Reviews

Queen Machine

Written & performed by Anna Lumb. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Quilt Room, Festival Hub: Trades Hall. 15 – 19 October 2025

Anna Lumb has a story to tell – and a point to make.  And she is a performer with many strings to her bow.  So, her show begins in form-fitting silver, and some expertly done and funny robot moves (setting up her theme, incidentally) and then some awesome hoop work... And we get to then her story...

Masterpiece

Created and Performed by Rae Colquhoun-Fairweather and Will Bartolo. Melbourne Fringe. Meat Market – The Stables 1. October 14 – 18, 2025

Two clowns create ‘fragile’ havoc as gallery installers; Rachel Colquoun- Fairweather and Will Bartolo, a first-rate duo, work together seamlessly in their much-heralded show Masterpiece. They collaborate as opposites, in motivation, gag and performance. They step out on to the stage with a clunky shoe shuffle routine, holding on to the large art canvas (covered in bubble wrap and blue tape). It takes two people and four pairs of hands in white gloves to handle this piece of art. They are buffoons and want their audiences to be entertained with their story.

Lime Cordiale & SSO

Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. October 16 - 18, 2025.

Two brothers from Sydney’s northern beaches are having an unbeatable home game playing to a capacity crowd in the Opera House’s Concert Hall, and with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as a backing band.

Oli and Louis Leimbach’s sort of indie, pop-rock, surf-rock sound defies easy genre, just as their enthusiastic audiences include all ages. Their retro style - with their ties, sports coats and baggy trousers - reaches back to the 60s.

Alma Moodie Quartet Play Haydn and Brahms

Alma Moodie Quartet. Olivia Hans-Rosenbaum, guest clarinettist. Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank VIC. 16 October, 2025

Chamber music is intimate and vulnerable and in the Primrose Potter Salon the players’ interactions with the music and collaboration with each other are on full display. The Alma Moodie Quartet features violinists Kristian Winther and Anna da Silva Chen, violist James Wannan, and cellist Miles Mullin-Chivers.

The Wolves

By Sarah DeLappe. Presented by Mockingbird Theatrics. Direction, set and sound design by Chris Baldock. Belconnen Performing Arts Centre, ACT. 16 Oct – 1 Nov, 2025

This review only covers the first of the two casts performing this play.

GO/NO GO

Devised by: Natalie Frijia (script) and cast. Melbourne Fringe. Directors: Felicia Lannan and Tess Walsh. Lighting: Tyson Wallent. Original music: Matthew Anderson. Costumes: Jarred Dewey. Theatre Works, 14 Acland Street, St Kilda VIC. 14 -18 October 2025

There is a wonderful connection underlying this piece. Circus performers are always testing the limits of human endurance and capability and so too were the first astronauts, especially the first woman.

Work, But This Time Like You Mean It

By Honor Webster-Mannison. Canberra Youth Theatre. The Rebel Theatre, Walsh Bay. October 15 – 18, 2025

Young people working in the repetitive and exploitative corporate world of fast food is the perfect subject for the touring Canberra Youth Theatre and writer Honor Webster-Mannison.  Eight actors, as young as most of their audience, play out this madcap comedy, stationed at their posts every night in a fried chicken franchise.

Social Beast

Devised & directed by Lily Fish in collaboration with the Cast, Moses Carr and Hannah Willoughby. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Presented by Brunswick East Entertainment Festival. The Square at Festival Hub: Trades Hall. 15 – 19 October 2025

The quite extraordinary Social Beast – a physical theatre/dance phenomenon – plays differently each night.  On stage there are five physically very varied, highly individual dancers: Liv Bell, Michelle McCowage, Michelle Mayumi Chinen, Jet Min and Sophia Derkenne.  Each wear quite different dance rehearsal clothing. Each of them is the epitome of contained focused energy as they move to Moses Carr’s dynamic live score.

A Succulent Chinese Musical?!

By At Your Service Theatre Co. Melbourne Fringe. Fringe Hub, Trades Hall. 15th - 19th Oct, 2025

I am laughing out loud as I remember watching this show last night - it was delightfully bonkers. A Succulent Chinese Musical?! is an original Australian comedy musical written by Rick Butler and Kate Stewart. The musical is about Jack Karlson, an Australian criminal, who became infamous for what he was videoed saying as he was arrested in 1991. Jack Karlson made the news in ‘91 and thanks to YouTube his slogans and demeanour have been immortalized in Australian culture.

The Lucky Country

Music & Lyrics by Vidya Makan. Co-created & directed by Sonya Suares. Melbourne Fringe Festival. Southbank, The Lawler. 13 – 18 October 2025

In this utterly entertaining musical, the remarkable Vidya Makan’s thirteen original songs – with orchestration by Heidi Maguire - range in reference across the work of iconic Australian artists from Kylie Minogue to Jimmy Barnes and Paul Kelly.  But here, every song is a show tune, a musical number with precise, energetic and often very funny choreography by Amy Zhang. 

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