The Importance of Being Earnest as Performed by Three F*cking Queens and a Duck review | Melbourne Fringe | Theatre Works

The Importance of Being Earnest as Performed by Three F*cking Queens and a Duck is a play within a play, following three fabulously bitchy thespians as they attempt to mount Oscar Wilde’s classic The Importance of Being Earnest. But what happens when you put a trio of queens with equally towering egos and insecurities together? Absolute bedlam.

Written by Steven Dawson, with only splashes of Oscar Wilde woven through, this isn’t a camp(er) retelling of Earnest - no, no, no, no. It’s very much its own beast.

There are arguments over who gets to wear Lady Bracknell’s dress, and debates about how to reinterpret the scenes. If you want to see Earnest acted in the style of kabuki and Chekhov, you're in the right place. The rehearsal process is as hilarious as it is anarchic. The challenge they face in condensing a two-hour production into 90, then 45 minutes ratchets up the tension, pushing these queens into greater ridiculous antics.

Adam Snakes: No Experience Necessary review | Melbourne Fringe | The Motley Bauhaus

Timothy Knight steps into the role of Adam Snakes, an affable barista serving flat whites at a cafe inside a petrol station while dreaming of life as a comedian. His solution? Stage a stand-up show right there at work. Adam Snakes: No Experience Necessary is a gentle set about doing what you love, and realising happiness doesn’t always come from chasing traditional ideas of greatness.

Knight - or Adam? - has an easy warmth and sharp eye for observation. He’s the kind of person you could chat with until 3am about anything from kebabs to Kant, and he’d be genuinely interested. His commentary on negative space and its permanence proves that the raw material is there, but it needs a little tightening, and a clearer sense of narrative, to really shine. 

Too much of the routine doesn’t flow from one anecdote to the next. A story about having crab soup in Vietnam ends awkwardly but also doesn't line up with what follows. Adam might be green to comedy, but Knight isn’t, and finding a thread between crab soup, awkward coffee orders, and his larger aspirations would give the work a firmer backbone. There are a few continuity errors with Adam's life, where at one point he tells us he still lives with his parents but then later states he lives with his girlfriend.