What we’re looking forward to at Fringe World Festival 2019
Finally, FRINGE WORLD season is upon us once again! Here is a breakdown of some of the Fringe shows we are excited about. If you’re ready to see some serious talent, you’re in for a treat this year…
Theatre
Twin Peaks meets serial winner of the Scotsman Fringe First award at Edinburgh 2018. Following her grandmother’s death, a girl faces the overwhelming task of clearing out the basement. She discovers a series of mysterious tape recordings made by her grandmother and, as she listens to them, things start to unravel.
Originally developed with Australian Theatre for Young People and shortlisted for the 2017 Griffin Award, Ang Collins' Blueberry Play will have its WA Premiere after a smash season at Griffin Theatre's Batch Festival. This new play explores the high highs and the low lows of being a teenage girl in a small town; a beautifully intimate portrait of adolescence, family life and mental health.
Starring local Perth actors including Ben Mortley (McLeod's Daughters, A Place to Call Home) and Emily Rose Brennan (Underbelly, The Legend of Gavin Tanner), Cotton Wool Kid is an intimate, bare-all tale shared by two lovers and storytellers; This fast-paced production maps the journey of a couple from their first meeting to their final goodbye.
Icarus is a one-man physical odyssey that follows a refugee’s epic search for safety. This world-premiere features ‘master of the solo performance’ Christopher Samuel Carroll, with his playful tragi-comic style that draws from the worlds of Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Marcel Marceau, within a dynamic soundscape created by award-winning sound designer Kimmo Vennonen.
From our review of their initial run at the Blue Room Theatre back in October last year:
“Let Me Finish is one of the most poignant, political and necessary pieces of theatre to date. Seriously. Date this show. It'll treat you right and teach you never to settle. This is, potentially, to theatre what Lemonade is to music. No exaggeration. This is everything women are fighting for on the daily. This is friendship, love, basic human rights and to not pay tax on sanitary items all rolled into one, with a side of acapella that'll rock your world. You have every right to your own decision but go see it. Twice.”
Fresh from the Melbourne Fringe, absurdist sketch duo Cool & Smart (Barney Pollock and Matt Young) bring their invigorating brand of insightfully immature and contradictory comedy to the West Coast. It’s loose. It’s unpredictable. It’s a potent psychedelic fantasy. With the pair already catching comparisons to The Mighty Boosh, this is a comic pairing you’ll want to get into at the ground floor. Come for the undeniable chemistry, stay for the man made of animal cum.
Curtin's Hayman Theatre and MILK BOX Theatre Co. presents... Super-Fanny-Tastic! A fun and moving exploration into women's relationships with their fannies, Super-Fanny-Tastic dives head first into sex, wax, queefs and all the messy stuff in-between. Think you know everything about these beautiful genitalia? Think again!
Tony Galati: Farmer. Perthonality. Freedom Fighter. Musical theatre icon? Bringing home a star team of Perth born-and-bred artists led by Dan Debuf (9.29's Dan & Maz Show, Lords of Luxury) and Caleb Garfinkel, Tony Galati The Musical is a love letter to the hard-working Perth magnate who took on the fat cats, launched a supermarket chain, appeared on Sunrise and became an internet meme with nothing but tenacity, a blue singlet, and a love for the working families of Perth.
Tröll is a darkly comic, uncanny tale of the digital age, which brings the innovative design and intricate narrative that delighted audiences with these shows into the contemporary world. Inventive staging transforms the devices we use every day - smartphones become light sources, keyboards turn into skyscrapers, and charger cords morph into puppets. The show is directed by Charlotte Bradley and features sound design and composition by award-winning composer Tane Upjohn-Beatson.
Cabaret
For the first time at FRINGE WORLD, the award-winning artists of Lady Velvet Cabaret explore the sensual mysteries of astrology in AphroZodiac!
Come to the place where the champagne sparkles, eyes glimmer and the sensual and salacious combine for an evening of breathless abandon. BLANC de BLANC brings the finest cabaret and acrobatic talent from around the world, serving a blend of vintage glamour, high-end spectacle and titillating acts to ensnare and delight.
An excerpt from our review: ‘Charlotte Ottons’ one-woman Fringe show Feminah is a fierce, autobiographical manifesto in the guise of light cabaret. Having performed in some of the best reviewed plays of 2018 (such as The Hive and Let Me Finish), she is quickly establishing a name for herself. In Feminah, she showcases her powerful singing voice, comedic timing, and extraordinary vulnerability-turned-bravery on stage. With a charismatic stage presence and a love for independent theatre, Charlotte is a boon for Perth's flourishing arts scene.
Take a journey into Mother Nature... Perth's infamous cabaret troupe, Sugar Blue Burlesque, will tantalise your primal urges and unleash a world of comedy, curiosities and discoveries that can't be tamed.
Perth’s favourite show is back! After three sell out FRINGE WORLD seasons, LA SOIRÉE returns– reimagined, bigger and bolder than ever! The trailblazing, multi-award-winning show that broke all the rules, captured the world’s imagination and redefined contemporary cabaret takes up residence this summer at the iconic Ice Cream Factory. Joyous, celebratory, jaw-dropping and downright unmissable, LA SOIRÉE 2019 arrives with a new astonishing and wildly entertaining line-up.
Matt Tarrant is back with more magic than ever before. Featuring brand new, world-class magic and mentalism as well as some old favourites, it's set to be the biggest show yet! Will sell out early, so get your tickets fast!
Circus
100% African, 100% Energy, 100% Fun, Cirque Africa, is a one of a kind show that is sure to amaze and enthral all who see it. A 100% African cultural experience, Cirque Africa is a vibrant and highly entertaining blockbuster production which transports audiences to the vast continent.
Club Briefs, cult late-night variety show and debauched disco after-party, comes to the main stage in the heart of DaliLand. Your favourite Briefs boys (along with their fierce sisters from Hot Brown Honey and a cavalcade of world-class, hand-selected cabaret and circus artists) deliver an overdose of satisfaction and dance floor smashes. So, stomp it out on the catwalk, dance until late, laugh until you ache and surrender to the utter fabulousness that is Club Briefs.
Be thrilled by a spectacular display of aerial grace and beauty. High flying, high-energy performers treating you to breath-taking aerial manoeuvres which thrill and inspire. Be delighted by the unique cirque skills which will have you gasping in awe. Allow the characters to draw you into a world of aerial curiosity, following their sell-out 2018 season. Don't miss Le Aerial at FRINGE WORLD.
SPIT. A one-woman Circus Revenge.
Brutality balanced by beauty. An award-winning relentlessly ferocious circus show. Tight wire, trapeze and tomatoes. Attack hard and spit back.
Comedy
10 Things I Hate About Taming of the Shrew
10 Things I Hate About Taming of the Shrew will take you back the good old days, when we worried about Y2K, wore butterfly clips in our hair, and became total babes the minute we took off our glasses. And the even-older days where we worried about the plague, wore massive wigs, and women weren't allowed to be on stage anyway.
After sold out seasons in 2017-2018, Michael Shafar returns to Perth with a brand-new show that is his most personal, raw and hilarious one yet. In 2017, Michael was diagnosed with cancer and, fortunately, it has given him a lot of material. Don't worry, this show is funny. It's definitely not a Ted Talk.
As seen on Have You Been Paying Attention? And ABC's Comedy Up Late, Dane Simpson (hilarious Dad jokes) and Matt Ford (glorious cynic) are putting the 'rad' into traditional. Get some culture into ya, 'Straya.
An awkward experience at a massage parlour in Thailand, a housemate with all the traits of a serial killer, and somehow attracting his very own stalker... Ciaran Lyons (triple j, The Project) has had a big 2018. Come hear about it in his latest show.
Famous Sharron is very famous for nothing at all. Married three times, Shaz is a relationship expert. Join her and her celebrity ball handlers as she finds out if there is such a thing as the 'perfect match'. Come and see what all the racquet is about.