Ched & Charles review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Studio Nexus

They’re the Bert and Ernie of the circus world. Meet Ched and Charles, thick as thieves and the very best of friends. Created by NICA graduates Gabriel Walker and Luca Trimboli, Ched & Charles is a family-friendly circus show about friendship and finding the whimsy in the mundane.

The show opens with an acrobatic act that the pair make seemingly light work of as they flip and lift each other into the air, poking fun at their height difference and using it to their advantage. Once introductions are out of the way, we move to a café, where Ched orders a delicious sandwich. What should be a standard transaction becomes a literal balancing act, with Charles preparing the order while balancing on a ladder. It’s a playful twist on an otherwise everyday task.

Toto's Song review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | La Mama Theatre

When Phillip learns his mother has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and has five months left to live, he decides to move back home. Phillip wants to use this time to say goodbye and spend time with his mother, but all Toto wants to do is whatever the hell she wants. Written by Emma Fawcett, Toto's Song is an unconventional yet touching tribute to caring for the ones we love and doing the best we can with the time we have left.

The four actors, Felicity Steele, Alex Duncan, Michelle Myers and Indra Liyanaarachchi, share a wonderful dynamic. Steele, in particular, has the challenging task of holding the work together, and she succeeds admirably. She captures Toto’s strength and vivacity while also revealing pockets of vulnerability. The changes in her physicality and speech as Toto slowly reaches the end of her life are beautifully depicted.

Please Help Me! review | Aimee Marich | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Underground Upstairs

In Please Help Me!, Aimee Marich draws on her own history of mental health, suicidal thoughts and attempts, and psychiatric care to explore what happens when life becomes too difficult to manage. The show examines the hurdles to seeking help and the uncertainty surrounding how to best be there for someone experiencing serious mental health issues.

At the centre of the show is Marich’s week-long stay in a psychiatric ward and the events that led to it. She interweaves her hospitalisation with stories about her relationships, including telling her best friend about her suicide attempt, and the challenges of returning to everyday life when inpatient treatment has not resolved her distress. Her account also addresses the lack of clarity around how to support someone with mental health issues.

Marich raises important issues, particularly the stigma and shame associated with mental illness and the obstacles to finding appropriate care. However, she moves between different parts of her story, limiting the opportunity to understand what Marich went through in the ward and how she has navigated life since. Given the deeply personal nature of the material, spending longer exploring these aspects of her journey could help the audience better appreciate their impact.

NOSEBLEEDS review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Improv Conspiracy

I have previously seen Holly Bohmer and Taylor Griffiths perform in their solo shows at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in 2025. While different in tone and range, both created distinctive worlds populated by a diverse group of characters and delivered some highly memorable performances. So I was quite excited to see them - along with Mario Hannah - present a night of horror sketch comedy. I love to scream, and I love to laugh.

The trio have certainly done their homework. Drawing on horror tropes and conventions, Nosebleeds' collection of sketches pay homage to the genre while finding many opportunities for comic absurdity. Ghosts, werewolves and murders all get a look-in, with references to horror films of the past woven throughout.

Opening with a séance involving a posh husband and wife and a spirit guide, they establish the show's approach early. The couple want to contact the ghost apparently haunting their house, but the guide gives them one simple rule: under no circumstances are they to break the circle. And of course, they do, but the humour lies as much in the anticipation as in the payoff.

Fairy Smut review | Rama Nicholas | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Underground Upstairs

In Fairy Smut, Rama Nicholas takes audiences into the world of romantasy - a literary subgenre of romance and fantasy - where witches, dragons, kings and other fantastical characters populate a tale filled with sexual escapades and comic absurdity. Guided by Thistle, a fairy with a decidedly filthy outlook, Nicholas brings the genre's adventures to life in a solo performance.

The story itself is intricate and detailed, with Nicholas taking on 15 characters, including the aforementioned witches, dragons, and kings. Each is given a distinct personality, brought to life through carefully judged changes in voice, facial expression and body language. The level of detail she brings to these transformations is impressive, demonstrating both her versatility as a performer and her ability to create an entire cast of characters on her own.

A few forgotten lines draw us out of the world of the show, although Nicholas attributes these lapses to her perimenopausal symptoms. Similarly, while not explicitly stated, her decision to remove her costume (while still wearing her regular clothes, this is a smutty show but not that smutty!), and being seated for much of the performance may also be related to her condition. But all of this eventually takes its toll on the show, which, despite remaining entertaining, is unable to recover and falls short of what could have been a much stronger production.