After being forced into hiatus last year due to COVID-19, the open-access festival will take place from June 3 to 13 and serve as an entrée to “big sister” the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, which opens on the same weekend the Cabaret Fringe closes.

Highlights of the program announced today include Trash Talk (at The Lab), which will see performer Tash York “calling out the Karens, cancelling the conspiracies and capsizing toxic positivity”, and 2020 Adelaide Fringe weekly award-winning show The Catchelorette (Nexus), where Carla Anita Mattiazzo presents her comedic take on finding love in your mid-30s.

Carla Anita Mattiazzo in The Catchelorette.

Other shows range from Monski Mouse’s Baby Disco Dance Hall (Norwood Concert Hall), an all-in disco for under-fives that was recently presented in Gluttony during Adelaide Fringe, to Bubble Show for Adults Only (Arthur Art House), described as part physical theatre, part bubble artistry and part neo-burlesque, and Fafi D’Alour & The Delinquents, a blend of music, dance, burlesque and aerial routines billed as “a firework of femininity and bedazzlement”.

There’s also an evening of Joe Cocker songs and stories at Diverse-City by tribute band Massive Cocker; a celebration of the music of Kate Miller-Heidke by Megan Doherty and Emma Knights (Life According to Kate, The Jade), and an evening of songs from the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s by singing group Along Comes Mary (Up, Up and Away, Diverse-City).

Cabaret Fringe has been running since 2008, when it was founded by brothers Paul and Adam Boylon and Jay Robinson with a line-up of acts at Grote Street small bar La Bohème.

Current chair Greg Mackie promises that after last year’s break, this year’s event will have “more sparkle than ever before”.

“We can’t wait to bring artists, venues and audiences together again to deliver an eclectic and affordable program with something for everyone to enjoy.”

Tickets for shows are on sale from today, with the program available online.