The Nightline review | Malthouse Theatre

It's 2am and you're wide awake, the world is sleeping but you are staring at the ceiling, trapped inside your own head. Do you read a book? Watch TV? Lie there? Thanks to Roslyn Oades and Bob Scott, there was another option: call The Nightline and leave a recorded message about why you're still up. How are you feeling? What’s running through your mind? After receiving hundreds of anonymous messages, the immersive show The Nightline was born, where audience members can listen to these recordings and get caught up in the lives of strangers. The show had the initial bad luck of opening during COVID-19 and ran for one night before being shut down. Five years later, it returns to Melbourne for a full season at the Malthouse Theatre.

A Kingdom of Mushrooms, Five Senses, Infinite Wonder and You review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Artitude Studios

I love mushrooms. If there’s a meal with mushrooms in it, chances are I’m ordering it - and demolishing it. But I’ve never really thought about mushrooms beyond eating them. Until now. Presented by Off The Spectrum, A Kingdom of Mushrooms, Five Senses, Infinite Wonder and You invites audiences to do exactly what it promises - step into this mysterious, magical world of fungi. This isn’t limited to sight and taste, either. It’s a full-blown sensory trip through the life of mushrooms, engaging all five senses… yes, even sound.

Upon arrival, we’re greeted by our host and co-creator, Jasmin Lefers, who kicks things off by offering us a themed mushroom cocktail. It might be 11am, but this is Melbourne Fringe, so naturally I accept. I opt for the umami martini, infused with shiitake and a touch of ginger. It’s divine, earthy, and with the perfect level of unusual.

Step Inside the Kingdom of Mushrooms: An Immersive Sensory Adventure (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

A Kingdom of Mushrooms, Five Senses, Infinite Wonder and You. That's the name of the show, and in this immersive participatory experience at Melbourne Fringe Festival, audiences are invited to journey through five distinct installations, each transforming a single sense into a mushroom-fuelled world of discovery.

Jasmin Lefers, one third of Off The Spectrum, felt compelled to translate this small, seemingly simple organism into something so immersive after an introduction to a Dutch pioneer in the world of food and design. "It all started with late-night/early-morning educational sessions over Zoom," she explains. "Aaron, one of the trio involved in putting this together, introduced me to one of the pioneers in food design Marije Vogelzang. From there I put myself through a few courses such as Food & Design Dive. Being in the Netherlands the class times were anything from midnight to 4am. It was bloody incredible. Eye-opening, mind-blowing, and tiring."

Crisis Actor review | Arts House

The performance space for Crisis Actor would be pitch black if not for dozens of phones lighting up the room. A cardinal sin in theatre etiquette: a glowing smartphone in the dark. Except here, it’s the point. In this interactive work, audience members are not just permitted, but encouraged to participate and engage with their devices, using them to swipe, click and scroll deeper into the unfolding chaos.

The show begins with the audience gathered around a large, ominously illuminated flower sculpture. Events leading up to a disaster impacting the world are recounted by an anonymous narrator and displayed on four screens surrounding the sculpture. Periodically, the narrator pauses mid-sentence, and options appear on our phones for us to select. These selections then pop up on the screens. They don’t change the story about this Flower Attack, but they help build the illusion of a communal experience, where we feel involved even if we’re not steering the narrative.

The Collector review

Tucked down a labyrinth of Fitzroy alleyways, The Collector invites visitors into a world where memories live through an assortment of whimsical curiosities. Crafted for two participants at a time, this production by Barking Spider Creative blends playful interaction with a raven-masked host, surprising contraptions, and objects that blur the line between treasure and trinket.

We meet outside a café where our guide gathers us and leads us into a tangle of winding paths. Whether by design or happy accident, the guide’s chatter keeps me distracted enough that I lose track of where exactly we’re going. By the time we stop, we’re in front of a compact corrugated iron shed. Before we’re allowed in, we’re asked three abstract questions that make you pause and reflect, while a scribe dutifully jots down our answers. Then, with a ceremonial ring of a bell, the door opens and we step in.


Enter an alluring bachanalian world with new immersive experience, When Night Comes

With much anticipation, Broad Encounters' new immersive experience is coming to Melbourne next month. After the record-breaking and award-winning production of A Midnight Visit and the recent, equally captivating Love Lust Lost, Broad Encounters are back with something different, something wilder, and something more rousing than ever before.

We spoke with the minds behind this upcoming theatrical adventure with co-creators and directors, Kirsten Siddle, Mike Finch and Scott Maidment.

 When Night Comes appears to be Broad Encounters' most ambitious and exciting project to date. Promising a unique, multi-sensory and intoxicating performance with theatre and cocktails, When Night Comes invites people into a tempting, intimate soiree with visions, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings to be met via its cast of sublime characters.



When Night Comes was born from an earlier work by Broad Encounters over two years ago, A Journey Most Unusual. "This was also for small groups only where they journeyed within a fantastical world where the senses were indulged and ignited," Siddle tells me. "I’ve often contemplated Hedonist and Dionysian philosophies and wanted to explore this more deeply in something that argued for sensorial pleasure and delight, both physiological and those of a magical and intuitive nature. Like much of our former work, When Night Comes, aims to be an escape from the ordinary, and an evening of marvellous extraordinary."

Hold Me Closer Tony Danza review

It's been over 50 years since Elton John asked Who's The Boss? sitcom star Tony Danza to hold him closer. Or did he? We have Friends to thank for this confusion. Queensland-based dance company The Farm have taken this malapropism and turned it into an immersive dance-theatre show with Hold Me Closer Tony Danza, where two dancers seek out connection and understanding in a world that is overflowing with information, and misinformation.

This work is intelligently presented yet retains an element of fun and silliness. A large gold circular sheet of thick plastic rests in the middle of the room, and running across the centre of it is a wrinkled gold wall with artists Kate Harman and Oli Mathieson standing on either side of it. The audience is also split, where they can see one performer and only hear the other behind the wall.

Peacemongers review | Darebin Arts Centre

Bigotry. Discrimination. Exclusion. They can all go in the bin. We don't need them in society. In 2020, artist collective The People (headed by Morgan Rose and Katrina Cornwell) began to write about this. Along the way, a collaboration was formed with artists Sonya Suares, Samuel Gaskin, Kate Hood, İbrahim Halaçoğlu and Zachary Pidd, and gradually their approach changed from looking at what they don't like about society, to what they do like, and what a new world order should resemble, with a focus on inclusion. Which brings us to Peacemongers, an interactive, experimental, live art, musical theatre stage show that comes with dinner. Quite a mouthful!

Having seen this diverse group of performers (except for Halaçoğlu) in other projects, I was excited to see what the evening had in store for us. Hood unfortunately was unable to be part of the season due to interstate work, but she is cleverly kept as an integral member of the production through pre-recorded segments that blend in perfectly with the live performances. The group shares the challenges they have faced over the last four years, with references to covid and lockdown times and the numerous funding rejections they receive. They recall Peacemongers' evolution, including several working titles that reflected the nature of the project and the difficulties of creating a work that seeks to embrace everyone and provide a safe space for all.

A Dodgeball Named Desire review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

You've got to hand it to Bloomshed. They have proven themselves time and time again to be one of the most innovative, bold, daring and creative theatre makers around. Too much? Absolutely not, and with their new show A Dodgeball Named Desire they continue to reign supreme. Using Tennessee William' near 80 year-old play A Streetcar Named Desire, Bloomshed explore the competitive nature between the performing arts and the sporting industries, and if there's any chance of these two co-existing. All set in a dodgeball arena. Flores para los muertos? Indeed.

On one side of the court we have our dainty and frail Blanches dressed in old, withered white gowns. On the other, we have the Stanleys, who happen to be extremely fit and very much ready for a fight. While Streetcar is a sharp critique of how society and its attitudes restricted women's lives, A Dodgeball Named Desire uses the dodgeball scenario as a way to highlight how government and institutions are restricting and suffocating the performing arts and not giving them their due credit.

Packing review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Queen Victoria Women's Centre

Who would have thought that packing up a stranger’s art studio would not only make for a Melbourne Fringe Festival show but make for an amazing Melbourne Fringe Festival show? Packing is an interactive performance made for one person at a time where we have been hired to help Marigold pack up her art studio. Except Marigold can’t make it and must communicate to us through What’s App on what to pack as she shares snippets of her life, past, present, and future. It’s a beautifully captivating work by Eleni Telemachou that is over way too soon.

Telemachou and her set designer Nancee Kilpatrick have fashioned an authentic studio with paints, painting, photographs, sketches and personal belongings all scattered around the room. The floor and walls are adorned in colour and there is a “mix tape” that Marigold has playing for us. Oh, and she’s also left snacks.

Through voice memos and texts via What’s App, Marigold gives clear instructions on what to pack and when, and what to dispose of. This still gives us ample opportunities to look – not snoop - through her personal belongings and find letters, photographs, ticket stubs and other surprises in pockets, frames and sketch pads. Each item provides a deeper indication of Marigold’s story, including what led her to Australia and what is taking her back home to Italy.

The Hotline review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

The Honeytrap excel in creating experiences that leaves its audience confronting their own biases or blindspots. I still vividly recall its immersive site specific one person at a time production of The Maze, where I followed a young woman as she walked home late at night and listened to her thoughts via a set of headphones. That was seven years ago but such was the effect it had on me. In 2023, The Honeytrap presents its new show The Hotline, as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, which shifts its focus from the dangers women face of being attacked or killed by a man, to the dangers women face of being attacked or killed by their own body.

Participants dial a 1800 number on their phone and in a choose your own adventure style, they navigate through the frustrations and hypocrisy of getting reproductive healthcare and support. For amendments to the Therapeutic Goods Act, Press 1. For access to ECP Press 2. The first thing I note is how convincingly creator Kasey Gambling has made this experience. The sound design by Josie Steele, from the ringing of the phone, the slightly muffled / static sound of the operator and the background jazz music that plays is incredibly authentic, and slightly triggering for anyone who has ever been put on hold or had to go through an automated service before.

Bloomshed are preparing for an epic bloodbath with A Dodgeball Named Desire (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

Bloomshed is back at Melbourne Fringe Festival with its unique take on classic literature, this time turning its attention to the work of Tennessee Williams. But any expectations on what A Dodgeball Named Desire will be about should be dropped right now, unless you already suspected the ensemble will go up against a sub-elite AFL team in a game of dodgeball. We caught up with one of the brains behind Bloomshed, Anna Louey, to discuss this show and how these ideas formulate.

"Bloomshed as a theatre company is always thinking of the next show to develop, but we can also stew on a suggestion for years before it comes to life," she tells me. "In March of 2022, we met together for an intensive development of A Dodgeball Named Desire and knew that we wanted to make something about sport and theatre, and the colliding world in which theatre becomes sport. We had to set this aside to focus on our season of Paradise Lost in July, but revisited Dodgeball in October through the support of Darebin Arts Speakeasy. During this development, we realised that we were serious about the show and committed to buying a stack of dodgeballs that were the official size and weight as per international rules. We weren’t messing around. It meant hours of pounding each other with dodgeballs while simultaneously working on the script. A year later, we’re putting it on at fortyfivedownstairs as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival and we can finally whip the balls back out."

Hamish Annan is having an outpouring of emotions with Access (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

A person has about 400 emotional experiences per day stemming from 27 basic emotions. In Access, performance artist Hamish Annan invites his audience to be faced with six of these as they sit across from him in a room and are asked to select one of the designated emotions: aggression, happiness, lust, fear, grief, or disgust. Once they've announced it, Annan takes on that feeling for as long as the attendee remains seated. Annan has performed Access across New Zealand and won the New Zealand Fringe Touring Award, and for the first time, he is bringing his show to Australia as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. It's quite a journey for a show that began amidst the pandemic lockdowns.



Love Lust Lost review | Broad Encounters | The Astral Theatre

It's difficult to give a review of the immersive and interactive production of Love Lust Lost without mentioning all the specifically amazing things about it because a lot of the fun comes from the surprise of discovering things for yourself, and not focusing on searching for certain rooms or experiences and enjoying what you have in front you. But review I must, so while I am being intentionally vague, I will say that this is definitely an event that you do not want to miss. It's been over four years since Broad Encounters brought A Midnight Visit to Melbourne so the debut of Love Lust Lost was met with anticipation and it did not disappoint.

In this instance, we board the submarine E.V. Nautilus, piloted by Captain Anderson, and follow the residents of this subterranean world and the loves, tragedies and mysteries they each carry with them. We are led into a decompression chamber and eventually faced with our first of many decisions, will we go left or will we go right? And so begins the adventure and the exploring.

Eleni Telemachou is sending people Packing with her new interactive show (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

There are two camps when it comes to packing: those who love it and see it as a sign of adventure and those who loathe it and see it as painful and arduous task. With her upcoming immersive and interactive Melbourne Fringe Festival show for one person at a time, Eleni Telemachou is giving people the opportunity to live their dream or nightmare by packing someone else's belonging, and along the way unpacking ideas around growth, places and endings. It's a solo

"The idea of Packing came to me while I was flat-hunting around Melbourne. I was so bored going through the same process again and again until I started paying attention to the different objects tenants had lying around their flats." Telemachou recalls. "These simple objects held so many stories about who the tenants were, what they valued and where they had been."

Prophet review

In Jodi Gallagher's Prophet, a man returns from war with a message that the end of the world is coming. His revelation leads to numerous interactions within the city's residents including the powerful elite and outcasts and vagrants of society. Presented as a promenade production, the audience is able to stand, walk around and follow the actors around and feel equally involved in the story (with no interaction), which has us also questioning our own ideas of faith and truth.

The ensemble work incredibly well together, with each actor bringing something unique to their character, and it is fascinating watching the dynamics of the distinct pairings or small groupings with each scene. Mia Landgren is highly memorable with her slow transformation from dutiful wife to being more challenging and confident with herself. She imbues intensity and authenticity to her character even when she is standing on the sidelines. Gabriel Partington successfully carries most of the show with his performance as he becomes a believer of what's to come displaying energy, commitment and vulnerability. His scenes with Dennis Coard as his father are particularly noteworthy and you can easily recognise the history between them. Helen Hopkins is great as the political antagonist but the role needed to have more menace and threatening undertones to it.

What Was That? review

It's not often a production gets to celebrate its 1000th show, but What Was That? did just that on Saturday 12 August. This immersive ghost tour through Werribee Park Mansion gives audience an overview of the home's history and the family that built it in the 1870s, the Chirnsides.



With permission granted by the production team to start the show five minutes late to watch the Matilda's win over France in the penalty shoot out in their World Cup match, the mood in the audience was in very high spirits and completely up for the thrills and delights our hosts had planned for us.



We are met at the entrance by the personable head maid Maggie (Alaine Beek) and the crabby butler Mr Duncan (Ross Daniels). As "we are all friends of the Chirnsides" we are led through the various rooms of this lush mansion.

Dr. Brown Beturns review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Malthouse Theatre

Dr. Brown Beturns is Dr. Brown's return to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 11 years. Having seen his award winning show back then, there was much excitement and anticipation as I took my seat in the theatre to see what wackiness he has concocted after all this time. Performed entirely in silence - with the exception of a few grunts - Dr. Brown portrays an older man who despite living a simple life, has not lost his cheeky spark.

Audience participation is a staple in this show, and sitting in the back is not going to protect you. You can smell the fear emanating from audience members as Dr. Brown sniffs out who his volunteer will be. What was particular joyful about this night was the slight audience revolt, with those on stage (playfully) not taking any of his shit, making even Dr. Brown not know what was going to happen next and improvise where scenes went. It is always fascinating to watch the power dynamics between performer and audience volunteer unfold.

Day After Terrible Day review

I learnt a few years ago that the apparent inspiration for Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was an Australian woman buried at Sydney's Camperdown Cemetery. I'd never really given it more thought than that, but it is said that in the 1850s, Emily Eliza Donnithorne was jilted on the morning of her wedding and subsequently became a recluse. Thirty years later she died, still wearing her wedding dress.

In its latest production Day After Terrible Day, The Danger Ensemble make use of Donnithorne's story to explore the sorrow, grief and mourning that comes from falling in love and being unable to let go when the love ends. Director Mitchell Steven Wright builds a world that is macabre and disturbing from the very beginning when we are greeted by two real estate agents hoping to sell us a property. They are dressed in pink outfits with hair and make-up to the nines, but something about them doesn't look quite right. Once we enter, it is not long before we encounter one of the previous owners.

How dough, dough and d'oh! came together for Stage Mom's new show Dough!

Dough. Another word for money.
Dough. Used for baking bread and pastries.
D'oh! A catchphrase used by Homer Simpson. But for the purpose of this show, let's stick with Dough.
Dough!
And that is the name of Hannah Fallowfield and Alex Thew's new Melbourne Fringe Festival show, Dough!

As with many important ideas, the concept of this show was developed through having the right conversation with the right person. In this case, it was Fallowfield and Thew finding dough (bread) and d'oh! to be a funny pair of homophones and wanting to see what happened when they brought the two together. And then money joined the party.

Part of the research for the show involved immersing themselves in The Simpsons, something that Fallowfield had (shockingly) never seen! "We sat down and watched the first 4-5 episodes of the first season, which was great. I didn't realise how wholesome the early episodes were, so that was a pleasant and unexpected learning. In my mind they were this dysfunctional family that hated each other, but at least in the early seasons that doesn't seem to be the case," Fallowfield tells me.