Reviews: Melbourne Fringe Festival 2023

If watching an arts grant application’s arcane and inscrutable complexities in real-time – complete with the attached Excel budget spreadsheet – isn’t your idea of a gripping thriller, think again! 

Pony Cam, the absolute lunatic mayhem-makers behind the award-winning theatre show Grand Theft Theatre, are here to prove you will shriek, hide behind your fingers in excruciating anticipation and exasperatedly snort-laugh while figuring out if a risk assessment matrix is required, who has their RSA sorted, and if there is a way you can get a town mayor involved in a flyover. 

This is partly because the genius curtain pull of the five-star klaxon-sounding Burnout Paradise reveals just how ridiculously tortuous the hoops your average starving artist has to leap through while begging cap in hand for no-doubt meagre funds, all to provide our low-cost, high-thrills entertainment in a bewildering behemoth like the Melbourne Fringe Festival. 

It’s also because the cast of four most likely to have a heart attack before the end of the run – Claire Bird, Hugo Williams, Dominic Weintraub and William Strom – take it in turns to tackle this Sisyphean soul trap on the backs of four expensive-to-hire treadmills (they couldn’t afford eight to keep up with OK Go’s pop video masterclass for ‘Here It Goes Again’). But the internecine vagaries of navigating local government bureaucracy are the least of their collective worries. 

In under an hour, one of the most frenetically uproarious shows of gloriously demented ecstasy you will ever experience also tasks these four horse folks of the admin apocalypse with:

• Cooking a three-course meal complete with boiling water and hot oil 
• Staging a heartfelt performance piece relating to their childhood
• Completing a fairly heft list of seemingly mundane tasks replete with plenty of props

None should be tackled while sweating your body weight out at some clap on an occasionally oil-slicked travelator, all to amass a hefty combined kilometre tally. This is why fifth ensemble member Ava Campbell is far smarter, playing the tally scorer mid-thesis writing while her dehydration-challenged buddies fast approach heat death. 

It’s sheer bedlam in the most magnificent way, with the very nature of the show meaning the impending disaster trail will unravel wildly differently every night, in line with chaos theory. Plenty of valiant punters who need little encouragement step in to assist (no one is forced to, if you fear the spectre of audience participation), all to try and prevent the wheels from falling off. As your boggling eyes settle on one nigh-on impossible mission – be it a whirlwind Hamlet monologue, death-defying interpretative dance number or a spot of handmade pasta prep plus cucumber squishing – you’ll undoubtedly avert your gaze only to spy the tail end of an inexplicably hilarious occurrence elsewhere. 

The only solution is to go hard and go often, snapping up repeat tickets while praying to the gods of “How did this pass OHS?” mischief that the Pony Cam-ers and their intrinsically twisted grant applications prevail. Because in this rapidly collapsing world of ours, inspirationally creative heroes are putting their heart, soul and relatively easy-to-snap limbs, actually, on the line like this priceless. Unlike venue hire. 

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

The fraught love triangle playing out in Dirt writer Angus Cameron’s latest knotty work, For Love Nor Money, is physically demarcated by the cool blue lines of three pale blue neon tubes arranged in a literal triangle. In the intimate space of the Trades Hall Meeting Room, this pointed arena serves to highlight not only the push and pull of three competing lovers and their conflicting agendas, but also suggests the chilly hue frosting the hearts of those who can manipulate another soul in their most unguarded, vulnerable and near-naked moments of longing.

Not that anyone’s entirely innocent in this bracingly zippy work of tightly composed and delivered dialogue and non-linear noodling that constantly upends your assumptions of who’s after what, why and when. A dashingly handsome, top-knotted Alexander Lloyd plays open-hearted poet Liam. He’s dating emerging filmmaker Mel, depicted by a commanding Clarisse Bonello who has the air of a Margot Robbie or Greta Gerwig type in this contemporary riff on Harold Pinter’s classic text Betrayal.

With her sights set firmly on kicking her career into high gear in Los Angeles, he worries about how realistic success is and how far their non-existent savings can stretch in a town littered with shattered dreams. Breaching this do-si-do of a tête-à-tête is a slippery Matthew Connell slickly and icily presenting political operative Ryan. Used to navigating backroom deals and plausibly deniable back-stabbing for both the (unnamed) Party and personal advancement, it checks out that he’s the mercenary making a ram raid for Mel’s attentions on the eve of her and Liam leaving town. Perhaps his position and financial backing can help pave her path towards that golden Oscar? Or maybe there’s more to this than meets the eye.

No power play is quite that transparent in these emotionally shifting sands adroitly directed by Justin Nott (Variations or Exit Music) and presented by Victorian Theatre Company. That cold, rigid blue triangle is flanked by two clothes racks laden with costumes, which Nott and fellow set designer Alisha Abate cleverly deploy to signal the chess manoeuvres at play here by having each of the performers strip and don new skins at crucial junctures. Generally playing out as a two-hander at any one time, the third player not involved in any given moment sits on a chair at one of the triangle’s brittle points, observing unseen the moments beyond their literal grasp within the work.

Being confronted by what you would never say in front of another person is a remarkable way to play with our heartstrings and what our desires betray. Cameron’s For Love Nor Money is an exhilarating new work with a lot to say in under one hour that cracks along at a thrilling, Aaron Sorkin-like pace thanks to Nott’s deft direction and an impressive ensemble on top of this duplicitous game. When the situation transforms for Mel, the shift is just as stark for Liam and Ryan in an erotically charged work that challenges gender dynamics and sexual boundaries as we leap through the gaps of this twirling triumvirate in which anyone can be cut by broken glass at a moment’s notice.

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

The spectacles you’ll witness as an audience member at Melbourne Fringe Festival are unlimited by the bounds of imagination. So while you probably wouldn't expect to observe four people performing uncannily realistic imitations of snails, it should also come as no surprise. Snail impressions are a small part of Stickybeak, a hilariously accurate snapshot of Aussie suburbia, complete with rotting fruit, dog poo and a rogue chicken.

This raucous physical comedy show is set in the front yards of three houses and depicts the daily interactions between nosy neighbours that we all recognise – you know, bin night discussions, marvelling in jealousy at front yard roses and grimacing about unruly dogs. The cast of four masterfully shapeshift between dozens of classic archetype characters: the elderly European man who’s obsessed with his fruit trees; his wife who spies on the rest of the street; the young family whose kids won’t stop screaming; and the gaggle of perky women in their weekly jogging group.

Performers Kimberley Twiner, Jessie Ngaio, Laura Trenerry and Patrick Dwyer nail every single one, down to the minute details. The dialogue is sparse – it’s not needed to signpost which character is on stage (although some simple costume changes help with that) or even what’s transpiring between them, because the impressively nuanced physicality of each actor does most of the talking. A sequence between two pre-pubescent teenagers where the dialogue is little more than “‘sup?” has the audience in stitches. The chuckling from the sold-out crowd is a constant throughout the show, and it’s a testament to the foursome's comedic expertise. It’s incredible to watch how the same performer, in a matter of seconds, transitions seamlessly from playing a dribbling toddler to a grumpy old woman, sparking laughter with both characters. 

Despite the show’s recreation of life’s ordinary moments, the scenes that make up this performance are far from ordinary. Highlights include an epileptic dog named Psycho, brawling cats and dog shit wiped on a white picket fence (and a yuppy mother’s musical moment after breaking her nail while cleaning it up). It sounds very silly – and it is, but the silliness works and the audience laps it up. It’s classic Aussie humour, but reinvented – if you took parts of Kath and Kim and The Castle and turned it into a physical comedy show, you've essentially got Stickybeak.

The best bit is that the audience feels like they’re part of the neighbourhood, too, with cheeky aside glances from the performers breaking the fourth wall and bringing them in on the jokes. 

If you missed out on seeing Stickybeak at Melbourne Fringe Festival this year, don’t fret. Word on the grapevine is that the show will be back for a return season soon, so continue eavesdropping and keep your eyes peeled for more details to come. 

It’s about time theatre and sport resolve their differences. The long-warring pair have more in common than they realise. If they can’t bury the hatchet, Bloomshed’s uproarious new show, A Dodgeball Named Desire, has a recommendation: they could lob some red balls at one another/

Bloomshed has quickly distinguished itself as one of Melbourne’s premier independent companies with its radical reimaginings of various literary classics – earlier this year, its high-octane production of Animal Farm proved a runaway success. This time, the creative crew have set their sights on Tennessee Williams' 1947 classic A Streetcar Named Desire, moving from their usual home in Northcote Town Hall to convert fortyfivedownstairs into an Olympic-style stadium. It’s soliloquies versus sweat and grand slams versus spotlights in this bombastic battle royale destined to make you laugh and occasionally flinch.

Williams (Tom Molyneux) himself is our umpire, emerging from a bedazzled bathtub to describe the rules of the game. It’s a dodgeball tournament like no other. The reward? Bragging rights and an Arts Australia grant. In one corner there’s Southern belle, Blanche DuBois.

Her skills include having a tragic backstory, haunted eyes and a white gown pulled from "the bargain bin of Opera Australia" (the costumes by Samantha Hastings, who doubles as the on-site medic, are beautifully rendered). Played by three performers (Elizabeth Brennan, Laura Aldous and Anna Louey) with an exaggerated Southern drawl, DuBois projectile vomits, gives monologues and fans herself in the New Orleans heat. On the other side, there’s Stanley Kowalski and his team. They’re just trying to win a dodgeball game, really. 

This is a skillful troupe of performers at the peak of their powers and they’ve managed to pack a lot into an hour. In between the dodgeball matches there are romantic side plots, press-conference apologies and a Kate Bush-inspired half-time show all underscored by haunting New Orleans jazz and anthemic pop hits. Unpredictable and often violent, the rounds of dodgeball are rollicking good fun. And, if you’re game, there’s an opportunity to try your hand at a match. 

Still, it’s not as slick as the company’s previous hits. The reason the team has chosen Williams' script is unclear, apart from it working as an easy shorthand for theatre and its pretensions. Moments when Blanche seemed to force the game into her theatrical world view – demanding ‘blue lighting’ or breaking all pretense to attack Williams for the way she’s been written – were electric. But the show is ultimately quite thin thematically. 

More could be made of the team of athletes. The two warring camps share more than they’d care to admit. Watch a ref disagree with a player, and there’ll be theatrics in no time. A dramatic post-show interview or violent kick-off with the umpire was a camp testament to sport’s inherent love of theatrical spectacle. But these are minor quibbles for a show that has charm and wit in spades, and is grounded by an ensemble that works together like a well-oiled machine.

By the end, there’s only one Blanche DuBois left standing. Alone, she rallies against a sea of red rubber balls, the archetypical Williams underdog. It’s a surprisingly affecting moment, and the show smartly chooses to play it straight. Nestled in a tight spotlight, her final monologue rises above the show’s ironic premise to offer a touch of theatrical magic. Even if she’s lost the game, she’s won the war. 

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

There’s an air of anticipation as the voluminous velvet curtain is pulled back on the pop-up performance space that is the Meat Market’s transformation into the Blak Lodge for this year’s Melbourne Fringe, illuminated by a neon pink ‘Wominjeka’ (welcome, come in purpose) sign. We are the glorious fallen, and we’re here to bow down and confess at the altar of the deliciously queer and First Nations Deadly Sinners.

A burlesque-style show brimming with fabulously gender-blurring drag and circus acts, it assembles a mighty ensemble of LGBTQIA+ Blak performers, each inhabiting one of the seven cardinal sins. We’re led into this sacrilegious spectacle by the deep-in-the-soul belly rumbling voice of Gudang, Meriam and Saibai Koedal comedian Jay Wymarra, dressed in black punctuated by a priest’s dog collar, as he sings a hymn-like call to pray for our sins. Inhabiting a much wickeder character who abuses his clerical power, he stops the show at one point to note that if a Blak person next to you laughs, it’s okay to join in. He’s relishing the opportunity to push the audience, even if his true jovial nature occasionally breaks free with a cheeky sparkle and a laugh that draws an open-hearted embrace.

As our emcee for the eve, his baritone-glowing job is to usher in a magnificent array of proud performers that dazzle with erotically charged dance, death-defying stunts and fabulously outré comedy. Wiradjuri, Gamilaro “aggressively queer” trans star Kitty Obsidian lays down their life on a pile of broken glass wearing little more than nipple tassels and a G-string, a consummate performer at the top of their game who commands the stage and our attention in a glittering turn. Wakka Wakka woman Bizzi Body is equally adept at the art of the tease with a fantastic physical performance boldly undressed to confess, working Aboriginal flag fans with unrivalled finesse.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under contestant Jojo Zaho, a Biripi and Worimi wonder from Awabakal Country, comes packing a remarkable buffet of brilliance stashed in her sheer black gown and a fine line in gastronomically inclined lip-synching that’s set to the tune of a not-quite Whitney Houston classic. Both Miss First Nation 2019 winner Chocolate Boxx, a Dunghutti, Bungalung, and Kamilaroi star, and Mother of the Doll Haus Brandi show how it’s done and then some, with their twirl and swirl dance sets raised on towering heels bringing all the squeals. Fellow Miss First Nation Supreme Queen 2023 Cerulean is a powerhouse, as is the supreme singing voice of the supremely stylishly attired Joocee, who matches the marvellous melodiousness of Wymarra.

All in all, when you take in the queer Blak brilliance of these seven deadly sinners, why on earth would you want to be good? Because they’re too great at being baaaaaad. Sometimes you have to roll with it and surrender to the spirit of the show.

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

If your show is powered by unashamed exhibitionism and unapologetic silliness, you'd better be all in. Garry Starr is certainly that and, considering how little clothing he wears throughout the course of this show, all out too. 

In Greece Lightning, Starr (the stage name of Damien Warren-Smith) runs the gamut of Greek mythology with clowning of the highest order, cerebral enough for those steeped in the stories but entirely accessible to everyone else. 

His superpower is his sincerity, delivering aren’t-I-clever wordplay about the classics while flexing a remarkable physique yet somehow keeping the crowd on his side throughout. His vulnerability and inimitable oddness add delight when playing lascivious characters. 

It also makes one wonder why he feels the need to employ babytalk and malapropisms while loosely framing the show as his effort to get people to visit ‘Greek’ as it struggles with its
"ergonomic progression", a bum note in an otherwise sharply written hour.

Wordplay plays a significant role, and Starr has the charm and energy to make even groan-worthy gear worthwhile while also nailing some vaudeville ‘who’s on first?’-type material. The show moves at a cracking pace too, with some sketches blink-and-you’ll-miss-them or entirely - and impressively - physical.  

Props are handed out early in the piece and there is quite a bit of audience interaction, but all are relatively gentle and in good fun. If you’re in any way amenable to this type of idiocy you’ll have little to fear, and all participants were admirably game and seemed to enjoy themselves. 

It’s somewhat unfortunate that this is playing in an airy tent at 6pm when it has been such a success in more intimate late-night venues through other festivals, but to Starr’s credit, he transcends the venue’s limitations and keeps energy levels high throughout a raucous and undeniable hour. 

A show-off to be sure, but what a show. 

Unless you have the bank account of a Murdoch, Palmer or Reinhart, there’s a certain kind of dread most of us feel when an email/SMS arrives alerting us to a MyGov message. That creeping suspicion that the Australian Taxation Office wants an unreasonable whack of funds you might not have to hand.

Which is why the biggest laugh of the night, when burlesque circus act Le Freak took to the Trades Hall ballroom stage, came when one of these instant anxiety-inducing missives popped up on the giant screen behind the performers, accompanied by the piercing strings shriek of a particular classic horror movie’s unforgettable score. 

It’s a neat audio-visual joke paired to perfection with a running gag about the oddly staccato music of Australian government bodies and the interminable wait to get through to an NDIS operator that also flashes up from time to time.

Le Freak is a sharply fun show about the many banal ways starving artists and people with disabilities are failed in this country. Except queerer, with more puppet ferrets and walking on literal broken glass than usual. A mash-up of exploitation movies, cabaret, circus and the lycra-clad performative hijinks of wrestling, Le Freak is led by a revolving cavalcade of stars.

The night we reviewed, the fabulous quartet included magnificently named drag clown Themme Fatale, a dab hand at remaining unpunctured by a bed of nails, and the wowzas sword-swallowing prowess of Elle Diablo. Former Paralympic swimmer turned prime hula hoop-swirler Sarah Birdgirl smashes assumptions about her legal blindness while whip-cracking party starter Bella de Jac knows how to work the room. Oh, and then there’s the aforementioned ferret, a real scene-stealer.

Troopers, one and all, they admirably powered on when technical issues silenced most of their mics. No mean feat, given the pounding club music accompanying this high-energy show that satirises what it takes to thrive in the arts when funds are short, and the hoops to leap through to get support are onerous. Clearly, they’re fighters.

If the storytelling isn’t quite as tight as it could be this early in the Melbourne Fringe run, there’s still plenty to love. That fear of MyGov pings and strung-out NDIS wait times is a spot-on through-line, bolstered by a staunch unionist message of artist solidarity. There’s also a grand piss-take of corporate pinkwashing, of middle management types wanting pats on the back for showing up to Midsumma while squashing the gloriously out-there elements of queer liberation. The sort who talk up bare minimum lip service accessibility while talking over performers with disability. 

These sassy sideswipes are relayed via amusingly awful video call interruptions by box-ticking suited shills (Elle Diablo and Themme Fatale in a different kind of drag) appearing on the big screen, who mangle the use of "slay" and mispronounce the rainbow alphabet acronym, with the latter faux pas mooshing into a genuinely hysterical highlight of the night. 

Le Freak is a riot against conformity that reclaims the freak show as a powerful call for genuine inclusion while delivering a real good time, all for way less money than dastardly MyGov probably wants.

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

They say you should never go to sleep angry, but if you never go to sleep in the first place surely you can stay as angry as you like? At least, this seems to be the logic for cabaret artist and life-long insomniac, Telia Nevile.

Her new one-woman show, Insomniac Mixtape is an ode to the sleep-deprived and anxious; to sleepless nights spent overthinking and mornings spent over-caffeinated.

We follow Nevile for over fifty minutes as she tries everything to fall asleep: visualization, deep breathing, True Crime podcasts. But, "like a raccoon watching fairy floss dissolve in a puddle", every attempt fails, and she goes from counting sheep to wanting to shoot them down. 

Nevile has been quietly delivering award-winning cabaret performances here and abroad for years. Her shows are fun, charming, if at times unremarkable, productions elevated by tight storytelling and well-crafted songs that dabble in every genre from Lofi ballad to garage rock. As a writer, Nevile has a poet’s eye for rhythm and metaphor cut with a comedian’s talent for wordplay. For Insomniac Mixtape’s soundtrack, she has enlisted the help of long-time music partner James Dowell. But while well-crafted and occasionally charming, the show is under-directed and ultimately falls flat. 

In 2021, Nevile made the transition to online theatre seamlessly with her show, Little Monster. On screen, it seemed as if she was speaking directly to you. The intimacy that resulted was key to the show’s success. Insomniac Mixtape, too, is available via Fringe On Demand as an audio piece. But Nevile struggles to achieve a similar intimacy in person. The moments of direct address which open the show are calm and engaging; a perfect showcase of Nevile’s earnest delivery and innate likeability that paints her as the personalised ASMR track coaxing you to sleep. Her quiet approach to breaking the fourth wall works in aid of the show’s commendable investment in Sensory Friendly practices while also creating an alluring atmospheric quality that recalls the peculiar air and stillness of those twilight hours. 

But for the rest of the show, Nevile is noticeably low-energy. She delivers each number almost completely still, centre stage, ignoring opportunities to engage the audience or hesitating when the script requires her to. The show begins to feel unhelpfully sluggish as a result; drowsy rather than dream-like. Her boisterous, high-energy songs - featuring a garage rock lament for a snoring partner, an ode to naval gazing and a synth-heavy anthem for all those who kill their house plants - seem unhelpfully muted. Despite catchy choruses and top-tapping melodies, these numbers struggle to hold our attention.

The one exception is an energetic final number dedicated to insomniac ‘zombies’. All of a sudden, Nevile revels in dance breaks and audience interaction. But it’s too little too late, and we’re left reminded of the show’s many missed opportunities - frustrated and a bit sleepy.

Looking for more things to see at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.

The inveterately political Tom Ballard has delivered many ‘urgent’ comedy shows in his time, but none more timely than this offering inspired by a referendum that is now just days away.

In fact, this show is not entirely about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice vote but concerns itself more with the strikingly miserable success rate of referenda in Australia. 

If you’re as across your constitutional history as this reviewer is (i.e. not at all), it turns out that this country does not like change. Not one bit. A derisory amount of suggested amendments that have been put to the people have succeeded, and if it happens to be a Labor government asking the question, the answer has almost always been: ‘Nah’. 

The show’s title does not lie: this is a lecture. A now clichéd criticism of a comedy show that employs multimedia aspects is that it resembles a TED talk. This is not that (I haven’t watched them all, but I don’t think you’re treated to many images of niche erotic acts or animal penises in a TED talk), but it’s not as far away as a comedy fan might hope. 

At the risk of offering what sounds like the faintest praise imaginable, Ballard is an excellent user of PowerPoint, as demonstrated in his barnstorming 2021 Comedy Festival show that breathlessly covered the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and climate change in the space of an hour. 

This does not have anything like the breakneck pace of that show as Ballard attempts to make some extremely dry government machinations digestible in a relatively - by his own firebrand standards - sedate manner. He does his best to keep the gags rolling, but when he’s leaning on the aforementioned sex and genital pics to break things up, you begin to appreciate the degree of difficulty. 

Ballard’s noble effort to bust pervasive myths and deliver frustrating truths to a generally history-averse population is admirable, and it's tempting to wish that this could have been the basis for a TV show that could reach a wider audience than a small crowd of politically-adjacent sympathisers. Of course, that would struggle to find a home for obvious political reasons and necessitate some sanding off its sharper edges, a requirement the increasingly strident Ballard may not be keen to entertain. 

What has been achieved here is a genuinely fascinating and uncompromising show that carefully exposes a maddening tendency by the powers that be to make meaningful change in this country as difficult as possible. But even Ballard’s formidable talents struggle to spin subject matter this dusty into consistent comedy gold.

JK is a best-selling author, mother and playwright, and for legal reasons, bears no resemblance to anyone that might spring to mind. She’s here to be interviewed about a new book in her famous 'Harry Parker' series, The Magical Maps of Muster McMiggleston.

Interviewing her is journalist Matilda Quinn (Sasha Chong); a transwoman, Superwholock fan, and last-minute replacement for comedian Benjamin Law, who either has food poisoning or is outside protesting the interview. 

We all know what Anna Piper Scott’s new show, An Evening with JK is about. And unfortunately, we all know why it might be interesting for a transwoman like Scott to play her. In many ways, that’s part of the problem.

A once beloved children’s author who is now so ubiquitous with hate that she exists as a kind of shorthand for a worldwide backlash against trans people. What makes her transphobia so insidious is that it’s packaged as something else: feminism, the woes of cancel culture, a personal concern for children.

Fresh off the success of sold-out runs of her Anna Piper Scott: Such An Inspiration at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and Edinburgh Fringe, Scott pokes through these disguises to expose the reality of the transphobia that underpins them. It’s her first ‘straight’ play; a simple two-hander, like Frost/Nixon if it were staged at a literary festival. 

Never one to shy away from complex topics, Scott is unflinching in her examination of various transphobic talking points. She spends an hour asking what the end goal of anti-trans rhetoric is, burning strawmen left, right and centre to expose the harsh truths left in the ashes. It’s confronting but it’s also incredibly funny, with Scott’s signature brand of irony used to laugh at the often absurd logic that underpins transphobia. But the show isn’t perfect. It needs more work to navigate the complex tonal shifts of its content. 

Matilda Quinn is the ideal interviewer – calm, collected, and empathetic. She’s the more earnest counterpoint to a wry Scott, and is saddled with back-to-back, often self-serious monologues. It could be a boring role in a lesser actor’s hands, but Chong handles it well. All the same, her character can be frustrating. By the end, you want her to crack just a little; to fracture her well-controlled veneer and answer fire with fire. A tense "fuck you" to an audience applauding JK was a magnetic glimpse into trans anger. 

Scott has acknowledged that An Evening with JK is a show intended for a "broad audience". Its content will be confronting for trans audience members who are effectively asked to sit and watch common transphobic talking points thrown at them with little reprieve. But tidbits seemingly intended for trans audiences – JK’s gender euphoria while using a male pen name, or Quinn’s deeply affecting description of coming out as an opening of a closet into a mansion full of possibilities – were lovingly received.

But over time, punchlines are overshadowed by the hard reality of transphobia, and laughter seems to catch in the throat, an effect the show doesn’t quite know what to do with. Even a mention of Nazis standing outside the theatre in wait is played casually, peppered with jokes. Tonally, it’s odd, leaving many in the audience unhelpfully shaken.

In the end, JK leaves the stage, pointing out to the audience as if they’re her "loyal" fans. There’s a delicious irony to the gesture that it was a shame to see the show didn’t make more of. A trans woman playing a transphobe calling out to an audience of mostly trans people to support her abuse? Someone should let the children's author know that this show is completely sold out, and they’re not coming to support her. 

Looking for more things to do at Fringe? Check out our list of the best theatre, comedy, weird and free events happening this year.