I'm Ready To Talk Now review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Oliver Ayres has packed a lot into twenty-minutes with I’m Ready To Talk Now, but this well-considered immersive show for one person at a time patiently and intelligently explores his journey of being diagnosed, and living, with a chronic medical condition.

The performance starts with us sitting on a chair and facing a white screen. We put on a pair of headphones, and we begin to hear Ayres' voice as he explains how he relates to his illness and the empathy (or lack of he extends to others), frustration, anger and loneliness he encounters. Ayres’ monologue is obviously rehearsed but his natural pauses and uses of 'like' and 'umm' gives the impression of this recording being off-the-cuff and authentic. It genuinely feels like he is unburdening himself with these thoughts and opening himself up to us.

Happy-Go-Wrong | Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

It's true, life is what happens to your while you're busy making other plans. Melbourne performer, Andi Snelling, was living an active life with numerous acting projects constantly on the go. However, her life changed drastically in 2014 when she was bitten by a tick. Her return season of Happy-Go-Wrong for this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival is a comical yet candid look at her subsequent diagnosis of Lyme disease and what it's like to be battling with a chronic invisible illness.

Opening up about something as personal and contentious as Lyme disease has involved dealing with a number of obstacles along the way for Snelling. "The most difficult aspect of making Happy-Go-Wrong content-wise has been deciding how much of the specifics around my chronic illness to share. It’s an extremely controversial disease in Australia and I’m conscious of protecting both my own and my family’s safety and privacy around some of the more political elements," she says. "This is why the show only really references Lyme in abstract, indirect ways, which also means it becomes more about the human experience of fate and mortality."

Happy-Go-Wrong review | La Mama Theatre

The sparkle in Andi Snelling’s eyes is evident throughout Happy-Go-Wrong and I’m not referring to the glitter she is wearing. Snelling was born to be on the stage, so it’s disheartening that chronic illness has kept her from doing this for a number of years. However, this is all changing with her new show that has her opening up about how it feels to not be able to do the thing you love and what it has taught her about life.

In Happy-Go-Wrong, a French angel (because why not?) named Lucky has come from Cloud Nine to seek out Snelling and offer her some guidance and perspective. These scenes are interspersed with Snelling's skilful use of spoken word, physical theatre, clowning, and music to express how being diagnosed with a chronic illness has impacted her. Snelling finds a marvellous balance between humour and sadness that allows the audience to comprehend the seriousness of her illness but not to leave them all wallowing in misery.