, 1927 and Adam Elliott.

Live animation, banjolele and painted-on costumes (black and white, of course) are all present, but it’s all firmly Post-Twee. There’s a lot to laugh at and no caveat informing you that this was all important, actually. Perhaps it’s not so far from Verne, then: emotionally flat but intellectually curious, inventive, and plumbing great fathoms of silliness.
Reviewed by John Bailey

DANCE
Fertile Ground ★★★★
Ashleigh Musk and Michael Smith, St Ambrose’s Community Centre, until October 5

The area of Brunswick around the south end of Sydney Road is notorious for its lack of open spaces, so it is apt that the courtyard of a small church near Dawson Street should host this elusive, atmospheric meditation on the harshness of the urban landscape.

The world here is made of bluestone, red brick, slate and concrete. Two dozen breeze blocks litter the space. Dancers Ashleigh Musk and Jenni Large clamber from block to block in a slow but weirdly gripping progress.

The organic struggles across the inorganic. When the dancers meet on a single block, they push together, needing each another but also needing the space. It’s a duet on a tiny square that is also an unpretentious symbol for the world situation.

There are lighter notes, too – fragments of humour, ironic gestures – but the sense of something deliciously alien, like something out of a J.G. Ballard short story, is expertly sustained throughout.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

COMEDY
Please Don’t Come ★★★★
Henry Yan, Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Evatt Room, until October 6

Henry Yan desperately wants to fail and he wants everyone to know. Luckily he’s good at failing, because even some of his “worst” jokes are better than many emerging comics.

For a show titled Please Don’t Come, one might immediately be sceptical; self-deprecation after all is now a tired cliche within stand-up circles.

But within an hour Yan easily pivots from audience participation and back to his routine, part of which includes referring to some apparent notes on two Spirax A4 notepads.

While there may be moments of uncertainty and rawness, he is quickwitted and light on his feet even as he makes dick jokes, all the while never punching down.

Perhaps what’s most delightful about Please Don’t Come is how it can be perceived as either – to use meme parlance, apt for a comic like Yan – “cringe” or “based”. This is failure done well, groan-worthiness included.
Reviewed by Cher Tan

THEATRE
Black Comedy in 1988 ★★★★
Pending Production, St Martins – Irene Mitchell Studio, until October 6

It’s 1988 somewhere in China and Chen Xiaoye (Yuan Lu) has more than a few skeletons in the closet. An aspiring painter drunk on the nascent capitalism post-Cultural Revolution, he and his girlfriend Manman (Wenjing Guo) have dishonestly borrowed some expensive furniture from his neighbour Kelvin’s (Hengzhi Fang) flat to impress an art collector, the distinguished and enigmatic Professor Tian (Angel Xiao).

When the power fails, Kelvin returns early, and there are also sudden visitations from Manman’s father (Philip Zhang), another neighbour (also played by Angel Xiao) and Xiaoye’s ex-girlfriend (Sirui Wang). In one fell swoop, chaos ensues.

This is Black Comedy in 1988, Pending Production’s debut play. Based on Peter Shaffer’s 1965 one-act farce Black Comedy, light and dark are transposed – when the stage is lit, the characters are in darkness and vice versa.

Re-adapted into Mandarin (with English surtitles), this version reframes the original with distinct Chinese elements, injected with a particular Chinese sensibility.

The scriptwriting and cast merit a special mention: dialogue is rapid-fire and characters sustain the drama – equal parts bathos and pathos – for the entirety of the two-hour runtime, working the no-frills set to their advantage. This is a production house to watch.
Reviewed by Cher Tan

CABARET
Flies on What-If Island ★★★★
Ilana Charnelle, Trades Hall – Music Room, until October 6

Ilana Charnelle has emerged from the wreckage of her break-up and fresh autism diagnosis, and turned her pain into a one-woman show.

Stepping into the spotlight wearing a red dress and lipstick to match, Charnelle captivates the audience through song and monologue, meeting our gaze with her piercing eyes. She declares that Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! is her special interest, at one point putting on a T-shirt emblazoned with the film’s title.

Two blown-up palm trees lean into the metaphor of the island as an oasis of aspirational perfection demanded by society. This felt superfluous, as her lyrics and anecdotes provided ample imagery to convey her anguish and astute self-reflections.

Charnelle’s eyes well with genuine hurt. When she hits the high notes, she taps into her visceral pain, giving goosebumps.

A show about embracing your true self, irrespective of the expectations of others.
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

THEATRE ★★★★
The Librar(ian)
Lochie Laffin-Vines, Bard’s Apothecary, until October 5

“My parents say I was born to be a librarian,” says Ian, the titular character of The Librar(ian). Lochie Laffin-Vines may have been born to write this show, too – through an hour, he charmingly takes us through the highs and lows of everyday life working in a public library.

From endlessly helping people print to unlikely friendships with the elderly, office milk wars to the baking-obsessed colleague who’s worked there for 45 years, Ian has seen it all. Laffin-Vines is confident, with a comfortable delivery that has only slight opening night bumps.

Ian’s dream is to be on Play School, so of course there’s a story time element – it’s a delight for the inner child to sing and clap along as bubbles float overhead. With equal parts humour and empathy, this uplifting and heartwarming one-man performance highlights the importance of the public library as an essential hub for community and connection.
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

THEATRE
Beowulf: Reforged ★★★★
Waterside Metal Art Studio, Footscray, until October 12

Beowulf at one of Melbourne’s few blacksmith forges? It’s the perfect atmosphere for a tale of bloodthirsty monsters and warriors braving the seas, of horned helmets and mead halls, treasures and dragons … all the earliest shadows of that medieval imaginary we associate with high fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien himself was a Beowulf scholar) chanted back to light amid anvils and tongs and searing flame.

Actor, playwright and academic Dr Felix Nobis recites his translation of the epic Anglo-Saxon poem, swimming from Old English into modern tongue through gleaming currents rich in cadence, alliterative power, and the turbulent glories of the original.

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Contemporary betrayals of Beowulf aren’t hard to find – witness the creepily sexualised Hollywood film from 2007, co-written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary and starring Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mother.

So, it’s impressive that Nobis stays true to the source, honouring the wild majesty and brutality of a culture in many ways alien to us, with emphatic moments transcending difference to speak across time. For this is a song, too, of the revenge of nature and the lure of violent tribalism, of human extinction, the proximity and inevitability of death.

Accompanied by harpist Lee Su Min, Nobis glides from tranquillity to tumult and back again. The performer’s physical expression might be limited in range, but vocally, there’s an almost exultant quality to the storytelling that bewitches the ear.

You won’t find Beowulf’s magic sword or King Hrothgar’s mead hall too hard to summon to mind – not with Nobis in full flight, and not when you’re sitting within spitting distance of three operating forges, plus a bar stocked with mulled wine and several kinds of mead.

Weekend LARPers, fantasy fans and the casually curious should seek this one out; more serious students of medieval history and literature can attend Nobis’ additional lecture on the dramatic story of how the lone manuscript of Beowulf survived the centuries.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

COMEDY
Dating Roulette ★★★★
Olga Loitsenko, Theory Bar, until October 11

Visa issues were close to foiling Estonian comedian Olga Loitsenko’s appearance at this year’s Fringe Festival, as she reveals at the start of her improv dating game show. A quick sojourn to Vietnam resolved the matter and she returned – still single and ready to mingle.

Typically, two or even three special guests join her on stage. On this night, improv artist Sean Hasselback took up the challenge (illness wiped out two other invitees), bringing wit and awkwardness in equal measure while Loitsenko worked the crowd with her adorkable banter.

The 55-minute show flies as Loitsenko divulges zany thoughts, pithy observations and heart-felt desires. With an inordinate amount of audience participation encouraged, the front row enthusiastically got involved – including role-playing dating scenarios.

Flirting, safe words, relationship saboteurs, hot-girl problems and rejection are all canvassed. A QR code to send dating advice is inspired.
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

COMEDY
Fountain Lakes In Lockdown: A Drag Parody Play ★★★★
Alex Theatre St Kilda, Vass Theatre until October 20

Fountain Lakes in Lockdown is a 75-minute drag homage to arguably one of Australia’s best television comedies of all time – Kath and Kim.

Art Simone, Thomas Jaspers, (also show creator and director) Leasa Mann and Scott Brennan excel in capturing the eccentricities and absurdities of the beloved characters as they navigate a Melbourne COVID lockdown.

Searingly condescending snobs Prue and Trude make an appearance on a large video screen, while a g’day from Kim’s in-law, Lorraine Craig, is expressly hysterical.

The main criticism of this show is the intermission, which takes place after a mere half hour. But fresh one-liners enhance the night’s fun while six audience members on this night needed little encouragement to jump on stage for an Irish jig.

At the theatre foyer merch stand, among the kitsch trinkets and retro-vibe collectables, I’m told a brightly coloured, koala-motif knitted jumper is selling like hotcakes.
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

COMEDY
Gina Rhinestone: Pig Iron Queen of Asstraya ★★★★
Kimberley Twiner, Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Meeting Room, until October 6

Riding a giant bedazzled toy excavator while wearing a diamanté-adorned hard-hat emblazoned with a sizeable dollar sign, Kimberley Twiner arrives in a shimmery onesie to deliver her 14th Fringe show. She’s playing a billionaire named Gina Rhinestone. The show is political and social satire laced with a nimble, in-your-face physicality and cheekiness.

A skit where Baby Gina utters her first words is hysterical – and there’s a superb depiction of the aggressive disgruntlement that ensues after a portrait, perceived by the subject as unflattering, is exhibited at the National Gallery of Australia.

Poetry extracts, tantrums and entitled wailing transfix. Lithe limbs, a hyper-expressive face and vocal gymnastics are all used to maximum effect in a sequence of breakneck skits. A unique take on toilet humour drags. With decades of material to mine, and with ambition to be “a satirical love letter to one of Australia’s little battlers” it could dig a little deeper.
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

CABARET
Hufflepoof ★★★
Dirk Strachan-Thornton, Speakeasy Theatre, until October 20

A Harry Potter show? In 2024? Don’t worry, Dirk Strachan-Thornton knows, and makes his discomfort around the author’s controversial views clear from the outset. Feelings for the creator aside, his affection for the beloved series is clear in this one-man show.

Strachan-Thornton is Oliver Scamander, a gay Hogwarts student who’s in love with the ill-fated Cedric Diggory. The show is dotted with references to both the books and films, as well as parodies of songs from musicals such as Wicked and The Mikado, buoyed by Strachan-Thornton’s impressive singing voice.

The staging makes use of the entire room, and clever pyrotechnics bring a spark of difference (though on the night I attended one pivotal moment was thwarted by technical difficulties). Narratively, Hufflepoof is disjointed, with more plot holes than you could shake an Ollivander’s wand at, but it’s a lot of chaotic, profane and horny fun, with a dose of nostalgia to boot.
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

COMEDY
The Migration Office ★★★
Festival Hub: Trades Hall – Corner Store, until October 6

Three comics walk on the stage. Each one – Vietnamese, Chilean and Italian – does a five-minute set, mostly about their families. You know what that can be like: accent mimicry, trauma as comedy, food commentary and their relatives’ idiosyncrasies.

It’s a little surprising: you’d think that these types of routines would be pretty trite in Melbourne in 2024, more so for a bunch of comics under 30. Is taking the piss out of your ethnic family really that funny?

The mystery is unresolved – The Migration Office ends with a 45-minute improv section where other comics (including the host and one of the creators,) get on and try a few bits.

The improv is lukewarm, most too inexperienced to bring out anything that would be considered rip-roaringly hilarious.

If you’re feeling lonely and want to see a group of multicultural friends have a bit of fun on stage, this is for you. It’s nothing new otherwise.
Reviewed by Cher Tan

DANCE
Tomato ★★★
Dancehouse, until October 5

Tomato is a determinedly saucy show featuring three young people running around the stage in their underwear, hurling tomatoes and writhing in the smashed remains. It is, in other words, a classic Fringe Festival experience.

Created by choreographer Chou Kuan-Jou, this is a messy but straightforward exercise in analogy. Whether you’re choosing a tomato, peeling a tomato, crushing a tomato or eating a tomato, it all comes back to sex or sexy play.

There’s a large tank of the blushing fruits on one side, but they also appear where you expect them to, under the clothes, between the folds. Bodies quiver and moan. The games begin, the goods are sampled, the juices flow.

At first, each performer is more-or-less doing their own thing. Live video is streamed to a large screen that gives us close-ups of the action. And, of course, it all builds to the inevitable passata apocalypse. Yep – this is the genuine Fringe.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

DANCE
Weave: The Solos | Program One ★★★
Weave Movement Theatre, Dancehouse, until October 5

Weave Movement Theatre, a company of artists with and without disabilities, explores the complexities of the solo form – the tension between the individual and the collective – across two unique programs of performances.

Each evening features three 20-minute solos by company members. These solos are expressions of creative autonomy but also of a collaborative ethos, with contributions from a slew of noted performance makers and choreographers.

Program one mixes dance, multimedia and other theatrical elements. Anthony Riddle combines visual art and quirky poetry with projections and live drawing, while David Baker presents snapshots of daily life.

There’s also the chance to see a new piece by Janice Florence, the company artistic director and a hugely experienced dance practitioner. Her memories of growing up and dancing in Carlton – not far from Dancehouse – provide an uplifting finale.

Florence’s vivid recollections affirm that dancing, even when you’re on your own, always happens in a network of relationships to people, places, histories and cultural contexts.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann

CABARET
GRRRL Power ★★★
Chelsea Wilson, Fem Belling, Françoise d’Argent and Parvyn Singh, Trades Hall – ETU Ballroom, until October 6

It’s raining women in this high-energy show celebrating musical pioneers of the past.

Written and directed by producer and DJ Chelsea Wilson and musical theatre pro Fem Belling, GRRRL Power celebrates influential girl groups from the 1940s to 1990s.

Also featuring singers Parvyn Singh and Françoise d’Argent, the format mimics a classic American music variety show, such as the Corny Collins Show from the musical Hairspray. It even includes an instrumental segue that introduces each era.

Playing narrated archival footage to contextualise each decade, the performers sing, dance, play instruments and relay stories about artists from Labelle and the Spice Girls, to international acts Pink Lady from Japan and The DeCastro Sisters from Cuba.

The period costumes, choreography, script and medleys showcase Fleming and Wilson’s strengths in music and theatre. The ensemble members are still finding their chemistry, occasionally fumbling lines, cues, choreography and lyrics.

However, the overall premise of the show is strong and performances of well-known songs gets the crowd singing and cheering “ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!”.
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

THEATRE
A Brief Episode ★★★
Ash Flanders, Trades Hall – Solidarity Hall, until October 20

In this solo show, veteran writer/performer Ash Flanders takes us on a journey through Greece, Albania and his fraught first attempt at writing an autobiographical TV pilot.

He and his partner have rented an Airbnb in the wrong part of Athens, where, between dodging muggings by the local teens and drinking cocktails with American tourists, he finesses the script.

The TV writing crew, sending notes over video call, wants it to be “brave comedy” with “more of the mother”, which sees him rewrite her into a caricature, ripped from the nuance of his original vision.

There are fine comedic moments and one-liners, and Flanders, as always, is a consummate and captivating storyteller and a joy to watch.

But as he goes about killing his darlings to squish the screenplay into the pilot’s reduced half hour, one is left thinking he could have made a few nips and cuts to this script too.

I also want “more of the mother”: she’s central to the premise of the show, yet we don’t get a clear picture of who she is, other than the caricature he insists she’s not.
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

THEATRE
Recess ★★★
Nina Mountford, Brigid Quonoey and Taylor Reece, Festival Hub: Trades Hall – The Square, until October 6

Recess is a warmhearted throwback to simpler times: when hoarding gum nuts and trading apples for mandarins was a matter of life and death.

Nina Mountford, Brigid Quonoey and Taylor Reece are nine-year-olds trying to make the most of recess before the bell rings. For 45 minutes the trio pinball through various scenarios steeped in millennial nostalgia: immortal Tamagotchis, broadbrim hats, fictional houses discussed over Mamee noodles.

It’s all a bit scattershot, but that’s part of the charm. The show works best when it abandons narrative logic completely and leans into scenarios of pure play anchored by the relationship between the three girls.

A last-ditch attempt to land an emotional climax with an overwritten monologue felt disingenuous. But there’s a subtle edge to the script when it chooses to cut through its earnestness with wry sarcasm, complemented by a talented cast that favours a hilarious deadpan.

The best playgrounds are always a little chaotic.
Reviewed by Guy Webster

DANCE
Dream Swamp ★★★
Melanie Lane, The Substation, until October 5

There’s nothing dank or dreary about this swamp. Melanie Lane’s buoyant family-friendly dance adventure carries audiences from the forest to the ocean to the planets and stars beyond.

Performers Harrison Ritchie-Jones and Rachel Coulson are transported from an attic bedroom into a series of dream scenes, illustrated by animated backgrounds and magically altered bedclothes.

Both dancers have great fun along the way, galumphing like soft toys sprung to life or showing marvellous lightness as enchanted mushrooms making mischief in the underground dark.

Kids are invited on a brief tour of a glowing garden hidden backstage. You might feel like one of Hamelin’s parents watching them disappear into the wings, one by one – but they return in a moment.

And this is such a gentle production, involving rather than immersive, imaginative and generous. It’s advertised as suitable for ages six and over, but there’s plenty here for those as young as four to enjoy.
Reviewed by Andrew Fuhrmann
This review was written from a preview performance.

THEATRE
I hope this means something ★★
Patrick Livesey, Chapel Off Chapel, until October 13

Climate catastrophe has wholly supplanted the spectre of Cold War nuclear annihilation in the secular eschatology of the globalised world. It remains dominant (for now) over anxieties about technological threats such as AI. I hope this means something joins a sea of homegrown theatre struggling to dramatise its rising psychological impact.

This solo piece draws anxiety and powerlessness over the end times into personal cataclysm, following a queer digital content producer who finds work popularising climate science online.

A mental unravelling provoked by social isolation, despair at human inaction on climate change, and their own traumatic backstory, leads them down a dark internet rabbit-hole.

Self-immolation as protest becomes an obsession, from the image of Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức setting himself alight at a Saigon intersection in 1963, to the lifelong climate activist Wynn Bruce, who died in a similar protest outside the Supreme Court of the US in 2022.

Patrick Livesey is a talented performer, yet dramatic shapelessness undermines emotional impact here. Repetitive bouts of mental anguish keep spooling into essayistic monologue. Other characters intruding on the narrator’s downward spiral show us the disjunction between self-perception and how the character comes across to others, but there aren’t enough of them to balance a punishing lack of self-awareness.

Taboos surrounding how we talk about suicide were lent great authenticity in Livesey’s NAOMI, powerful verbatim theatre created from interviews about their mother’s own death.

Tackling both that theme – and how privileged people should live with the knowledge we have about climate change – is a double whammy this show cannot sustain. It feels at once over-realised and under-explored as drama, and Livesey could look to expand it into a short story, or to distil its miseries into the sharpest incarnation of personal crisis, while elaborating on its final, tentative shift in perspective.
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

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THEATRE
The Dilly Dally of Death & Dying ★★
Fairly Lucid Productions, Festival Hub: Trades Hall – The Square, until October 6

It’s hard to know when in Ben Noble’s newest show we went from having an earnest conversation about dying to watching an anxious brontosaurus help a father and daughter talk about their childhood cat.

But that’s the kind of show Noble has cooked up here: an unfocused hodgepodge of various theatrical gimmicks loosely connected by a general appeal to talk about our mortality. It’s a confusing misfire from the promising playwright, and more an existential dinner theatre or children’s edu- than mortal deep dive.

Musical interludes – from Queen to Natasha Bedingfield – pepper a semi-autobiographical story about Noble’s attempt to connect to their terminally ill friend while trying to get a diagnosis for their condition.

Impressive costumes and a multi-talented ensemble cast struggle to elevate illogical episodes that feel like improv-style prompts: a dating show to choose how you’ll die, a fear of death resolved by three kind spiders. These conceits might have been evocatively absurd if they didn’t so often sacrifice nuance for teachable moments dripping in soapie-style sentiment.

When Noble tries to conclude things with an affecting call to keep things in perspective, it feels all a little too late.
Reviewed by Guy Webster

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