Bella Green Is Charging For It - Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Bella Green began working in the sex industry in 2003, with her first job at a peep show venue. Since then she’s worked in brothels, including a year in BDSM, and as a private sex worker. In Bella Green Is Charging For It, Green recalls her sex work experiences – both hilarious and bizarre – while highlighting the setbacks and frustrations of being in an industry that is not acknowledged as legitimate work and seeks to disempower those in it.

Green ensures that the stories she shares with us involve more than just herself standing behind a microphone and speaking. When she is telling the audience about her Centrelink fraud accusation, she creates a film noir environment with costumes and voice. Another scene plays out between her and a fellow sex worker watching TV and talking about their jobs as clients patiently wait in the next room. Her demonstration of the worst songs to strip to – including “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” – allows the audience a further glimpse into Green’s world. It is as much of a “show and tell” as possible with Bella Green Is Charging For It.

ménage - Melbourne Fringe Festival preview

I recently spoke to Ryan Good about two shows he will be performing during the Melbourne Fringe Festival: COSMOnaut and Stupid and Contagious. Well Good is also presenting a third show called ménage, which is an intimate look at the world of sex workers. The show is performed for only two people at a time and was written based on dialogue from interviews he had with sex workers in Edinburgh, London and Australia.

"The idea came to me while I was performing in Edinburgh in 2013.  I was in two shows with a tight turnaround so I used to cut through a back alley to save time and in that alley was a little door and a sign that said 'Sauna No. 61'," Good recalls. "I thought it would be interesting to set a show there, so I returned a few months later to begin the project and discovered that business and a lot of other sex work locations had been shut down due to new enforcement of laws cracking down on brothels.  That drove me to read more on what was happening there and I discovered lots of concern about the safety of the people in the industry, many of whom were now working on the streets or alone in flats.  Getting their issue heard was the initial driving force of the show."

From Whore to Eternity review | The Butterfly Club

Sex worker. Call girl. Prostitute. Hooker. Lady of the night. In From Whore to Eternity, tribute is paid to these women and the cultural effect they’ve had, through various films, songs and stories.

Ruth Katerelos and Heidi Weatherald play two sex workers who inform us and sing about “historical” women such as (Sweet) Charity, Mary Magdalene and Fantine, and how sex played a role in their lives.

The inherent problem with From Whore To Eternity is the writing. It would seem Cerise de Gelder is unable to find a balance between informing the audience and entertaining the audience. As such, we were bombarded with a number of scenes that were disjointed and clunky and struggled to retain our interest.