Insomniac Mixtape review (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

There is nothing worse than going to bed at a reasonable time and being awake all night. You've done all the right things to be able to fall asleep but to no avail. Insomnia is here. Telia Nevile knows exactly how that feels and in her cabaret comedy, Insomniac Mixtape, she takes us through her journey of restlessness and watching the clock tick tick tick away towards the morning sun.

She begins with a variety of exercises to get us sleeping, including visualisations and breathing techniques but despite her determination to stay in the present, Nevile's mind begins to race from worry to worry. It is clear from the laughter in the audience that we have all been there before too and perhaps some of us have been triggered by her thoughts and are now worrying about these exact same things.

Pulling an all-nighter with Telia Nevile (Melbourne Fringe Festival)

There is a lot that keeps Telia Nevile up at night. So much so that she decided to make a new Melbourne Fringe Festival show about it. In Insomniac Mixtape, Nevile takes a deep dive into the subconscious, where she talks and sings through the real and imagined things that go through her - and your - mind in the middle of the night.

"My brain has a love of chasing its tail, and periodically lighting its hair on fire while it does this," she explains. "Combine that inclination with being a very light sleeper and the result is long periods of staring at the ceiling when I want to be sleeping. The things that wake me up in the middle of the night vary wildly, but are usually driven by anxiety, stress, or an inability to stop turning a problem over. Then again, sometimes it’s the snoring beside me. Occasionally it's a loud car or our downstairs neighbours. It’s a lucky dip of sleepless treats!"

Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

With less than a week left of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I think the most bizarre yet most fascinating show I have seen is Ange Lavoipierre's Your Mother Chucks Rocks And Shells. I mean the title alone... As we take our seats Lavoipierre is on stage in a nightgown holding a pillow, trying to sleep but insomnia is a bitch and keeping her up. With a few tricks up her sleeve, Lavoipierre attempts to tackle her lack of sleep head on with incredibly hilarious results.

It's 2am when Lavoipierre’s brain, with a charming French accent, begins speaking to her and preventing her from falling asleep. She deduces that watching a movie will help her fall asleep and of ALL THE FILMS in the world, she decides the 1973 horror film The Exorcist is a suitable option (and if you’ve seen this you’ll have a better understanding of where the title for this show came from). From then on, we are treated to an absurd exploration of her twilight musings on religion, sexuality and the patriarchy through The Exorcist along with its 'deleted scenes' set in random alternate movies, such as The Matrix. Sounds weird? Buckle up. It gets weirder.

How Can You Sleep At Night? - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

In How Can You Sleep At Night?, Christian Taylor delves into the world of climate change, death and insomnia. While I was initially uncertain on how one could cover these three topics in detail and with clarity in a 60 minute show, Taylor easily accomplishes this and much more with his debut solo performance for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Taylor is having somewhat of an existential crisis about the world while also dealing with what happened to Andy. He can't sleep at night and the only one that he seems to be able to talk about this to is to a sentient jellyfish, voiced by a different actor every night. On the performance I attended, Hayden Burke had the honour and his sassy banter with Taylor was full of laughs and deep thoughts. If there were an award for best non-human performance in a Fringe show, it would go to the jellyfish.

How Can You Sleep At Night? - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

Write about what you know. That's exactly what Christian Taylor has been doing for the last seven years, even if he didn't know it at the time. In the premiere of his Melbourne Fringe festival solo show, How Can You Sleep at Night?, he opens up about his long experience with insomnia, as well as death and climate change.

"My insomnia isn't a case of having difficulty initially falling asleep, but instead I wake-up and fully regain consciousness anywhere between five and twenty times a night. This means I rarely hit REM sleep, and wake up feeling like I've been hit by a truck. There's usually a few months where I sleep okay, but then it comes back with a vengeance. Doctors deemed it wasn't physiological, but probably more psychological," Taylor explains.