Elliot Wood is serving up another helping of Mrs Lovett's tasty pies at Melbourne Fringe

After surviving ovens, celebrity sous chefs, questionable culinary practices and, somehow, the Stephen Sondheim estate, Mrs Lovett is back. Elliot Wood’s gloriously unhinged Mrs Lovett’s Famous Meat Pies Grand Reopening Extravaganza returns for Melbourne Fringe, bringing its live pie-making antics, relentless wordplay and larger-than-life energy to the stage. With a fresh batch of madness on the menu, Wood is once again stepping into the role of everyone’s favourite ethically dubious pie-maker, ready to serve up another helping of mayhem. We caught up with Wood to talk about reviving Mrs Lovett, what audiences can expect this time around, and why there is no such thing as too much disorder when it comes to baking a pie.

Returning to the role gives Wood the chance to approach the production with more confidence. "I was so thrilled with the reception to the Comedy Festival season of Mrs Lovett, and I am elated to play her again. This is the first solo work I've written and from the outset I felt totally out of my depth; the show was written partly to prove to myself that I'm capable of writing a solo work, and a lot of the early part of the run was like fully dissociated above my body watching myself jump around for an hour," they tell me. "I'm looking forward to a season where it's not the first time ever doing a solo work, with more confidence to ease some of the nerves and ride the wave."

A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse throws Bren Carruthers into mayhem at Melbourne Fringe

Zombies have never been especially interested in following the rules, and neither has improvisation. Put the two together and you have a theatrical experiment where anything can happen, including who survives the night. A Completely Improvised Zombie Apocalypse takes the familiar conventions of the zombie genre and hands them over to a rotating cast of improvisers, with the audience helping determine where the story goes.

With humans being indispensable to any zombie production, it is only natural that this one has a large cast of victims. We managed to get hold of one of them, Bren Carruthers, while they are still human, and picked their brain on our obsession with zombies and what happens when you throw a group of improvisers into the apocalypse.

Given the challenge of surviving, let alone depicting, a zombie apocalypse, I was curious how Bren rates their own survival skills. "I’m only one member of a cast of nearly a dozen, but I don’t think any of us would be likely to survive!" they laugh. "But I think good zombie narratives aren’t about surviving, they’re about the attempt to survive, and what arises in the meantime. They’re a unique vessel for exploring parts of the human experience, society, and what happens when the normal rules no longer matter."

Mass Hysteria brings church ritual into cabaret at Melbourne Fringe

Jens Radda’s connection to church is more than a starting point for cabaret show Mass Hysteria. Having grown up attending a Seventh-day Adventist church, he knows the practices of worship first-hand, giving the show a personal perspective on what happens when those familiar forms are taken out of their traditional setting and placed inside a cabaret. We spoke with Radda about his religious upbringing, the appeal of ceremony and why a night at the theatre might not be so different from a Sunday service.

Radda’s time in the church brings both irony and affection to the religious rituals at the heart of Mass Hysteria and the way they are reimagined. "There’s definitely irony in it, but there’s also a lot of intrigue and affection," he tells me. "I grew up around this incredible theatre of ritual: hundreds of people singing together, ceremony, pageantry, symbolism…it’s pretty camp! Now I’m basically taking those ingredients and asking 'what happens if we put this in a NutriBullet and blend it with drag, cabaret and performance art?' It feels strangely full-circle."

Beneath the Surface review | Edge of the Heart Productions | The Motley Bahaus

In Beneath the Surface, four short Australian plays uncover the tensions, relationships and stories that sit beneath ordinary life. Presented by Edge of the Heart Productions, the plays vary in style, direction and genre, offering distinct perspectives on contemporary life.

Adèle Shelley’s Coffee in the Time of Coronavirus brings two neighbours together during Melbourne’s lockdown, with their relationship developing through conversations from their adjoining balconies. Shelley grounds the piece in recognisable reality, but gives it an unpredictable quality that leaves you wondering where an otherwise mundane conversation might lead. Carissa McPherson and Paul Canlan deliver lovely performances as the unlikely neighbours forced to become friends, discovering that their assumptions about each other conceal far more complicated personalities.

Holy Fool review | Fabio Motta | Theatre Works

Eight hundred years after he gave up wealth, embraced poverty and began preaching a radical message of compassion, Saint Francis of Assisi remains an oddly relevant figure. A young man who abandoned the life expected of him, Francis chose instead to live simply, care for the marginalised and find the sacred in the everyday, including famously chatting to birds.

Fabio Motta’s Holy Fool takes that unlikely saint and turns his story into a clown show that is as interested in questioning Francis as celebrating him. Developed between Melbourne and Padua, Italy, the solo work places a naïve knight-turned-hermit in a world where devotion, absurdity and the very idea of holiness happily collide.