JSMR - Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

There's a new thrill-seeking pass-time that's been happening worldwide over the last few years. Causing tingles to run through the back of someone's head and down their spine, it's a sensation that only be achieved from the intimacy of watching someone whispering into a microphone, or slowly brushing their hair or even crinkling wrapping paper. Yes, we are talking about the the world of autonomous sensory meridian response, or ASMR. As part of this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival, performer Jessica Stanley is delving into the ASMR world with her show JSMR. 

While this has become a recent obsession for people, with millions watching these videos on YouTube, Stanley's fascination with ASMR began during her schooling days and has continued to grow since then. "I remember, in the later years of primary school, I really enjoying when friends borrowed stationery from me – a rubber or pencil, something like that – and I got nice head tingles while they used it," she recalls. "And it has grown from there, where I now love roleplay ASMR videos, where someone is pretending to give you a haircut or check you in to an appointment. I enjoy the specificity and variation, and that they can allow for quite lengthy videos too. I used to really like falling asleep to videos by an artist called Amalzd; I’m pretty sure I stumbled across her YouTube channel by chance and just really enjoyed her voice, accent and roleplay scenarios. I would also recommend ASMR Bakery for someone who wants to watch a whole variety of objects being tapped or played with."

Little Monster - Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

We all have voices in our heads. The voices that keep us up at night, the ones that make it hard to focus on that report that is due that week or the ones that make us doubt ourselves when we are actually amazing at what we do. Returning to the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Telia Nevile digs into her own voices with her new show, fittingly titled Little Monster.

In her previous shows, Nevile uses nostalgic pieces of media or childhood pop culture such as Disney or John Hughes movies, to create a darker tale around mental health or facing the often harsh realities of life, and this trend continues with Little Monster, where she performs in the rhyming style of Dr Seuss. "I've always loved how musical Dr Seuss' rhyming style is and how much momentum it has. It kind of runs down a path, tripping over its feet like a puppy," Nevile tells me. "After the last two years, I wanted to challenge (and reward) myself with something fun and free-wheeling, and the language that this style encourages is so playful and very open to the ridiculous."

Dog Park - Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

It has been proven that dogs can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, ease loneliness and encourage exercise and playfulness. They truly are a human's best friend. Walk past a dog park and you're bound to see dogs sniffing each other, running for tennis balls and marking their territory while their owners gather around catching up on local news and talking about their fur-baby like parents waiting to pick up their children from school. But what happens when that pocket of sanctuary is threatened by an unspeakable act? Presented by Lab Kelpie, Dog Park is a satirical and biting look at how one dog park community is impacted when a private school boy on exchange from Sri Lanka, is found dead in the leafy suburbs of a Melbourne dog park covered in bites.

In some ways, Dog Park is a work almost 30 years in the making when director Lyall Brooks, who also serves as Artistic Director of the now regional-based not-for-profit theatre company, first met the show's playwright Sally Faraday. "Sally and I used to act in shows and musicals together back in the *cough* late 90s *cough* when she was studying at Monash University and I was basically just hanging around there pretending to be a student because they had an incredible Performing Arts program," he recalls.