Queen Machine review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Queen Machine opens with Anna Lumb on a podium, performing a lively, high-energy hula hoop routine. She’s carefree, confident, and clearly loving the moment. But that was before she suffered a career-threatening injury - snapping her ankle clean off her leg. A full break. The only thing keeping her foot attached to her leg was skin and muscle. Ouch. Surgery followed, involving titanium implants to repair the damage.

In the aftermath, Lumb begins to reimagine her body as part-machine, “a post-human, fembot future”, as the show’s description promises. Unfortunately, that’s not quite what the audience ends up experiencing. Sure, the idea gets mentioned, but most of the show's time is spent elsewhere: on her painkiller dependency, surreal dreams featuring Patrick Swayze, and a newfound hobby of learning guitar. These detours dilute what could have been a sharp, provocative exploration of transformation and identity.

The Understudy review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trainscendence

Anyone who enters the acting industry longs for their big break - whether as a star, a supporting player, or a quirky character actor. But the harsh reality is that not everyone gets that moment in the spotlight. Sometimes, all you can do is settle for being the understudy. Written and performed by Eva Seymour, The Understudy is a wonderfully sharp, funny, and heartfelt look at the life of someone always waiting in the wings.

As we take our seats, it’s clear we’re in for an intense performance as our protagonist fervently reads Chekhov’s To the Actor - a manifesto urging actors to dig deep, be honest, and fully inhabit their roles. From there, the show spins into a whirlwind of backstage yearning, comic mishaps, and the obsessive and slightly dangerous drive of someone determined to shine, even if they are not centre stage.

I Promise This Isn’t About You (Even If It Feels Like It Is) review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

In your 20s, life is all about the drinking, the partying, and the sexing. In I Promise This Isn’t About You (Even If It Feels Like It Is), we are thrown into the deep end of a house party, but we only see what happens in its bathroom. It’s an intriguing concept, using the most private room in a house as the space where secrets and revelations are laid bare turning a place of privacy into one of exposure. At the same time, it allows for intimate and often hilarious glimpses into the chaos and vulnerability that the party hides behind closed (bathroom) doors.

The cast (Mads Lou, Jo Jabalde, Eliza Carlin, Reuby Chip, and Ally Long) have a strong chemistry and their character's shared histories are evident in how they speak and interact with one another. Their energies are complementary, and they move together with an organic ease  culminating in a fully realised friendship group.

Masterpiece review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Meat Market

Hanging up a piece of art shouldn't be too difficult. But when it involves two silent clowns, a live musician, and teamwork that is fittingly hanging by a thread, it quickly turns into a masterclass in chaos. Created and performed by Rae Colquhoun-Fairweather and Will Bartolo, Masterpiece is a highly entertaining hour of clowning, as these two art installers stretch a simple job into a nonstop parade of hilarious antics and escalating madness.
 
Colquhoun-Fairweather and Bartolo are an exceptional duo, working seamlessly together. At times, it feels like they are surprising each other with their choices and reactions, despite needing to be tightly scripted to ensure the show runs smoothly. They present their opposing roles brilliantly, without tipping into extreme stereotypes, and maintain the affectingly human, emotional beings that makes them so engaging.

Poems of a Transsexual Nature review | Melbourne Fringe Festival | Trades Hall

Cynda Beare is a trans, neurodiverse, Palawa artist and writer and performer of in Poems of a Transsexual Nature. The show tells the story of a young brotherboy who goes to Country for the first time and is forced to reckon with the past, the present, and the future, with plenty of uncertainty, epiphanies, and sex along the way. 

Beare gives a wonderfully committed portrayal of Apollo, capturing all the conflicting thoughts and emotions that are racing through his mind as he grapples with the power of returning to Country. The narrative is told as part confessional, part enacted scenes, and part burlesque, with each one doing well to support the other and enhance the story in ways the other two styles can't. 

That said, the piece could gain from a bit more direction and cohesion. It has a scattered quality that sometimes works to its advantage, but occasionally leaves you wishing for a steadier hand to guide it. I would’ve loved to see more of its poetic sensibility, those instances where language, imagery and emotion come together to illuminate Apollo’s arc. The references to the black cockatoo were especially powerful and grounded the work beautifully in ancestry and Country.