Joshua Hauville

The beloved Melbourne International Comedy Festival is well and truly in full swing, with more than 680 shows lighting up venues across the city. Phew, our abs are hurting already! With so many comedians to see and not enough time, we have sent out a batch of reviewers to dig deep and suss out the best of the fest this year. Whether it's a weird and wonderful show, a national treasure or a rising star, check out our reviews and see what tickles your fancy.  Want to review the show over a drink? Check out the best late-night bars in Melbourne.  

Among South Australia's many eclectic and exciting events, Adelaide Fringe stands proudly as the biggest festival of the calendar year, not to mention the largest arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere. In 2023, it made history as the first-ever Aussie festival to sell more than one million tickets, and has only gotten bigger since. Running from February 21 to March 23, the 2025 program features more than 6,000 global artists performing across 500 venues in an impressive 1,400-plus shows. Spanning from Whyalla across the state to Naracoorte and beyond, you can expect an incredible mix of cabaret, theatre, comedy, circus, music, visual arts, workshops and interactive experiences.  As always, The Garden of Unearthly Delights and Gluttony, have transformed Adelaide’s eastern parklands into buzzing hubs full of food, music and eclectic energy. Crowd favourites from 2024, including Sleeps Hill Tunnel and The Dome, will also return for an extended season, while 2025 brings hundreds of new shows to discover. Lucky for you, we’ve found all the best ones for you to book at Adelaide Fringe this year. Adelaide Fringe 2025: Everything you need to know before you go

Summer has come and gone, so you might be thinking that your opportunity to get a natural sun-kissed glow has passed, too – especially if you've had bad experiences with self-tanners leaving your skin streaky, stinky and orange. We get it, but there are some fabulous products out there, and to help you out, our team risked looking like Oompa Loompas to separate the wheat from the chaff.  We trialled products from Spray Aus, St Tropez, Isle of Paradise, Three Warriors and EleEffect – scroll for before and after photos and read about factors like ease of application, scent, longevity and colour outcome.  Spray Aus Clear Self-Tan Mousse Photograph: Leah Glynn Leah Glynn, Melbourne editor Ease of application: I used the Spray Aus mitt and it was the perfect buff for applying the thick and fluffy mousse. Despite my husband (and go-to tanning support person) being unavailable, I still managed to evenly apply the tan to some hard-to-reach sections of my back – mostly because the mousse spread so smoothly. The only tricky part is because the tan solution is clear, you can’t actually see on your skin where you’ve applied it. This leaves you at risk of missing spots or creating streaks, but I just made sure I was super thorough in my application: when in doubt, just go over your skin again with another layer. How did it feel on your skin: Really nice and light; I’ve been fake tanning (both at home and in-salon) for years now, and hate anything that leaves my skin feeling sticky, wet

Partying in Sydney can be a hit or a miss, especially for queer identifying folk. It’s easy to feel discouraged when venues created to cater to LGBTQIA+ community become overrun with squealing hens parties, glittery harnesses and hetero gogo dancers. However, if our recent visit to the Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art at Carriageworks tells us anything, it's that if you know where to look, there is plenty of grungy, alternative artistic flair sitting just beneath Sydney's flashy surface.  Day for Night was one such exception. Back for its sixth edition, the legendary queer party exhibiting wild peformance art, artists and DJs ran for a whopping 12 hours, transforming a giant warehouse space in Carriageworks into a Berlin-esque artistic haven that saturated the senses.  The legendary party experience had a splash of everything; including leather-clad men performing a razor blade shave, sparkly humans twirling for their lives with light-up hula hoops, and drag king sailors grinding beneath a flowing sail, all bathed in the persistent glow of a deep red light. All main performances were supported or followed by a variety of DJs, treating us to a range of EDM tracks and camp hits, finishing with the event's drivers, Stereogamous. Together, the queer musical duo comprised of Paul Mac and Jonny Seymour did all they could to create a queer community safespace.  A miniature version of Rush – the immersive art installation about the queer clubbing experience – added another laye

Reuben Kaye is bringing his loose late-night show back to Forum Melbourne for two queer, messy, fast and furious nights. We went along to one of last year's shows at the same venue – keep reading for our 2023 review of The Kaye Hole. An irresistible cocktail of spicy, sweet and sexy, Reuben Kaye’s variety extravaganza, The Kaye Hole, had us addicted from the first hit. We were welcomed into the holy church of Reuben Kaye with open arms and naked butts. It was a delayed service, with the audience on the edge of their seats, frothing with anticipation. However, we all know good things come to those who wait (and that we queer folk are fashionably never on time).  Smiling with a devilish grin, Kaye was hauled onto the Forum stage by “the tail of Satan”. The tail, in this instance, was a rope hooked under a man’s penis, and not the tail tucked into the back of Posie Parker’s pants. Dressed head-to-toe in a ravishing red, Kaye extended the official welcome to “his hole” with a sinfully-charged rendition of 'Celebrity Skin', met with symphonic praise.  Unlike many religious/cult leaders, Kaye’s moments were laced with candid self-awareness. Addressing his recent controversial appearance on The Project, he lamented that his longing for an illustrious television career was cut short. He cooed with exposed chapless cheeks, “baby did a boo boo”, and shamed the media for “crucifying a Jew this publicly so close to Easter”.  The Kaye Hole was a variety show true to its name, as all the a