Degustation review | One Fell Swoop and Shu Liu | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Ballarat Mining Exchange

Taking my seat at Degustation, I couldn’t help but feel like I was about to experience The Menu - albeit with considerably more acrobatics and, thankfully, considerably less culinary carnage. Around 80 guests are seated along a long white table, with four beautifully presented creations waiting at each place setting. Above the table hangs a suspended board, dressed with a tablecloth and an assortment of plates, glasses and decorative tableware. It’s an intriguing arrangement that immediately signals this is going to be a meal unlike any other.

The six artists from One Fell Swoop - Angelique Ross, Roya the Destroya, Claire Bindoff, Easa Min-Swe, Charice Rust, and Jonathan Morgan, (with the latter two also serving as directors) - wear outfits designed by Emily Barrie that mix bright colours, fabrics and styles to create an eye-catching, playful aesthetic. But it’s also the way the circus unfolds around the diners that makes Degustation especially interesting.

Not Soooo Fresh review | Frenzy Theatre Co | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

 When I was invited to review Not Soooo Fresh, I immediately said yes, having been an avid purchaser of the So Fresh compilations over the years. But then I looked at the track listing for So Fresh: The Hits of Winter 2010 and realised I knew less than half the songs. I also discovered I’d never heard of the 2008 film Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. However, Frenzy Theatre Co’s melding of these two pop culture references made Not Soooo Fresh not only the perfect way to end my Fringe Festival experience, but also a perfect night out to laugh and enjoy myself.

Created by Belle Hansen and Sarah Bowers, this is a scrappy re-telling of the coming-of-age film, capturing its teenage angst, romantic misadventures and awkward journey towards figuring out who you are. The catch is that they’ve chosen to tell this story using the So Fresh album in track listing order. Honestly, it’s like witchcraft, with the songs fitting into the plot so perfectly you’d think they were written for the show.

So while there's not a choice in what songs are played or when they are played, there is a creative choice in how they are slotted into the narrative. As Musical Director, Bowers does an exceptional job in finding ways for these songs to be the voice for specific characters. Vanessa Amorosi’s "My Mysterious" introduces fraternal twins Robbie and Tom to the school as the girls fawn over them. Train’s "Hey, Soul Sister" as the love theme between Robbie and Georgia is hilariously on the nose, while Lady Gaga’s "Alejandro" during the 'snogging lessons' is ridiculously inspired.

Yellow Fever: An Original Musical Cabaret review | Kelly Lim Harris | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

In Yellow Fever, Kelly Lim Harris turns the racism, fetishisation and sexism she has come up against as an East Asian woman into a sharp, funny and personal cabaret. Through original songs and candid storytelling, she explores the absurdity of being desired for your ethnicity while confronting the attitudes and experiences that make the subject far from light-hearted.

If the title doesn't give you an indication of its tongue-in-cheek humour, the opening number, also titled "Yellow Fever", certainly does. It also showcases Lim Harris's impressive vocal skills as she moves between styles and genres, including pop-rock, ballads and opera. Her opera performance is particularly captivating, and I'd have loved to hear more, given her evident passion for the style.

Crush the Bug review | RUFF AS GUTZ | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

There’s a sense of mischief to Crush the Bug, with performers Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin and Daniel Nodder setting the tone before the show has even properly begun. We’re drawn into their peculiar little world as soon as we arrive, tasked with folding origami cockroaches and rolled up newspapers being frantically passed around. From there, the silliness gathers momentum, with physical comedy, audience participation and loads of unpredictability.

Inspired (very) loosely by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, the narrative follows a father and his son, who happens to be a bug. When Dad takes his son to work, things take a turn that raises questions about responsibility, morality and forgiveness. But this isn't a solemn literary adaptation. It's one fuelled by frenetic clowning with a dash of substance to give you something to chew over.

The pair are wonderfully responsive, picking up on the room’s energy and finding opportunities for spontaneous comedy that ensures the laughter in the room keeps coming. They draw us into the action, inviting us to provide sound effects and to also weigh in on what takes place. This involvement makes us feel almost as much a part of the show as the performers themselves.

Jellyfish review | Cherese Sonkkila | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

Underwater adventures make a big splash in Jellyfish, a physical theatre show by Cherese Sonkkila that brings an unusual sea creature to life. With an expressive performer and an ocean world populated by colourful marine life, the production invites us to follow the jellyfish on its journey beneath the waves.

Sonkkila has excellent facial expressions and, in a largely non-verbal piece where the central figure never speaks, does a good job of conveying its emotions and depicting its escapades to the audience. When it falls in love with a human diver it encounters one day, Sonkkila brings warmth and personality to the role, making the growing attachment easy to understand.

Its costume is quite impressive, adding to the fantasy and mystery of the ocean. The jellyfish’s head is illuminated from within, silver tinsel forms its tentacles, and an ice-blue gown drapes over Sonkkila. The design helps animate the jellyfish, enhancing the visual appeal of the deep sea setting. But the starfish could benefit from a more elaborate outfit. Given the narrator uses words such as incandescent, dazzling and beguiling to describe how it looks, it would be great to see these qualities reflected in its design.

Hotsy-Totsy review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

They’re the birthday-party entertainers who decided it was time for a better gig. Created by Ava O’Brien and Peggie Barnes, Hotsy-Totsy brings the unbridled joy of a children’s party to an adult audience, combining clowning, cabaret, and puppetry with a healthy dose of silliness and decidedly grown-up humour.

As I take my seat, I notice heart-shaped boxes on some chairs and plates of sausages under others. This is going to be an interesting evening, I tell myself. Then O’Brien and Barnes appear on stage, moving as one. Not because they’re completely in sync, but because they’re stuck inside a T-shirt designed to fit one person. They make their way off the stage and begin interacting with the crowd while standing literally cheek to cheek. I always feel like you’re in for a good time at a comedy show when one performer looks at another and they crack up laughing (as does the room), and Hotsy-Totsy sustains that feeling.

Barnes’ clowning is particularly effective, with expressive facial reactions and physicality that convey her growing frustration at having to celebrate her best friend’s birthday. O’Brien demonstrates excellent comedic timing and impressive choreography. Together, they have an easy chemistry and a shared instinct for physical comedy, playing off each other to turn even the most ridiculous situations into comic gold, including a cabaret sequence where they dance with chairs.

Stirred Up review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

There’s an art to preparing a good cup of tea, but Katy Burrows has other ideas. In Stirred Up, their debut solo show at Melbourne Fringe, Burrows blends clown, physical theatre and circus to turn a familiar ritual into something increasingly surreal, playing with the etiquette and social conventions surrounding the sharing of a hot drink.

The venue’s compact performance space means Burrows makes use of every nook and cranny to store their props, including on their own person. It’s a tea party for one as they begin catapulting spoons into the air by striking their handles against the table, aiming to land one in the teacup balanced on their head. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for them to pull off the trick, setting the tone for the amusement found in the smallest of gestures.

Stirred Up is modest in scale but effective in its execution, blending the mundane act of making and drinking tea with a measure of silliness and a dash of surrealism. At the beginning, Burrows works their way through the crowd, asking everyone’s names and drink orders. They then serve the beverages using the props at their disposal, adding to the whimsy, that is made all the more impressive by the number of orders they remember.

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.

Campervan: An Ozploitation Horror Musical review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

In 1998, five friends went out to the Gully to make a horror movie. In a case of art imitating life, only four returned, under questionable circumstances. Ten years later, those four friends reunite on the anniversary of their friend’s death and, perhaps not so wisely, decide to head back to the Gully to finish what they started.

Written by Geraldine Quinn, Campervan: An Ozploitation Horror Musical embraces the low-fi spirit of its title, with a four-piece band (Sonja Horbelt, Cameron Thomas, Ash Smith and Quinn) taking up much of the performance space, including their drums, keyboards and guitars. There is no traditional set or collection of large props for the cast to work with. Instead, selected still and moving images are projected onto a screen behind them, giving the production a stripped-back quality.

The music is one of the production’s strengths. Quinn’s opening number is full of verve and sass, immediately establishing the show’s comic sensibility and setting the scene for what follows. As the musical progresses, however, the songs begin to feel increasingly familiar, with too many numbers settling into a slower pace and too few injecting the production with the energy needed to keep things moving.

The Year There Were No Monsters review | Weeping Spoon Productions | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

What happens when there are no monsters left to fight? The Year There Were No Monsters takes that question in a wonderfully strange direction, bringing together a collection of colourful characters to share their experiences. There’s music, clowning, mime and plenty of silliness, but beneath the absurdity is an attempt to explore what it means to be a hero when there’s no obvious villain to defeat.

It’s the reopening of a local open mic night after the building was destroyed by a monster, and a number of residents have come along to tell their stories. Writer and performer Shane Adamczak does an excellent job of giving each character a distinct voice and personality, using impressive vocal work and physicality to convincingly transform from a young schoolboy to an older man to a mime artist.

Each account refers to the various monster attacks that have occurred over the years, but the characters have very different responses to what they have witnessed. Young Dayson speaks with an infectious enthusiasm, even making up a song about the A-Z of monsters, seemingly unable to comprehend the full horror of what has happened. In contrast, the older man is more scarred and traumatised by what he has endured, carrying the weight of what he has seen.

Kissing Booth review | Booth the Clown | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Kissing Booth, performed by Booth the Clown, is an interactive comedy show built around a simple premise: Booth is here to make us laugh and shower us with kisses. Unfortunately, the King of Kisses is not impressed. He constantly ridicules Booth for failing to be funny, creating the production’s central conflict as Booth tries to prove that they are worthy of the crowds love and the crown.

There is good energy in the performance, and Booth’s clownish presence gives the show a playful quality. A particularly lovely addition is Sampson the Sheep, whose instability on their feet brings an appealing warmth to the proceedings. The audience interactions provide a more engaging dynamic, with Booth regularly bringing spectators into the action rather than simply performing at them.

However, its featured audience game is essentially repeated and extended instead of being developed. Once it has been played through the first time, it quickly loses some of its charm, making the middle section stretch out without any escalation. The forty-minute running time begins to feel less like a brisk choice than an indication that there may not be enough here to sustain the setup.

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.

Everything, Now! review | Rebekah Carton | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

Life is busy. Really busy. We are constantly rushing from one thing to the next, trying to fit more into our days than there is ever enough time for. There is always somewhere to be, something to do and another thing waiting for our attention. And somehow, we just keep adding to the list. Everything, Now! takes that constant state of busyness and pushes it to its limit as Rebekah Carton attempts to keep an impossible number of things under control as her to-do list grows, priorities shift and everything gradually starts to unravel.

Because she has to do everything herself, Carton begins by scanning the tickets of every audience member as they arrive. Once everyone is seated, she calmly explains that she has 45 minutes to complete as many as possible. She does this by pushing a large red button, which releases a random ticket containing an instruction to be read aloud by the Task Master. The Task Master is a different guest each evening, responsible for monitoring Carton's progress and deciding whether each task has been completed. On opening night, that responsibility fell to Oliver Bailey, who wonderfully took to the role as he approved or rejected her efforts.

Fu@k! I Killed The Director review | Alright? Comedy | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

In Fu@k! I Killed The Director, Cherry and John (Alana Louise and Jason Schwab) are moments away from taking to the stage for Romeo & Juliet when they kill their director. But the show must go on, and so, in blood-splattered clothing and with blood on their hands that would make Lady Macbeth proud, they head before the audience. Staying in character is one thing, but getting through the performance proves much harder as doubts and insecurities about their chosen careers begin to creep in, sending the pair into a delirious nightmare.

As we take our seats, we see the duo warming up to audio recordings discussing various acting theories and techniques, highlighting the skill required to succeed in the industry. But this is as serious as it gets, as we quickly fall into elaborate movie scene reenactments, ridiculous role plays and general kookiness. The contrast between their preparation and what follows sets the tone for a night that is happy to have fun with the craft while still having something worthwhile to say.

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.