Like Young review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

 

Your twenties are supposed to be some of the most defining years of your life. You go to university, get jobs, move out, make new friends and start figuring out what you want from life. In Like Young, writer and director Adeodatus McCormack brings four young people together over 24 hours as they deal with circumstances that could potentially change the course of their lives. The problem is that very little of it proves particularly engaging or ground-breaking.

The biggest issue stems from the writing, in that much of the drama occurs off stage and separately from the other characters. Oliver’s (Michael Crisafulli) uncle has died, leaving him $500,000 in the will while the rest of his family receives nothing. This feels like an uncommon problem to have and a strange one to put a 20 year old to experience, when it could just focus on processing the grief of losing his uncle.

Bella (Sabrina Rault) is caught up in complications over her ex-boyfriend, Luke (who never appears on stage), while Paris (Max Nunes-Cesaar) is also coming to terms with the death of a relative. These are significant events for the characters, but so much happens away from the group, that their problems barely become personal between them. We learn about what they are dealing with, but we don't get to see those experiences meaningfully affect their relationships with each other. For a play about people navigating their changing lives, they spend surprisingly little time actually connecting.

Tight Five review | Blake Everett | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Bauhaus

Being late to your own stand-up show is a comedian's nightmare, but for Blake Everett it is the premise of an entire show. Tight Five follows Blake as he bounds across Melbourne to The Motley Bauhaus, encountering a succession of strange characters and increasingly ridiculous obstacles along the way, all for the chance to deliver five minutes of stand-up. What starts as a simple race against the clock quickly becomes a playful mix of stand-up, theatre, and improvisation.

From the moment Blake wakes up, Tight Five is happy to break the fourth wall, with him acknowledging the audience as he works through his morning routine. It becomes even more meta when we realise the stand-up show he is late for is the very show we are watching. When he calls someone in the audience to discuss whether they can somehow pause the show so we don't know what is happening, the distinction between Blake's world and ours becomes deliberately blurred.

Rhomboid review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | fortyfivedownstairs

Some relationships seem destined to happen, yet somehow never quite do. Rhomboid follows Xavier and Sebastian from their teenage years into adulthood as they repeatedly drift towards each other, away from each other and occasionally back again. Eric Jiang's play explores attraction, friendship and all the complications that come with trying to work out what someone means to you when life keeps getting in the way.

Ken Paolo and Lawrence Hawkins as Xavier and Sebastian, share an easy, appealing chemistry, and it is unfortuante not to see the story delve further into their relationship. There is enough between the pair to suggest that, with more depth and development, that chemistry could have really caught fire. Chad Rosete plays the supporting roles of Felix and Lachie, doing a great job of becoming a different counterpart to each man at various points in their lives.

Dashiel Reads To You review | Dashiel Agar | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Smith & Gertrude Gallery

When was the last time someone read you a book? Not an audiobook, not a podcast, but someone actually sat beside you and read the words out loud? For most adults, probably a very long time ago, but there is something wonderfully indulgent about being read to, particularly when you are lying on a bed and someone else is doing all the work.

Dashiel Reads To You turns this simple idea into a 30-minute escape from the outside world. The small gallery at Smith & Gertrude has been transformed into a cosy reading space, complete with a bed, bookshelf and chair belonging to Dashiel’s grandmother. Visitors can choose a book from the bookshelf, which has a mix of fiction and non-fiction, including Wicked and a dictionary, or bring their own. I brought along Memorial by Bryan Washington, a book I started several months ago before forgetting about it and had it sitting on my bedside table since. I handed it to Dashiel, who read me the first two chapters.

SLUGS review | Creepy Boys | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Meat Market

Two giant slugs wriggle onto the stage in sleeping bags with holes cut out for their heads and arms. It is an entrance that immediately tells us SLUGS is not going to take the conventional route. The Creepy Boys (Sam Kruger and S.E. Grummett) have created a show that is determined to avoid having a point. They sing, dance, strip, play with puppets, present live projections, and drag the audience into their increasingly bizarre world, all while insisting that none of it is supposed to mean anything. The more they try to keep things light, however, the more meaning seems to creep in.

That tension is where SLUGS gets much of its comedy. The pair are constantly aware that almost anything can be interpreted as a statement, especially when it comes to their bodies. A seemingly harmless song acquires a political reading, while an unexpected reference to guns or gender sends the show careening in another direction. Their response is to not address the issue at all, but instead throw something else at us. This gives the production an exciting and unpredictable rhythm. Just when you think you have worked out where a scene is heading, it can veer into puppetry, animation, music or some outrageous physical gag.

Mass Hysteria review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Forget Sunday service. Mass Hysteria wants to show you what happens when you replace church pews with a cabaret stage, hymns with saucy songs and religious devotion with drag. This Holy Trinity, consisting of Iva Rosebud, Meg Hickey and Jens Radda, is ready to lead us into salvation and enlightenment through cabaret, burlesque and live performance.

From the moment the audience settles in, it is clear this is not going to be your traditional service. The trio embrace the theatricality of worship, moving between song, dance, burlesque and comedy while playing with the rituals and language associated with the church. There is a knowing irreverence to it all, but the production is not simply about making fun of faith. Instead, it takes these traditions and gives them a very queer, very cabaret interpretation.

The show is divided into several chapters, including Communion, Temptation and Baptism. Each comes with a passage from the Book of Hysterium, offering the audience a subtle tease of what is about to come. That unpredictability is part of the appeal of Mass Hysteria. You never quite know what is coming next.

Harold Holt: The Man, The Myth, The Pool review | James Ward | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Bard's Apothecary

I may be incorrect, but I do believe Australia is the only country in the world to have lost a Prime Minister. On 17 December 1967, Harold Holt went for a swim and never returned. Poof. Gone. Disappeared! In Harold Holt: The Man, The Myth, The Pool, James Ward tells us about this. But to simply tell us about it would be lazy. What Ward does instead is take a deep dive into the cultural and political times surrounding Holt’s drowning, and how Holt’s own choices, actions and lifestyle contributed to the circumstances of his death.

Ward presents as many visual cues as he can through an exceptionally well put-together presentation. Remembering this was a time when capturing live footage of someone wasn’t as easy as having a phone in your hand, Ward has managed to assemble newspaper articles, book extracts, graphs, charts and archival interviews with Holt's wife, all helping to explore the bigger picture of this period in history.

Die Clown Die review | Benny Boot | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

Die Clown Die promises to take us to nirvana. The problem is that Bootoh (Benny Boot), the clown leading the way, has no idea how to get there. Over 50 minutes, he cycles through meditation, Shakespeare, music, inspirational speeches, rituals and audience interaction, repeatedly dying and starting again in the hope that one of them will finally unlock enlightenment. It is an appealing concept for a clown show, one that sets out to find comedy in the gap between spirituality and human fallibility.

There are some good ideas here, and Boot is an engaging presence, particularly when he interacts with the audience and improvises around their responses. There is a genuine playfulness in the exchanges with the audience, and these moments make the clown feel most alive. But the pursuit of nirvana felt progressively disjointed, with the various attempts of transcendence rarely forming a clear progression. I found myself wanting to know how each new exercise was moving us closer to the promised state of being, but was left wondering where we were actually headed. The show has plenty of material to play with, but it needs a tighter structure to make those disparate pieces feel like part of the same journey.

Hotsy-Totsy is bringing a chaotic children’s party for adults to Melbourne Fringe

After years of entertaining children at birthday parties, Ava O’Brien and Peggie Barnes decided they deserved a different kind of audience. The New Zealand act have swapped balloon animals and face painting for a two-hander packed with clowning, puppetry, magic and whatever else they can throw at the stage. After premiering at the 2026 New Zealand Fringe Festival, Hotsy-Totsy now heads to Melbourne. We caught up with O’Brien and Barnes to talk about escaping the birthday-party circuit, turning their skills into a show for adults and why, sometimes, you just need to book yourself a better gig.

For O’Brien and Barnes, the appeal of creating a children's party for adults lay in the feelings of excitement and wonder of being completely swept up in the experience. "We felt the magic of a captivated audience and figured that adults love entertainment just as much as kids. When Elsa shows up at your 5th birthday and you're high on sugar, you are invincible," they tell me. "We wanted to capture that feeling in our own performances and bring adults into that silly magical world. It's got the thrill, energy and unbridled joy of a children’s party, but filled with much more adult humour. It's us playing ourselves, with our inner children onstage with us, and no one is putting the brakes on!"

Mystery of the Fish review | Frank Benson | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

Taking a stab on Frank Benson’s show Mystery of the Fish to officially begin our Melbourne Fringe Festival season. The only thing to go by is the brief and cryptic description: “A clown ponders the enigma that is his pet fish. Fish is good. Frank is good. Fish is mysterious. Frank will solve this mystery.” After all, Fringe is about taking risks, as a performer and as audiences.

Benson is a great clown, and he remains committed to the bit throughout. There are a number of fun, silly moments that showcase his willingness to embrace the absurd, even when the material itself doesn’t always land.

There are a few instances where the humour feels underdeveloped, such as when Frank decides to read us some poetry. It’s chucklesome, but not exactly funny. His “fuck” sketch also relies on fairly basic humour that doesn’t leave much room for creativity.

Callum Le Page turns Le Bug into an unlikely bedtime companion at Melbourne Fringe

Bed bugs are pretty disgusting tiny creatures. Hiding in your bed, coming out while you're sleeping and feasting on you without so much as a thank you note. Except Le Bug. In this physical comedy show, Callum Le Page's bed bug has rather more wholesome plans for your night, although he may still have a few surprises in store.

"Le Bug is a French bed bug who just wants to stay up past his bedtime with the audience, but we must be quiet so that the watchful mother does not stir and tell us off!" Le Page explains. "He's cheeky, charming and very hungry, so there's a chance that maybe, just possibly, they want to have a little nibble of the audience!"

Le Bug has been part of his creative repertoire for some time, gradually evolving from a sketch into something substantial enough to carry a full-length show. "The sketch that Le Bug was born in seemed to get longer and longer and more unhinged every night it was performed," Le Page recalls. "It was a character that never got old for me and I kept finding new stupid things to do with the him, and eventually reached a point where I just wanted to give him a whole hour, for better or worse!"

Kelly Lim Harris is ready to sing about your Yellow Fever at Melbourne Fringe

Being told you’d be great in Miss Saigon might come across as a compliment, but for Kelly Lim Harris, it has happened enough times to inspire a song. In Yellow Fever, the WAAPA-trained performer turns her own experiences of fetishisation, tokenisation and being reduced to her ethnicity into an original cabaret about the realities of being an East Asian performer. Ahead of Yellow Fever's Melbourne Fringe Festival premiere, Lim Harris spoke to us about the stories behind the show, the contradictions of representation and finding her own voice through cabaret.

Lord of the Flies review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Theatre Works

A group of boys crash-land on an island with no adults around, leaving them to establish their own rules, leadership and hierarchy. It doesn't take long for those structures to start falling apart. Steven Mitchell Wright's production of William Golding's Lord of the Flies follows the familiar story, from the struggle between Ralph and Jack to the growing fear of the beast and the group's descent into violence.

There are different expressions of masculinity at play here with Ralph and Jack become increasingly locked in a contest for authority, driven by competition, intimidation and the desire to command. Simon offers a more gentle alternative, while aggressive behaviour demonstrates how quickly strength and dominance become measures of status. Survival of the fittest is not simply practical, but something the boys perform for the group.

An impossible to-do list puts Rebekah Carton to the test in Everything, Now! at Melbourne Fringe

How much can one person possibly get done in an hour? In Everything, Now!, the answer is apparently: everything. Created and performed by award-winning theatre maker Rebekah Carton and directed by George Lazaris, the new work throws Carton into a relentless sixty-minute race against the clock, armed with an impossible list of tasks and increasingly little chance of getting through them all. As interruptions pile up and priorities constantly shift, the carefully constructed system begins to unravel, turning everyday busyness into something far more physical, chaotic and absurd. We managed to pin Carton and Lazaris down to ask how they came up with such an ambitious task list, and whether anyone can really do it all.
 
Tell us about Everything, Now! What exactly is going on?
George Lazaris: Everything!
Rebekah Carton: Right now! 
GL: I feel overwhelmed just thinking about it.
RC: It’s almost like I’m doing every task on my list-
GL: That’s ever been on your list.
RC: Everything that anybody’s ever asked of me and I’ll be like "I’ll do that later. I’ll do it in a little bit.:"
GL: Today’s the day.
RC: Right now. In front of an audience. At Fringe.

Fu@k! I Killed The Director plunges two actors into total chaos at Melbourne Fringe

What do you do when you kill your director on opening night? If you’re the two actors at the centre of FU@K! I KILLED THE DIRECTOR, apparently, you carry on with the production. Blending clowning, mime, dance and a does of chaos, the new work from Alright? Production Company throws two desperate performers into the aftermath of a very unfortunate accident, as they attempt to keep their adaptation of Romeo & Juliet alive while facing the small matter of their dead director. Created by Nina Hopley, Alana Louise and Jason Schwab and performed by Louise and Schwab, the 50-minute farce promises an anarchic, physical and distinctly unpredictable Fringe experience.

The piece takes a pretty spectacular theatrical disaster and turns it into a celebration of play, silliness and letting go. "Two actors, Cherry and John, are about to debut their rendition of Romeo & Juliet. But moments before the curtain goes up, they accidentally kill their director. Covered in blood and reeling from the shock of the freak death, they then do their best to keep the performance alive in front of the audience. It gets absurd, messy and nonsensical, and there are even some real emotional gut punches," Schwab tells me.

The Valuer review | Barking Spider Creative | Melbourne Fringe Festival | GalleryGallery INC

How much is that weird little object you’ve been holding onto for years actually worth? The Valuer invites audiences to find out, bringing their knick-knacks to a Suprahuman Valuer for assessment. Created by Penelope Bartlau and Jason Lehane (of Barking Spider Creative), the immersive work plays with our ideas of value, ownership and attachment, asking whether we really want to keep the things we treasure once someone else puts a price on them.

In some ways, this is a sequel to Barking Spider Creative’s The Collector, which I attended last year. Both works explore the stories and worth we attach to everyday objects, but this time the experience is personalised. Rather than engaging with a room of curiosities with another participant, we have our own consultation with the assessor, creating something smaller in scope but no less playful or absorbing.

The visit begins with a brief chat with The Valuer’s familial, who fortunately manages to condense reams of paperwork and terms and conditions into a short interaction. We’re given an explanation of what to expect, without giving anything away. Once the formalities are done, we open the door and take a step inside.

Luke review | Red Stitch

How much can you trust a story when the person telling it has something to hide? Angus Cameron’s Luke explores the uneasy relationship between truth, memory and storytelling, blurring the line between what happened and how we choose to remember it. Developed through Red Stitch’s INK program, this dark drama follows Chris, a 19 year-old whose night of drinking and philosophical debate with two older teacher friends in 2007 sets in motion consequences that will reshape their lives for decades to come.

This becomes more compelling once Chris takes on the role of narrator. As the story progresses, we begin to question whether what took place in the first act actually happened as we saw it, or how much has been embellished in Chris’s retelling. The play creates a complex grey area between fact and interpretation, as Chris' account of the past is shaped by his memories and the narrative he wants to tell.

Behind the Veil review | National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA)

In Behind the Veil, NICA’s second-year students present a world where productivity is paramount and happiness and self-fulfilment can only come from work. Through a variety of circus and acrobatics, this “perfect existence” gradually begins to fail, as the things keeping everything in order start to break down and revolt inevitably follows.

The show opens by introducing us to the residents of this town. They are all dressed in identical workmen’s overalls and caps designed by Reuben James. The costumes eventually transform into circus-appropriate outfits, where they become distinct from one another but still retain the factory-like uniformity of the original workwear. An industrial score by Christopher Lewis plays, evoking a factory conveyor belt and the monotonous nature of manual labour.

Creepy Boys are promising absolutely nothing with SLUGS at Melbourne Fringe

What happens when you make a show about absolutely nothing? According to Creepy Boys, you make SLUGS, an electro-punk concert, play, clown performance and basement puppet nightmare that promises a technocolour acid trip featuring puppet Joni Mitchell, a two-person horse and, apparently, every body part they have. Created by real-life lovers S.E. Grummett and Sam Kruger, SLUGS has spent the past year travelling around the world, earning a nomination for Best Comedy Show at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe along the way.

The tagline is as straightforward as it gets: "It’s about nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. We promise." And they mean it. "It means it’s about nothing! We felt one nothing didn’t drive the point home, but eight…now we’re cooking. We wouldn't read into it beyond that. No need. No pesky themes to go hunting for, just relax. SLUGS is a space where, finally, you can not think about all the SOMETHINGS of the world.  An hour where you get to leave it at the door. What could go wrong?"

R.A.I.N review | Harrison Ritchie-Jones | Arts House

Two voices begin whispering in the darkness of an empty stage. Barely audible, they talk about taking things at their own pace before one offers a final, slightly ominous farewell: "See you in the storm." It is an understated beginning to R.A.I.N, Harrison Ritchie-Jones’ latest contemporary dance work, but the notion of taking things at their own pace becomes more evident as the performance unfolds.

Ritchie-Jones and Michaela Tancheff have spent years developing their partnering practice, and R.A.I.N pushes them towards its breaking point. The title is an acronym for a mindfulness technique that involves recognising what you are experiencing, accepting it as it is, exploring it, and responding to yourself with self-compassion, but this is less concerned with explaining those ideas than seeing what happens when the dancers permit themselves to let go.

When magic turns to horror: Tim Ellis is bringing Darkness Is Coming to Melbourne Fringe

Darkness Is Coming is a magic show with its roots in horror. Drawing on the French Grand Guignol style of graphic, theatrical horror, award-winning magician Tim Ellis explores the mind of a psychopath looking back over his life and questioning his own reality. But there is no dialogue in this show. Instead, projections, music, sound, lighting and magic establish the world of the story, bringing fragments of the character’s imagination to life, with the audience piecing together what is happening from what they see and hear. For its Melbourne Fringe Festival season, the production comes to an intimate 32-seat theatre, where the boundaries between magic, theatre and horror begin to blur.

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

After surviving ovens, 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.

Savages review | Theatre Works

First staged in 2013, Patricia Cornelius’ Savages was prompted by the death of Dianne Brimble, who died aboard the Pacific Sky cruise ship in September 2002 after becoming entangled with a group of men on board. Rather than reconstruct the events directly, Cornelius used them to explore Australian masculinity, mateship and misogyny. 13 years on, its portrait of male camaraderie turning sinister remains uncomfortably relevant.

For this 2026 production at Theatre Works, director Kitan Petkovski takes an unconventional approach to Cornelius’ four 'ordinary Aussie blokes', casting four women and non-binary actors, Laila Thaker, Nicci Wilks, Zoe Boesen and AYA, in the roles. Making masculinity itself part of the subject allows Petkovski to examine the pack mentality, power and violence at the heart of the play from a different perspective.

GG review | Conjah + PSEUDO | Arts House

"GG" is gaming shorthand for "Good Game", usually said at the end of a match. In GG, the term becomes the starting point for a performance about control and choice. Using street dance, motion capture, digital avatars and gaming technology, this collaboration between collectives CONJAH and PSEUDO Studio ask who gets to decide what happens, who is being controlled and what it feels like to have no control at all. Rather than telling a conventional story, GG plays out this exploration through movement, technology and the relationship between the dancers and the digital world around them.

Unfortunately, these ideas never quite come together, instead feeling like a series of disconnected scenes. One involves watching a hand discovering numerous items, including a gaming controller, inside a puppet-theatre-like structure, creating the impression of a video game being operated from within the stage. It’s fascinating to watch, and this has to be one of the most expressive hands I’ve seen, moving, reacting and communicating with remarkable precision. There’s a real sense of curiosity as the hand interacts with the objects around it, but it doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.

Cleopatra & Antony review | Melbourne Shakespeare Company | fortyfivedownstairs

History remembers Cleopatra and Mark Antony primarily as lovers, but romance was only one part of what brought them together. Cleopatra was a ruler fighting to preserve Egypt's independence, while Antony was a Roman general caught in the bitter struggle for control of Rome. Their relationship unfolded as the Roman Republic collapsed, making their personal choices inseparable from the political forces that would prove to be their undoing.

While I knew the broad outlines of their story, I wasn’t especially familiar with Shakespeare’s play. Some reading beforehand revealed a more politically charged drama than the popular image of the doomed lovers suggests. Melbourne Shakespeare Company’s production of Cleopatra & Antony, directed by Sonya Suares, brings its intrigue, tension and ambition into fortyfivedownstairs’ basement.

Dance Palace review | Finucane & Smith | Luna Park

I remember going to my first ever Finucane & Smith show back in 2010. I had never heard of Finucane & Smith before, but the title Carnival of Mysteries was too tempting to ignore. I vividly recall watching the various acts unfold, wide-eyed as I discovered this new world. But it was Moira Finucane’s performance as the Ice Queen, inside a tent, that has stayed with me most. There was something captivating about the strength and power in her voice, and I was transfixed by it. Since then, I have eagerly attended many of the performances and events created and curated by Finucane & Smith, including their current show Dance Palace, marking 30 years of their work.

Staged inside Luna Park, Dance Palace invites us into a place of exhilaration and excess, where cabaret, circus, burlesque and live music collide. It is a fitting setting for the occasion, with the faded glamour and eccentricity of the historical theme park providing the perfect backdrop for an evening that revels in the strange, the spectacular and the unexpected.

The Nightline review | Malthouse Theatre

It's 2am and you're wide awake, the world is sleeping but you are staring at the ceiling, trapped inside your own head. Do you read a book? Watch TV? Lie there? Thanks to Roslyn Oades and Bob Scott, there was another option: call The Nightline and leave a recorded message about why you're still up. How are you feeling? What’s running through your mind? After receiving hundreds of anonymous messages, the immersive show The Nightline was born, where audience members can listen to these recordings and get caught up in the lives of strangers. The show had the initial bad luck of opening during COVID-19 and ran for one night before being shut down. Five years later, it returns to Melbourne for a full season at the Malthouse Theatre.

The Jungle and the Sea review | Melbourne Theatre Company

The Jungle and the Sea is an incredibly moving story of family, love and survival set during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Co-writers and directors S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack follow a Tamil family at three pivotal periods, 1995, 2009 and the present, as war, separation and loss repeatedly test their ability to stay together. It is an ambitious production that takes us from Sri Lanka to Australia and through some of the most devastating moments in this household’s lives, without losing sight of the relationships being presented. What makes it so powerful is the way it draws us into their world, making the human cost of the conflict impossible to ignore.

The show opens in 1995, when Sri Lanka is in the middle of a civil war that would last another 14 years. The conflict had already been raging for 12 years and would continue for 26 years, ending on May 18, 2009, with a military victory by the government over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers. A victory that cost the lives of an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people. Shakthidharan and Flack then return to these characters in 2009 as the fighting comes to an end, before bringing us into the present. It’s a story that takes nearly three hours to tell, but we become so invested into their lives that it feels like almost no time has passed.

Cut Chilli review | Darebin Arts Speakeasy

Intercountry adoption is often framed through the language of love, family and giving a child a better life. But beneath those good intentions are complicated issues about identity, culture, belonging and the stories we lose about where we come from. Written by Chenturan Aran, Cut Chilli explores these through Jamie, who was abandoned as a baby in Sri Lanka and raised by his adoptive parents in Western Australia. Now, as an adult, he begins to question the story he has been told about his past, particularly after falling for Zahra, an activist and podcaster.

Early in the play, Jamie makes plans to return to Sri Lanka in search of the parts of his identity that have been missing, with Zahra documenting the journey for her podcast, Decolonising My Boyfriend. What starts as an attempt to uncover the truth about his adoption soon becomes something far more confronting, forcing him to reconsider his relationship with his parents Katherine and Lee, his connection to his birth culture and the foundations on which his family has been built. Cut Chilli places these uncomfortable issues alongside the familiar chaos of family life, where love, tension, humour, and secrets can all occupy the same dinner table.

Break of Day review | Malthouse Theatre

Every night, Pam clocks on at the world’s largest online retail warehouse, packing parcels in a town where employment prospects are increasingly scarce. It’s a thankless, low-paying and dead-end job, but most residents in Burra Creek have no other option. In Steve Rodgers’ Break of Day, we follow Pam, her daughter Rae and others, as they fight to avoid becoming invisible in a place where they have been forgotten.

While Pam works away at the warehouse, Rae is desperately trying to complete a high school essay on Lolita. With no internet, a computer on its last legs, a boyfriend more focused on his own dreams and a drunk grandfather to contend with, completing her assignment feels almost impossible.

Marginalia review | Pummel Squad | fortyfivedownstairs

There are few things more absurd than a man discovering that his nose has left his face, taken on a life of its own and somehow become more socially important than he is. Yet Marginalia manages to make Nikolai Gogol's The Nose seem almost restrained. Pummel Squad's wildly inventive adaptation takes the story and throws it into a blender, transforming its inherent ridiculousness into something visually extravagant, manic, and unruly.

The production wastes little time establishing its unique rhythm. Tyler, a barber, spends the entirety of Fatboy Slim's "Right Here, Right Now" running in circles around the stage, completely committed and visibly present. When the music stops, he turns to the audience and speaks about the tension between his career as a hairdresser and his passion for art, clearly setting the tone for what is about to unfold.

CreepyPasta review | Dancehouse

Once confined to internet message boards and YouTube narration channels, creepypasta has steadily entered the mainstream, most recently through the release of Backrooms. These eerie tales of liminal spaces, conspiracies and inexplicable horrors have become a defining form of modern folklore. Harrison Hall's CreepyPasta draws on that tradition, using dance, sound and media to examine the anxieties lurking beneath our constantly connected lives.

CreepyPasta opens with a striking sequence. A lone performer (Nikki Tarling) is tethered to a rope that disappears into the darkness above. She moves with slow, precise fluidity under a solitary spotlight. Shiv Geaney's lighting sends red laser beams slicing through the space towards the audience, while Mat Spisbah's pulsing, heartbeat-like soundscape builds a sense of foreboding. Tarling's body is the only human presence in an environment consumed by screens, attempting to resist invisible forces pulling at her. Harrison Hall soon joins her, with the pair navigating various physical and multimedia encounters that push the boundaries between dance, performance art and digital installation.

Saplings review | Australian Theatre for Young People | Arts Centre Melbourne

Young people rarely enter the youth justice system because of a single bad decision. More often, they're shaped by circumstances beyond their control, the adults who fail them, and institutions that struggle to offer the support they need. Hannah Belanszky's Saplings - which is drawn from workshops and interviews with incarcerated youths - places those realities centre stage, inviting audiences to reconsider the labels and see the people underneath.

The vignettes introduce us to different young people in different situations, yet they are all intrinsically connected. A teenager is questioned by police after breaching his bail to buy instant noodles, while another group of friends who have just broken into a house cling to doli incapax, the legal principle that children under a certain age are presumed incapable of understanding right and wrong.

Funeral Flowers review | Red Stitch

Seventeen year-old Angelique dreams of becoming a florist, sparked by the creativity and tenderness of crafting stems and petals into something extraordinary. Yet while she learns to cultivate beauty, she must navigate a world shaped by poverty, racism and the care system. Inspired by the life of Tottenham community leader Gina Moffatt, Emma Dennis-Edwards' Funeral Flowers transforms a deeply personal story into a rich portrait of the people and relationships in Angelique's life, filled with vivid storytelling and sharply observed characterisation.

Told from Angelique's perspective, the script depicts an entire community from a single voice, introducing family members, carers, teachers and friends with assured clarity. It balances humour and heartbreak, making room for warmth and optimism to flourish without diminishing the harsh realities of Angelique's circumstances.

Celebrating 30 Years of Finucane & Smith at Luna Park

Hip hip hooray! Finucane & Smith are turning 30, and naturally, they’re celebrating in the only way they know how: with a gloriously unrestrained carnival of cabaret, burlesque, music, dance, comedy, glamour, chaos and more than a little bit of diva.

Over the past 30 years, Finucane & Smith have created 36 full-length shows, performed across 19 countries, toured 160 Australian towns, entertained more than a million audience members and collected 21 awards along the way. Not bad for a company that has done it all without a penny of ongoing funding.

To mark three decades of making wildly inventive, genre-defying art, the company is returning to Melbourne's iconic Luna Park for Dance Palace, a month-long party running every weekend from mid-August. Dance Palace will bring together a dazzling cast of performers for an event that promises, in true Finucane & Smith fashion, to be anything but predictable. Expect pub rock queens, Bollywood love gods, torch singers, burlesque artists, First Nations performers, gothic legends, live painting, flying pants and plenty of surprises along the way.

Ahead of the glorious mayhem to come, we spoke to a dozen of the 30 performers taking part in Dance Palace about the show, the company, and what makes Finucane & Smith such a singular force in Australian performance.

VISTA review | Stephanie Lake | Malthouse Theatre

What if you could watch the same story twice, but see something completely different the second time? This is the intriguing premise of Stephanie Lake's new dance work VISTA, which presents two acts as two contrasting versions of the same reality. The first is a precise, monochromatic world of dynamic physicality, music and light. After the interval, this previously seen world returns in a bold burst of colour, with familiar movements and ideas transformed by a fresh perspective. Through this clever structural conceit, VISTA challenges the audience to reconsider what they think they know. As choreography, relationships and images return in altered forms, the work demonstrates how dramatically context can change our understanding of an experience.

Our Seventh String review | The Motley Bauhaus

In Our Seventh String, six friends and former housemates reunite at their Melbourne sharehouse after seven years apart. Over the course of the evening, long-held rivalries, love confessions, heartbreaks, and old resentments are reopened as the group contends with the changes they have all undergone in the intervening years, and what happens when the people you have spent so much of your life with are no longer the people with whom you should spend the rest of it.

Paperfolk Theatre is a new independent theatre company with emphasis on folk-inspired work, so it is no surprise that music plays a significant role in Our Seventh String. With music and lyrics by Emily Napolitano, Henry Smith and Lauren Green, the production features some moving and heartfelt songs, with well-crafted melodies and a variety of instruments that complement the various voices. With seven performers, there is a great range of vocal styles, but it is the duet with Frances (Miriam Ellins) and Thea (Harper Elwyn) that stands out as a particular highlight.

Rabbit & Watson review | Darebin Arts Speakeasy

Love has always inspired stories of devotion, sacrifice and impossible odds, but few take that journey quite as literally as Rabbit & Watson. Shane Woon's latest work reimagines the Chinese mythological figure Tu'er Shen, the Rabbit God of gay matchmaking, placing him in the unlikely world of Australian football. When Rabbit's centuries-old lover returns as Watson, a rising AFL player, he must navigate love, identity and the expectations placed upon him across the celestial and human realms. Blending Chinese mythology, Boys' Love, fantasy and AFL culture, Rabbit & Watson is a thoughtful exploration of what it means to search for belonging while carrying the weight of history, family and tradition.

Normally, I would bristle at the idea of a two-hour show without an interval, but Woon's concept and storytelling are so intriguing and refreshing that I never found myself growing restless or checking the time. Even so, the script would benefit from some judicious editing to tighten its structure. A subplot involving young footballers Cypress and Jaxson could be removed without diminishing the central narrative or its engagement with homophobia, sexuality, and relationships. With another character already questioning their sexuality, this storyline is repetitive rather than expanding the narrative, diluting the impact of the more compelling arcs.

Heartbreak Hotel review | Arts Centre Melbourne

Heartbreak is one of life's few universal experiences, yet no two people navigate it in quite the same way. In Heartbreak Hotel, New Zealand theatre-maker Karin McCracken transforms the aftermath of a failed relationship into an inventive blend of comedy, reflection, music, and science, inviting audiences to laugh at the messiness of love while recognising a little of themselves along the way.

Heartbreak Hotel is an exploration of what happens after a relationship ends, not just emotionally, but physically and psychologically. McCracken draws on her own experience, scientific research and pop culture to examine the strange ways heartbreak manifests, from obsessive thoughts and unanswered questions to the physical response to loss. Rather than presenting a linear narrative, McCracken constructs the work as a collage of ideas, where seemingly disparate threads gradually reveal themselves to be woven together, resulting in a performance that is intellectually curious and authentic. Her writing is witty and self-aware while acknowledging the pain of heartbreak.

Bring It On: The Musical review | Theatrical Inc | The National Theatre

Bring It On: The Musical carries the legacy of one of the most beloved teen comedies of the early 2000s. The 2000 film, starring Kirsten Dunst and Eliza Dushku, became a pop culture favourite thanks to its sharp humour, fierce rivalries, and endlessly quotable cheerleading drama. More than a decade later, the story made the leap to the stage with a musical adaptation featuring a score by Tom Kitt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, lyrics by Miranda and Amanda Green, and a book by Jeff Whitty. Rather than simply retelling the film, the musical takes the spirit fingers of Bring It On and spins it into a new story set in the same high-stakes environment of competitive cheer.

The musical follows Campbell, the accomplished captain of the Truman High cheer squad, whose world is upended when a redistricting decision forces her to transfer schools. Struggling to find her place at Jackson High, Campbell becomes involved with a very different cheer team, sparking rivalries, friendships, and a battle for national championship glory.

Gunawarra Re-Creation review | ILBIJERRI Theatre Company | Southbank Theatre

Gunawarra Re-Creation is a work that sits at the intersection of storytelling, culture and family, weaving a contemporary narrative through an ancient Creation story that has been carried across generations. Written by Isobel Morphy-Walsh, the production touchingly explores how memory, Country and kinship exist simultaneously, and how inherited stories continue to shape identity, resilience and healing in the present.

Having not seen the 2024 staging of Gunawarra Re-Creation, this review considers the current iteration on its own terms. With a new cast, director and movement consultant shaping this version, the focus is on what this ensemble brings to the telling of the story.

Sixth Sense review | Tom Weil | Melbourne Magic Festival | Arrow on Swanston

There's something delightfully unsettling about watching a stranger seem to read your mind. Sixth Sense, presented as part of the Melbourne Magic Festival, poses that very question in its title. Is it genuine intuition, or simply a masterful reading of human behaviour? Award-winning magician and mentalist Tom Weil doesn't rush to answer this. Instead, he spends the evening blurring the line between psychological illusion and something that feels, uncannily, like truth.

Part of what makes Weil's work so compelling is his relationship with predictability itself. Good mentalism often relies on audiences believing an outcome was left to chance, when in fact it was steered there all along, and Weil plays this tension deliberately, letting the room wonder how much of what unfolds was ever really in doubt.

Losing Face review | Melbourne Theatre Company

If you're not already being sold the promise of a younger, healthier and more optimised version of yourself, you're probably not paying attention. From wellness resorts and cosmetic procedures to the endless pursuit of self-improvement, ageing gracefully, or better yet, not at all, has become an industry in itself. In the comedy Losing Face, Marieke Hardy sets her sights on that fixation, exploring the impossible standards placed on women and the lengths they're encouraged to go for perfection. 

The show gets off to a promising start with three friends, Jo, Simone, and Lauren (Michala Banas, Madeleine Sami and Christie Whelan Browne), attending The Royal You resort to celebrate Jo's 50th birthday. Conversations around dating, marriage, children and body image naturally emerge, while subtle tensions simmer between the women, who have not seen each other for five years. Hardy establishes a grounded dynamic that hints at the different paths their lives have taken and the insecurities that have accumulated along the way.

Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) review | Athenaeum Theatre

More than two centuries after its publication, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice remains one of literature's most beloved romances, celebrated for its social observations, sparkling wit and enduring examination of class, marriage and first impressions. Published in 1813, the novel follows Elizabeth Bennet and the enigmatic Mr Darcy as misunderstandings and prejudice gradually give way to love.

In Pride and Prejudice (*sort of), writer Isobel McArthur gives Austen's classic a modern makeover. Told from the perspective of the household servants, with just five performers - Amy Lehpamer, Zoe Ioannou, Kaori Maeda-Judge, Ruby Shannon and Teo Vergara - playing every role, the Olivier Award-winning production combines breakneck costume changes, pop anthems and irreverent humour while retaining the heart of Austen's story. The result is an inventive reimagining of a tale that is fresh and funny.

Beasts of Burden and Other Party Guests review | Miss Friby | Bluestone Church Arts Space

Life often feels like a balancing act between the burdens we carry and the faces we present to the world. Personal anxieties, responsibilities and private struggles rarely disappear, instead following us through our daily interactions. In Beast of Burden and Other Party Guests, cabaret performer Miss Friby transforms these universal experiences into a bold, highly physical work that blends comedy, dance and theatrical spectacle. The result is an unpredictable exploration of the "beasts" that accompany us through life, and what happens when we finally invite them into the room.

The party kicks off with Miss Friby encased in a gorilla suit, performing a vigorous dance routine. She gradually removes the costume piece by piece, suggesting the shedding of a persona, burden or inner beast. Yet the transformation is not finished. Even after revealing the human figure underneath, she continues to move with the same physicality, blurring the boundary between human and beast with the implication that the two are intertwined rather than separate identities. This idea is reinforced in later party games, during which Miss Friby mimes animalistic gestures and lip syncs a cacophony of beastly sounds that are abruptly curtailed.

Anna X review | Red Stitch

Few real-life figures have captured the public imagination quite like Anna Delvey. The Russian-born con artist, whose deception of New York's wealthy elite became a global media sensation, blurred the line between ambition, performance and fraud. Her story raises intriguing questions about status, privilege and society's willingness to believe those who appear successful, making her an ideal subject for theatre.

Joseph Charlton's Anna X takes inspiration from Delvey's rise and fall, using her notoriety as a lens through which to examine identity, aspiration and the allure of reinvention. Centred on a fictitious relationship with app developer and tech CEO Arial, the play explores success in an age where image and influence can be as valuable as truth, though its focus occasionally drifts from its most compelling figure.