Memoirs of a Meth Head...Chapter One review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Elliot McClaren is an indigenous queer man who grew up in an abusive, criminal environment and became addicted to drugs and alcohol by the age of fourteen. It's the perfect fodder for a comedy show. Memoirs of a Meth Head...Chapter One traces McClaren's childhood and early adulthood with some wild events that he has experienced, and lived to tell the tale.

Right off the bat, McClaren tells us he is now 29 and has been sober for six months. That's a remarkable achievement for someone who has spent most of his life using drugs. He appears so calm and collected, and even though he finds the humour of what he has experienced, it sometimes feels almost inappropriate to laugh mainly because of the trauma he must have gone through.

Scandal! A Reflection on Essendon’s Doping Saga: The Musical? - Melbourne International Comedy Festival preview

For a country that prides itself on sport, particularly football, the doping scandal that plagued the AFL in 2013 was a devastating blow to the nation. After being investigated by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority and the World Anti-Doping Agency over the legality of its supplements program during the 2012 AFL season, the Essendon Football Club was fined $2 million, banned from the 2013 finals series, and suspended its senior coach and general manager. They're the perfect ingredients to create a musical comedy out of right? Well Kit Richards seems to think so with her new Melbourne International Comedy Festival show, Scandal! A Reflection on Essendon’s Doping Saga: The Musical? 

After being nominated for the Golden Gibbo and Green Room Awards in 2019 for Wool! The Musical, Richards is looking forward to tackling this scandal, and while it might be very different to the wool industry, the two are more closely linked than you'd think.

"I recently bought an Essendon guernsey that was made out of Merino wool and the tag on it said ‘Australian Rules Football and the wool industry are knitted together geographically, socially and financially’ so I guess it was fate!" she tells me. "Seriously though, the history of wool was a topic that had plenty of comedic potential but I always like to grow and develop as a writer so I thought it would be interesting to tackle something I don’t find funny. In that way, that was a natural progression but to outsiders, it’s probably a bit of a leap."

Notorious Strumpet and Dangerous Girl - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Greeted with offerings of tea and coffee, we are welcomed into our Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. We all have stories we want to share in this meeting (whether we know it or not), but before we begin, Jess Love has something she would like to share, and that is how performance piece Notorious Strumpet and Dangerous Girl begins.

Throughout this deeply personal show, Love explores her struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, and the effects it has had on her personal life and the disconnect she feels with her family. With a Christmas family photo projected on the screen - one that does not include Love - she informs us that while she is a queer carnie who drinks too much, the rest of her family are involved in the teaching profession and have also been Christian missionaries.

Sugarland review | Arts Centre Melbourne

Sugarland, the latest production by the Australian Theatre for Young People, is a play that revolves around the experiences of a group of teenagers living in Katherine, Northern Territory. With an upcoming singing competition as its focus, it’s a gritty and honest look at the challenges and difficulties teenagers in rural Australia often face, including homelessness, domestic violence, drugs and suicide.

The young cast played by Narek Arman, Xanthe Paige, Calen Tassone, Jonas Thomson and Dubs Yunupingu, have a deep understanding of the characters and their motivations, and develop them carefully into complex human beings. Under the watchful direction of Fraser Corfield and David Page, the five actors explore who these people are as the characters figure out where they belong in this mixed-up world. The choreography of the boxing fight between Jimmy and Aaron (Tassone and Arman) in particular is impressively directed, with both actors clearly in the moment and allowing their characters to take control of the situation.