Sam Simmons brings his unique brand of weirdness back to the stage, delivering an absurdist diversion from post-apocalyptic gloom, environmental disaster and panic buying. ★★★ ½
Dark comedy Gobby is a poignantly written production by a young woman living in a post #MeToo world. ★★★ ½
Confessional comedian Larry Dean offers an hour of self-deprecating, crude humour with a side of rowdy boyish charm. ★★★★
Dreamgun: Film Reads’ take on The Silence of the Lambs is an outrageously funny show that left me craving a Chianti and fava beans, as well as more of their absurd brand of comedy. ★★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
The Tempest in a tent. Four actors playing 20-plus characters. Hilarious, high-speed, on-stage costume changes. Could Shakespeare be any more fun? ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Gone Girls is 55 minutes of quick-witted, captivating and sometimes titillating theatre, exploring how two female politicians from very different ideological parties manage power, leadership spills and #auspol. ★★★★ ½
Thunderstruck is a beautifully told story about a small boy who falls in love with the bagpipes just as the world-famous piper and bin man Gordon Duncan is pushing the boundaries of pipe music. ★★★★
This British stage adaptation of a literary classic has some up and down moments. ★★★ ½
Melbourne art rock band Tropical Fuck Storm performed a live score to award-winning neo-noir film No Country For Old Men, which should have left audiences transfixed but ultimately proved unsatisfying. ★★★
Bond: An Unauthorised Parody is a cheeky and entertaining one-man theatre experience at this year’s Adelaide Fringe. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Fancy yourself as someone who can spot the trick a mile away? Think again. In less than an hour, Magical will have you making an optometrist appointment. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Based on a 1917 story by Kafka, this powerful solo performance about a primate’s struggle to overcome the confines of captivity shows that history does repeat itself. ★★★★ ½
The world’s most dangerous ukulele band are back, with their punk-rock attitude ripping into tunes and proving the uke is worth more than its weight in chords. ★★★★
This acrobatic tribute to the cult movie The Blues Brothers sees performers somersaulting across tables, balancing on top of chairs and almost getting singed underneath a flaming limbo stick. ★★★★
Are you prepared to feed a life-size dinosaur or have your head placed inside a T-Rex’s mouth? ★★★ ½
A night of cocktails and the suspension of reality with a line-up of Japanese magicians should leave revellers enchanted, not counting the minutes until the hour is up. ★★
Adelaide Fringe
Seven acrobats joyfully tumble, leap and bound to live percussion in this stripped-back and fun performance in Gluttony’s The Octagon. ★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
The line between dreams and reality is blurred, with often frightening results, in the spine-tingling immersive experience Coma. ★★★★★
High-flying and hilarious, Remi Martin’s L.I.A.R. (Life is a Rehearsal) is an unmissable experience pulsing with life. ★★★★ ½
Comedy hypnotism may sit outside the comfort zone of some festival-goers, or at least on the fringe. But that didn’t stop 20 eager volunteers approaching the stage to be put in a trance on the opening night of this show. ★★★★ ½
Far from slick and brazenly R18+, rising comedy star, social media provocateur and Utopia actress Nina Oyama is a welcome reprieve from the Fringe’s tried and trusted comedy line-up. ★★★★
Ever wanted to feel like you’re at a party in a giant flute of Champagne? Fill your glass, take your seat and let the bubbles wash over you as the latest iteration of Blanc de Blanc takes the stage in a grand encore. ★★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Barbaroi is circus with attitude: a dystopian-styled display of daring acrobatics that is all grit, no glitter. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Some pubs have a darts team, this pub has a choir. ★★★★★
Saturated in emotional truth and unapologetically low-fi, Train Lord is testament to the powerful potential of Fringe shows that hark back to the no-frills days of the festival’s past. ★★★★
What’s haunting Max? One minute he’s ordering a sandwich in a café, the next he’s hurling a chair through the shop window. Passengers is the story of a man who is in the dark about his own divided self. ★★★★★
Well does he – come clean, that is? ‘Yes and no’ might not make a satisfactory answer for most situations but it suits this performance perfectly. ★★★★
The Greek tragic love story Orpheus is brought to life in this Fringe show at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, where roses and bats make the perfect minimalist setting. ★★★★½
Adelaide Fringe
Three of the best comedians from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival roused a small crowd in a large tent to laughter – with one obvious standout performer. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
An actress confronts her demons in this debut play by a new amateur theatre company adding a fresh twist to SA’s theatrical scene. ★★½
A capella, beatbox, and themes such as modern technology and body dysmorphia are neatly stitched together in a scintillating show that breathes new life into Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. ★★★★ ½
With little more than 30 metres of thick, white rope and the strength of their own bodies, the performers of One Fell Swoop circus deliver an hour of aerial acrobatic perfection. ★★★★
Chronic illness is too often undiscussed in today’s society and disability is even worse, with the prefix ‘dis’ meaning ‘the negative of’, but Floral Peroxide ensures Fringe won’t fall into the trap of conforming to these dissociative norms. ★★★★
This is experimental theatre at its best – serious, silly, compelling and brilliantly staged. ★★★★ ½
Adelaide Fringe
Dylan Cole interweaves tragedy with hilarity in his monologue as dishevelled, daytime-drinking hoarder Jeremy Parker, whose veneer of cheery enthusiasm starts to crack as his attempt to de-clutter forces him to face the grief he’s buried. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
The drag and burlesque extravaganza Yummy Unleashed is a wild, glittering celebration of femininity, sex and absurdity. ★★★★
Stewart D’Arrietta and his band take us to ‘The Church of Cohen’, giving a bluesy revamp to Cohen classics. ★★★ ½
Scottish literary icon Liz Lochhead gives Moliere’s Tartuffe a richt guid kick up the erse[i], packing the pared-down comedy of manners with plenty of Scots irreverence. ★★★★
Circolombia’s Aceleré sees a troupe of young Colombian circus stars commit daring stunts that obliterate any sense of the word boring. ★★★★★
Whether you’re a total music nerd or a philistine who thinks all disco is daggy, you’ll still benefit from a session of Disco Conversion Therapy with Aunty Jonny. ★★★★
