The coolest shows heating up the Melbourne Fringe Festival

Arts House, Oct 16-18

Sex Education scribe, comedian and performance artist Krishna Istha and their partner Logan Rea want to start a family, but neither of the trans power couple produces sperm. So they’ve made a whole show about searching for a donor. Istha will intimately grill already signed-up Melbourne Fringe-goers live on stage, drawing from their list of 400-plus assessment questions – some physical, some spiritual, others seriously camp. It’s the birth of something brilliant.

Northcote Town Hall Arts Centre, Oct 8-18

Fresh from A Nighttime Travesty at the Malthouse, an “exhilarating descent into the wreckage of colonialism,” Kamarra Bell-Wykes and Carly Sheppard are back with a new work this Fringe that blows up the joint afresh. Featuring Birra Gubba, Wakka Wakka, South Sea Islander guest star Alexis West as the divine Blak Creator, and an audience with whom might be exactly what Sheppard’s Master needs to blast through writer’s block in a show that’s sure to be mythologically mirthful. 

Trades Hall, Oct 1-12

Tom Ballard steps back from politically charged stand-up to wow us with his nascent playwriting skills. Already garlanded with a Midsumma Festival Award for work in progress, The Queer Kingdom, his latest stage show features himself, Jordan Barr, Nicky Barry, Tiana Hogben and Kevin Hofbauer as comedians waiting backstage when they learn a titan of the industry has carked it. A darkly comic piece directed by Ben Russell, it poses the curly Q: Is it enough that millions found a bigoted dude funny?

Theatre Works, Oct 14-18

Did you know that in 1961, before Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind, a group of rabble-rousing women dubbed the First Lady Astronaut Trainees, aka Mercury 13, underwent the gruelling training required to prove they could qualify for NASA’s astronaut program. Only NASA didn’t want a bar of women in space. Directed by Felicia Lannan and Tess Walsh from a script by Natalie Frijia, this death-defying circus act honours the heroes who didn’t need permission to soar, challenging us all to aim higher.

Meat Market, Oct 14-18

From the moment we haul ourselves up from the floor, humans are drawn to dance. HORSE founder and award-winning choreographer Wei-Chia Su understands it’s a joy not reserved for the young. As part of Fringe Focus Taiwan, he’s collaborated with local dancers aged 60-plus to create a dance work deserving of their long and storied lives. Also catch pop-up performances of Su’s paper-wrapped dance work, Grand Canyon, at various spots including the Fringe Flavours Night Market.

Trades Hall, Oct 1-12

Ever felt like the crushing grind of your longer-than-9-to-5 job isn’t worth it? If so, this form-exploding work of participatory theatre will validate your silent screams into the workplace politics void. Written and directed by Nathan Ellis, co-creator of award-winning UK outfit Subject Object, the show spews the script from a printer as volunteers build their own set from Jenga-style blocks. The ultimate in outsourcing labour, you are the star! Also check out their laceration of the AI theft machine, Instructions.

Meat Market, Sep 30-Oct 11

If you loved the energetic mayhem of Pony Cam’s Burnout Paradise, then slip into your finest athleisurewear and head to this sweat-inducing Fringe show created by celebrated Danish queer arts outfit, Himherandit. Halfway between a dancercise class and delirium-induced physical theatre, it pushes a five-strong ensemble to their limits, like Busby Berkeley on steroids. As community dancers join in the mayhem to kick it up a notch, you’ll be champing at the bit to join in.

Southbank Theatre, Oct 13-18

Recently crowned Best Performance in a Musical in Time Out Sydney’s Arts & Culture Awards, pianist, performer and lyricist Vidya Makan isn’t content with simply starring in musicals; she also writes them. Co-created with director Sonya Suares and choreographed by Amy Zhang, this MTC co-pro with Fringe features all-new numbers with a nod to everyone from Kylie to Baker Boy, probing what it means to be Australian at precisely the right time to counter protests against our proudly multicultural makeup.

Trades Hall, Oct 15-19

Your body is a canvas, but tattoos are exxy and the rent’s due. Well, this affordable night out at Fringe also gets you brand new ink for nada. The award-winning Rawcus Ensemble, comprised of artists with diverse minds and bodies, has spun a whole show around one audience member being tattooed live on stage by artist Xani Kennedy. The trick? You get to choose where the uniquely devised design will go, but not what it will be. Are you up for placing your skin in the game?

Meat Market, Sep 30-Oct 18

No, this isn’t a rerun of Malthouse Theatre’s Daphne Du Maurier adaptation, but it might also be the end of everything. Panic not! On the Beach this is not, as Green Room Award winners Sons Of Stratford – aka Sarah Stafford and Alex Hines – deliver generous dollops of chaotic fun along with their dystopian unravelling. So slip, slap, slop yourself silly as five-time divorcee Shayna and bestie Beverley roll out the beach towels and studiously ignore the birds dropping from the sky as the water inexorably rises…