Spunk Daddy review | Darby James | Melbourne Fringe Festival | The Butterfly Club

During the end of Melbourne's lockdown, we were all pretty much scrambling to escape being trapped inside four walls. We'd do anything to be outdoors and seeing friends. Not Darby James though. He decided to spend more time with himself and donate his sperm. His cabaret show Spunk Daddy follows this journey that leaves James interrogating his choice for donating as well as the moral and ethical reasons in doing so, and bringing life into this planet.



James has written quite an engrossing story that make you laugh, makes you think and makes you feel. His rhythmic storytelling is the perfect palette cleanser from other solo shows that are delivered as a standard monologue directly addressed to the audience. Not only does this make Spunk Daddy stand out above the rest but it showcases James' skill as a performer and his imaginative and emotional style of expression. Vulnerable.

Spunk Daddy is coming up with the goods on sperm donation (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

Fringe Festivals are all about being slightly off-centre and unusual, so Melbourne Fringe Festival could not be a more apt breeding ground for a cabaret about sperm donation. Written and performed by Darby James, Spunk Daddy traces his journey through sperm donation and while the content of the show might have plenty of laughs, the inspiration for the work came from a place of sincere thought on the implications of such an act.

"I started the donation process back in August 2021 part-way through lockdown after clicking on a Facebook ad from an IVF clinic," James tells me. "It’s something I had contemplated but never thought too seriously about until then. The process was surprising, amusing and awkward so naturally it was the perfect fodder for a cabaret. It inevitably reignited some of the existential terror that passes in and out of my consciousness on a regular basis, which is probably common for a lot of our generation."