Mass Hysteria brings church ritual into cabaret at Melbourne Fringe

Jens Radda’s connection to church is more than a starting point for cabaret show Mass Hysteria. Having grown up attending a Seventh-day Adventist church, he knows the practices of worship first-hand, giving the show a personal perspective on what happens when those familiar forms are taken out of their traditional setting and placed inside a cabaret. We spoke with Radda about his religious upbringing, the appeal of ceremony and why a night at the theatre might not be so different from a Sunday service.

Radda’s time in the church brings both irony and affection to the religious rituals at the heart of Mass Hysteria and the way they are reimagined. "There’s definitely irony in it, but there’s also a lot of intrigue and affection," he tells me. "I grew up around this incredible theatre of ritual: hundreds of people singing together, ceremony, pageantry, symbolism…it’s pretty camp! Now I’m basically taking those ingredients and asking 'what happens if we put this in a NutriBullet and blend it with drag, cabaret and performance art?' It feels strangely full-circle."

Holy Fool review | Fabio Motta | Theatre Works

Eight hundred years after he gave up wealth, embraced poverty and began preaching a radical message of compassion, Saint Francis of Assisi remains an oddly relevant figure. A young man who abandoned the life expected of him, Francis chose instead to live simply, care for the marginalised and find the sacred in the everyday, including famously chatting to birds.

Fabio Motta’s Holy Fool takes that unlikely saint and turns his story into a clown show that is as interested in questioning Francis as celebrating him. Developed between Melbourne and Padua, Italy, the solo work places a naïve knight-turned-hermit in a world where devotion, absurdity and the very idea of holiness happily collide.

Gender is a Scam and I am Winning review (Melboune Fringe Festival)

On the surface, Josh Cake is a man, more specifically, a brown man. And if we want to be even more specific, he is a brown Australian man. But Cake doesn't ascribe to any of that and in his comedy cabaret, Gender is a Scam and I am Winning, they sing and share stories about how the structures of society should not limit you from being whatever you want to be.

Cake has a wonderfully warm presence on stage as he takes his audience through a fun evening of gentle but meaningful reflections and interrogations. He remains focused on the task with a strong sense of humour in both his stand-up routines as well as the musical numbers. There are instances where the material is a bit repetitive but Cake does well in expressing how labels are just labels and can easily be torn off. Not everyone can do this though, at least safely, and Cake acknowledges his privilege in this.

Paradise Lost review

Based on English poet John Milton's epic 1667 poem "Paradise Lost", local independent theatre company The Bloomshed presents its interpretation of the temptation of Adam and Eve by fallen angel Lucifer and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden with its trademark contemporary satirical style.

This is the third iteration of Paradise Lost by the company, and each one has been unique in scale and delivery. The first in 2019 was an in-development season at The Butterfly Club, with minimal set design and a highly frenetic pace. One year later, we were blessed with a remarkable radio play adaptation and in 2022, The Bloomshed have come back to the stage in a momentous way. With the years spent working on Paradise Lost the cast and creatives have finessed the foundations of the narrative they want to share while continuously challenging themselves to take this production to the next level.

What Every Girl Should Know review

Four young girls living in a Catholic reformatory in 1914 experience an awakening when they come across Margaret Sanger’s Family Limitation, one of the first guides on birth control to be published in the United States. Monica Byrne’s What Every Girl Should Know has the girls questioning and challenging the faith and beliefs they’ve held as they start to explore their desires and fantasies from their new-found enlightenment that offers them power and liberation. 

The ensemble - Ravenna Bouckaert, Rachel Kamath, Vivian Nguyen and Shirong Wu – do a great job of bringing these girls to life and while they have distinct personalities, they don’t let them become stereotypes as they create a depth and authenticity to them. Nguyen is a highlight of the production, providing some comedic relief to the otherwise bleak (yet hopeful) narrative and she displays a carefully considered depiction of Lucy’s apprehension, fear and struggles.

Placebo - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Lucy Fox was part of a Christian cult aged 15, toured Australia with a sociopathic musician at 22 and hitchhiked across the Balkans at 30. These moments of her life are what form the basis of her new Melbourne Fringe Festival show, Placebo, where she reflects on the role these incidents have played in getting her to where she is today.


Fox is warm and welcoming as she begins her story and it is skillfully paced so that the build up to what happens next is well sustained. At times, things become quite wacky, but we are reminded that everything she shares with us actually took place so when we find out what her sociopathic friend, his father and a German Art Gallery owner have in common, our jaws drop. Similarly, her experience of living in a cult in Kent is as entertaining as it is intriguing, including how her Christianity may have been responsible for securing Scott Morrison the position of Prime Minister of our country.


There’s a great flow to Fox’s storytelling, she never rushes to get to the next point and while there’s a few instances where she stumbles over her words - most likely due to being the second time she’s ever performed this very personal show - she maintains a balanced rhythm and tone. The ending occurs quite abruptly though, so work is required on that to ensure all the narrative threads come together to guide us into a natural conclusion.

The Rapture Chapter II: Art vs Extinction review | Finucane & Smith | fortyfivedownstairs

Once upon a time, an Ice Queen lived in a cave covered in long hanging icicles and haunting ghost nets. Her tale is one that captivates the entire room and so begins Finucane & Smith's follow up to the smashing success of The Rapture and its exploration of art, culture, life and extinction, The Rapture Chapter II: Art vs Extinction. 

Finucane is an expert storyteller, seamlessly merging fairy tale, pop culture and brutal truths into her stories, which incorporates her recent trip she took to Antarctica. Her transformation from one persona to another is incredible to watch as she raises issues around fracking, animal extinction and rising sea levels that come straight from her heart. These stories are shared to motivate us to work together to ensure the planet is not worse off than how we found it.

Make Me A Houri review

In Islamic religion, Muslim men who die as "believers" are rewarded with 72 beautiful perpetual virgins as wives in heaven. These women are known as houris. In Emina Ashman's Make Me A Houri, two women who meet in the afterlife begin to question and confront how religion and society view and use their bodies and their spirits. 

Ashman creates some moving poetry with her story of these two women as they come to grapple with their own desire and the expectations placed upon them. Regardless how confronting the topics discussed are, through her considered and open dialogue, she allows the audience to lower their guard and be drawn into what is transpiring. Where this story comes up short is that the characters are largely unchanged throughout it. There is no build up to anything climatic or revelatory and the women remain static as they recall personal experiences that lead into deeper philosophical analysis.

Hand to God review

In Hand To God, members of a Christian church in a small Texas town are preparing to put on a puppet show, however when a demonic sock puppet possesses a performer's hand, everyone's inner thoughts and intentions are brutally revealed. Billed as an irreverent and filthy comedy that is the love child of The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q, Hand To God spends so much of its time trying to shock its audiences that it fails to create characters we care about, or a story that grabs us. 

Director Gary Abrahams has gathered together a formidable cast led by the brilliant Alison Whyte as Margery, who gets herself into all sorts of situations while attempting to prepare for the puppet show. Gyton Grantley, Jake Speer and Morgana O'Reilly remain highly committed to the teenage characters of Jason, Timothy and Jessica but the script can't decide if they are ignorant and self-absorbed teens or intuitive young people. Grant Piro as Pastor Greg is the most defined and consistent character in the show, and subsequently his performance is as close to a realistic performance as we can expect in a story around puppet possession.

Next Fall review

Being in love is never easy. Geoffrey Naufft's Next Fall tells the story of Adam and Luke, a gay couple who begin a relationship spanning five years before tragedy strikes when Luke is hit by a car. Opening with Luke's friends, family and Adam gathering at a hospital waiting room to hear news on his outcome, the story flashes back to various moments in the lives of Adam and Luke and those closest to them.

Each flashback builds on 40 year old Adam's (Darrin Redgate) frustration with where his life is heading, and Luke's (Mark Davis) attempts to reconcile his sexuality with his Christian faith. Redgate does a capable job as the neurotic candle-seller who seems to subconsciously be attempting to self-sabotage his chances at ever finding happiness, even when it's staring at him right in the face. Davis evokes a naive self-assuredness in Luke with regards to his dogmatic beliefs but he is also able to bring out a warmth and kindness to him as his relationship with Adam grow.

The Rapture review | Finucane & Smith | fortyfivedownstairs

Any show created by Moira Finucane is going to be visually arresting and have people in awe by what they have witnessed. Her new show, The Rapture, is no exception as she grapples with the themes of art, extinction and the space in between through a variety of storytelling, live art performances and a whole lot of heart.

Finucane's strong storytelling skills are evident as she has us hanging of her every word. It's a shame however that the sound was not always up to scratch, with moments where we are unable to hear what Finucane is saying. Her recollections of her time in Chile and France are fascinating and linked in well with the performances. "A Sunny Afternoon" is a breathtaking act, and a personal favourite, where Finucane makes a powerful statement about our expectations and idealisation of beauty and women in society. This non-verbal piece is paired with U2’s hit song "With or Without You" and its gradual fierce impact is easily felt throughout the audience.

The Orchid and the Crow review | Theatre Works

Our twenties are generally spent figuring out who we are and what we want to get out of life. At 29, Daniel Tobias just wanted to live. Diagnosed with stage-four testicular cancer, with stage five being death, Tobias faced a long and scary battle, and despite the cancer having spread to his abdomen, lungs and neck at one point, it has been a battle he has been winning for the last twelve years. In The Orchid and the Crow, Tobias retells significant moments from this experience through a variety of songs, music and performance.

From the instant he appears on stage, it would be hard not to like Tobias. He is very affable and while there is a cheeky grin to him, there is also a vulnerability that he displays to the audience. Moreover, the show’s constant dynamic style and story switching – from a rock song about his parents falling in love to a retelling of how he was diagnosed to even an ode to his fallen testicle in Italian – keeps his audience engaged the whole time.

Faith | Eli Matthewson | Melbourne International Comedy Festival interview

A wise man (George Michael) once said, "'cause I've got to have faith". Eli Matthewson had that. The New Zealand comedian grew up in a devoted Christian household but eventually turned his back on Jesus for a life of "guilt-free sinning". His show at this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Faith, recounts his journey from being a believer to a non-believer.

"My family were pretty conservative when I was growing up - 5 kids, Christian family driving around in a van listening to Christian cassettes. I sung in the church band, and my first ever play was a show set in a Virtual Reality Basketball world which we did for Sunday Schools," he says. "I was never really "feeling it" though, and showed up mainly for performance opportunities. I went to Church less for Jesus and more so I could try and be the centre of attention. I stopped going in High School and now I have no religion, just a constant looming fear of death!"

Bad Jews review

Already a hit on Broadway and the West End, Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews has crossed continents for its Australian premiere. The “bad Jews” here are three family members, siblings Jonah and Liam, and their cousin Diana (who prefers to be called by her Hebrew name Daphna) who have come together for the funeral of their grandfather. Over the course of the evening, their relationships, cultural identity, class and life are all explored, often with hilarious results. 

Daphna (Maria Angelico) is not concerned with any form of financial gain from her late grandfather, and all she requests from her cousins (Simon Corfield and Matt Whitty) is her grandfather's “chai”, a gold ring that represents his soul, that he had since he was a child. While this "simple" request soon creates much tension for the three, it creates an equal amount of laughs for us.