Musical theatre royalty, Ethel Mermaid is coming out of the sea

Is it really better down where it's wetter? Musical theatre royalty, Ethel Mermaid is about to let us know when she comes up to land and perform Songs in the Key of Sea at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. The creation of Melbourne comedy performer and improviser Amanda Buckley, it's an evening of music and stories on living life in the spotlight while under the sea.

"Ethel was born at The New Zealand Improv Festival in 2018 thanks to a workshop and show created by Derek Flores and Michelle Neilson," Buckley tells me. "The character came out of the workshop when I was endowed as a mermaid but one from the depths of the Hudson River. As far as improvised characters go, she immediately felt so fun. Brassy and no nonsense and although the name is definitely a pun on the amazing Ethel Merman, 'the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage', it turns out that they also share a love of a big belting Broadway number."

Pieces of Shit review

In Pieces of Shit, two complete strangers recall an individual memory that forces them to confront issues around morality, respect and their sense of importance. Phil (Bronte Charlotte) works in events, and occasionally plans weddings, because that's where the big bucks lie. She may hate it, but she's very good at it; she's like the Olivia Pope of wedding planners. She gets the job done. At one wedding, she meets a man whom she ends up dating for numerous years.

Dylan (Leigh Scully) on other hand has been unemployed for 18 months but has some money stashed away while he discovers himself playing video games. It also helps that he is living back home with his wealthy parents. Dylan's brother is the golden child of the family, so moving back home brings with it some anxieties. Through a series of shocking and tragic events, Phil and Dylan's lives become entwined as they deal with the fallout of toxic masculinity and processing their own trauma.

Suburban Gothic review

Cabaret doesn't get more macabre and twisted than in Suburban Gothic. There is definitely "some spooky shit going down" in this show, but what makes it even more unnerving is that it is all apparently taking place just down the road from where you live - or even closer to home... 

What initially seem like charming and innocuous cabaret songs, soon turn grim and morbid at the masterful musical hands of writers Karlis Zaid, Mark Jones and Karin Muiznieks. The songs cleverly expose the darker underbelly of the suburbs in wry and witty ways, with no topic taboo.

Take A Seat review

When you die, will you be getting into heaven or will you be sent to hell? For a group of people this question will be answered sooner than they had hoped in Kieran Gould-Bowen's Take A Seat. Set in a waiting room for the lately deceased, these recently departed are given an opportunity to reflect on their lives before judgement is passed upon them.

The cast of seven consists of four actors making their stage debut, including Kotryna Gesait and Mursal Ahmadi who show distinct ability in understanding the characters and using their bodies and facial expressions to give authenticity to the depiction of what their lives were like.

Sizzling summer fun is coming to The Butterfly Club

GRUMBLE: Sex Clown Saves the World

Summer is on its way and so is The Butterfly Club's curated summer program. Nestled just off Little Collins St. (between Swanston and Elizabeth St.), this iconic Melbourne bar and theatre space has put together a very interesting and varied collection of shows completely in line with its own quirkiness and slightly off-centre vibe.

Opening the season is Betty Grumble's Sex Clown Saves the World, which is bound to leave you wondering what the hell you just saw. The show includes wild neo burlesque, self-defence aerobics and a butoh kookaburra, so go along and witness the Queen of the Obscene and all her rage, desires and internal organs in a shamanic striptease.

#DearDiary by Andi Snelling - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

It can be pretty overwhelming to decide what to see during the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival, especially when you have over 400 events to choose from! In order to ease the burden and guide you in the right direction, I'll be chatting to a few performers who I think are going to be providing something unique or special to this year's festival, starting with Andi Snelling and her solo debut show, #DearDiary. 

Snelling has kept a diary since she was 9 years old and to put it in a more concrete term, she has had over 5,000 pages of entries to read through to get #DearDiary to where it is now. "I’m not sure how many other shows in the Fringe have been written over a 24 year period without knowing they were a show, but mine is certainly one of them!" She says. "All the entries in the show are verbatim and so I’m exposing a lot of embarrassing, hilarious, tender and completely twisted parts of myself."

The Last Five Queers review | The Butterfly Club

More and more, you hear people say "it's a small world". Thanks to modern living, our lives are becoming intertwined in varied and surprising ways. in The Last Five Queers, book by Adam Noviello & Madi Lee and music by Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown, we meet five individuals who are all connected with each other in some way. In this song cycle cabaret, their relationships are all pushed to the forefront as they tackle the high and lows of being in love with someone and trusting someone enough to give yourself over to them.

I Might Take My Shirt Off review

Every now and again, there is a show that is so clever, so witty, so painful, so funny, so daring and so much more than you thought you were getting in to. Dash Kruck's cabaret show, I Might Take My Shirt Off, is a prime example of this.

Kruck plays Lionel, a man who is struggling to accept that the love of his life has left him. To be perfectly honest, he's a heartbroken mess, and with the stern advice of his frightening German therapist who orders him to go out and express himself, Lionel ends up performing in his very own cabaret performance.

Not Dead Yet review

Lynn-Ruth Miller has lived a long time. She may have even almost died a few times, but in her cabaret show Not Dead Yet, she lets it be known that even at 81, she's no where near dead yet, not by a longshot. With a mixture of story telling, music and songs, Miller takes us on a journey on what it means to not only live, but to be alive.

Beginning as a toddler, where even the temptation of tapioca pudding was not enough for her to drink her milk, which she still hates, Miller manages to fill us in on eight decades worth of stories in just 60 minutes. It's a carefully crafted show where plenty of thought has been put in to how these stories will be told. Miller's tenuous relationship with her mother is summed up with a few powerful words, the beginning (and end) of relationships is covered in just a minute but yet we feel like we know every detail of these events.

I See Me; and Meryl Streep review

Everyone has an actor, singer, athlete or performer of some sort that they idolise and dream of being. As people get older, they generally grow out of the fantasy but not 17-year old Alexandra Keddie. She wants to be Hollywood actor, Meryl Streep, or at least be just like her. Welcome to cabaret show, I See Me; and Meryl Streep.

The stage immediately reminded me of when I was a teenager and my bedroom was adorned with posters, and memorabilia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. From what I can see, Keddie appears to have every single film Streep has made, photos and posters, cushions and clothing with her face printed on them, and a signed frame image of her too. The finishing touch is the "Mountain to Meryl" chart, where she has a picture of Meryl's face at the top of a mountain and her own at the bottom. Each time Keddie perfects a new skill or accent, she climbs up the mountain, inching closer to her idol.

Ghost Machine review

There's a ghost that is said to haunt The Butterfly Club. Upstairs, in its theatre, it lingers on stage, flashing lights on and off and - oh hang on a minute, it's just Laura Davis covered in a white bed sheet in her 2015 Melbourne International Comedy Festival award-winning show, Ghost Machine.

Davis travels back to her first existential crisis, at the age of 11, and from there she revisits the moments in her life where things haven't always been that great. It is all done however in a masterful way where despite sharing these personal stories and experiences, she gives the audience permission to laugh at/with her because we can all relate to what she is saying. We have all experienced the despair, the rage and the humiliation of our circumstances in some way, shape or form.

Strangely Flamboyant review

On stage for the first time together with their first-ever full length cabaret show Strangely Flamboyant, Claire Healy (Flamboyant: Like a Flame but Buoyant) and Strangely (Roaring Accordion) deliver an entertaining evening consisting of a mis- mash of clever and humorous performances, dialogue and songs. 

The two establish great camaraderie and bounce off each other well in repartee. Their ad-libbing with one another and with the audience allows their distinct personalities to shine through during the show and for a stronger relationship with us to be formed. This is further strengthened by the intimacy that the performance space at The Butterfly Club creates, so Healy and Strangely can connect with us very quickly.

Tomás Ford: The Final Chase review

In Tomás Ford's one-man cabaret thriller, The Final Chase, we follow a secret agent as he attempts to find his missing girlfriend while simultaneously trying to track down his arch-nemesis. It proves to be a case that ends up fatal for one of the three as the audience is taken along this exhilarating ride.

Clearly there can be no secret-agent show that isn’t slightly inspired by James Bond, but there is also a little witty bit of Maxwell Smart and possibly a sliver of Austin Powers stirred into this mix. However, Ford still creates a strong character in his flawed and troubled yet calculating agent who is damn good at what he does – killing people.