Railed - Melbourne Fringe Festival review

Four cowboys hole themselves up in a saloon in the Wild Wild West after a successful bank robbery. The celebrations get rowdier and more outrageous as their drinking continues and when your four gang members just happen to be highly accomplished circus performers you never quite know what they're going to do next. Railed is an exhilarating and unpredictable ride of acrobatics and strength with generous doses of laughter presented by Head First Acrobats. 

The show remains grounded in comedy while showcasing the troupe's talents and skills with acts like Harley Timmerman on the cyr wheel and Cal Harris and his incredible acrobatics on a free-standing ladder. AJ Saltalamacchia is hugely entertaining as the inebriated and stumbling robber, getting himself into strife with the other three members. The more these men drink, the more weird shit becomes, including the appearance of a flirtatious horse (Adam O’Connor-McMahon) in search of his unicorn.

Railed | Melbourne Fringe Festival interview

They brought us zombies earlier this year, and now circus troupe Head First Acrobats is bringing us a new cowboy inspired show that is bound to keep our eyes glued to the stage. Presented as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Railed, we follow four train robbing cowboys who hole themselves up in a bar to avoid the authorities, and it's this narrative driven circus that makes this company one of the more exciting ones to experience.


After the success of Elixir at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Head First Acrobats director, Thomas Gorham is eagerly anticipating the opportunity to get his cowboy boots on with Railed. "We wanted to create a fresher, bigger show that had our trademark style. We were looking for a theme with a lot of flexibility in the characters, something that was very well entrenched in popular culture," he explains. "In the end we decided on a western and it’s been incredibly popular with audiences. The success of the show relies not just on the skill of the performers, but on their charm and ability to engage with the audience. Railed is hilarious, spontaneous and at the same time highly polished and surprising."

Passenger review

Immersive theatre performances seem to be growing in Melbourne, and I could not be more thrilled about this. The latest offering devised by Jessica Wilson, Ian Pidd and Nicola Gunn is Passenger, a show that takes place on a moving bus that drives us through the streets of Southbank and the Docklands where we observe two strangers strike up a conversation.

It all begins innocently enough, but as the trip progresses the conversation steers towards something darker and sinister that culminates in a highly intense and somewhat surreal ending. Gunn's text drip-feeds information to us and the way that earlier shared stories or anecdotes are used to bring it all full circle are clever, surprising and make full use of the local infrastructure to build on the environment and tone of the story.