Freidah Will See You Now review | Caitlin Duff | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Oh, Freidah. Heard before she’s seen. Rustling somewhere in the darkness. Feet skittering. Running. A strange gurgle cuts through the silence. A glimpse. Where is she? A gasp. Then…SPLASH. Another. And another. Splish. Splash. Slosh. A leg emerges. Then the rest of her. Oh, Freidah. We’ve been expecting you.

Or perhaps they’ve been expecting us. In Freidah Will See You Now, we are recently deceased, greeted by psychopomp Freidah as she prepares to take us to the underworld, where our afterlife journey will begin. We just have to wait for the boat to arrive. It will be here, we are assured. In the meantime, we wait.

Caitlin Duff is marvellous as Freidah. An oversized black coat with a large pink tutu as a frilled collar, and a bellhop cap already makes for a striking look, but add the bald cap, heightened eye makeup, long nails and unique teeth, and they become impossible to take your eyes off.

They get so much from their facial expressions, from a smile that is somehow both sweet and sadistic to wide eyes that seem to see everything. There is an impressive physicality to the performance too, at times reminiscent of the wondrous Lynda Gibson during her heyday as Matron Dorothy Conniving Bitch in Let the Blood Run Free.

Duff works the crowd beautifully, with off-the-cuff comments that are consistently funny and quickly win over the newly dead. Before long, many of them are willing to literally offer their shoes to Freidah in exchange for guaranteed safe passage across the river.

The show may be built around a series of extended clown sketches, but Duff’s ability to call back to unscripted things that occurred earlier, or to particular audience members, gives it a loose narrative thread. What could easily feel like a collection of disconnected bits instead becomes a hilarious, increasingly unpredictable journey.

By the time the boat finally arrives, Freidah’s peculiar and charmingly odd little pocket of the afterlife has become so much fun that we wish it would sink. Unfortunately, Duff’s commitment to Freidah has made spending eternity with the dead surprisingly appealing.

SHOW DETAILS

Venue: Trades Hall, Cnr Lygon & Victoria Sts, Carlton
Season: until 18 October | Wed - Sat 6pm, Sun 5pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $32 Full | $27 Conc | $24 Hump Day Wednesday
Bookings: Melbourne Fringe Festival

Image credit: Charlie Ashfield