Adelaide Fringe
The Adelaide Fringe will be given millions of dollars more state government funding, as the arts festival today reported the 2022 event generated $74m worth of spending and organisers now aimed to sell a million tickets a year.
Adelaide Fringe
While playing Trivial Pursuit, a solitary clown leads us through a tumultuous personal story, from attending Clown Farm in Canada to living with a First Nations shaman in California. ★★★★
A tedious and drawn-out royal affair, Amazing Adventures of Her Majesty at 90+ is more a Hyacinth Bucket tribute show than a homage to Queen Lizzie. ★½
THE BUSINESS OF ART | As stage producer Richard Jordan wraps on a four-show digital season at Adelaide Fringe, the Tony, Emmy and Olivier-awarded industry heavyweight highlights how the festival drives arts innovation – in Australia and abroad.
Pairing ancient stories with new technology, the stunning drone-art show Sky Song leaves audiences mesmerised. ★★★★★
There’s no pretence to perfection in Ella at Zardi’s, a truly transportive tribute act that at its heart is what the Fringe is all about. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
It’s hard to know exactly what’s going to happen when you sit down to a Sam Simmons show, but the comedian is consistent with one thing – peculiarity. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
You can thank two years of Melbourne lockdowns for yielding the comedy gold Judith Lucy and Denise Scott deliver in their hilarious, Beckett-crossed-with-Flying-High-infused show. ★★★★★
Jimeoin LIVE is a muddled, aimless hour of comedy that finds its feet way too late in the piece. ★★
Ross Noble returns with his signature rapid-fire stream of consciousness, weaving together improvised narratives that vanish as unexpectedly as they appear like some kind of cheerful nightmare. ★★★½
Bart Freebairn shows his comedic mettle on a challengingly quiet Tuesday night by keeping the laughs coming with his drily daft, free-associating batter. Sorry, banter. ★★★★
Through a post-Me Too lens, this play-within-a-play is a feat of provocative theatre that spotlights the harrowing power dynamics of the entertainment industry. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
In theory, communication has never been more efficient than it is today; in reality, as Deus Ex Femina’s latest production so profoundly demonstrates, we may, in fact, be saying less than we ever have before. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Patrick Livesey’s finely-tuned embodiment of a cast of real-life characters slowly builds a subtle, complex and deeply affecting narrative of their mum’s life and death. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
In this revealing one-man epic, Garry Elizabeth Starr seeks your help saving his homeland from recession by performing each of the Ancient Greek myths in under 60 minutes to boost tourism to Greece. ★★★★½
Adelaide Fringe
Fiona O’Loughlin’s new show focusses her acid wit on her own past, re-examining everything in the light of an attention deficit disorder diagnosis as the local comic stares down her sixties. ★★★½
This passion project by local documentarians showcases the extraordinary photography and film-making skills of South Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. ★★★½
Who is the perfumed ghost at the old Smokemart across from Porthole Records, and why is the spirit of a Russian sailor only ever spotted on Todd Street between 2am and 3am? Put on your walking shoes to find out. ★★★★
Gluttony’s Melba Spiegeltent becomes an interactive classroom as Dinosaur Time Machine transports young audiences into the past to explore the fascinating world of dinosaurs. ★★★½
This show is, as the title promises, all about bubbles – and it’s definitely for adults only. ★★½
Adelaide Fringe
Promising magic, mischief and mayhem, The Purple Rabbit combines comedy, sleights of hand and a whole lot of smut for an hour of debauchery. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
“Everything here is big and impossible to climb.” Evie Edwards, aspiring Hollywood star, scrambles to the top of the sign famous to all who yearn to see their name in lights. She’s preparing to jump. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Circus and physical theatre are rarely used to explore the complexities of ageing, but Sweetie shows that when they are, the result can be as hilarious as it is heartbreaking. ★★★½
Adelaide Fringe
It’s been a rollercoaster 12 months for nurse and comedian Georgie Carroll but – after a stint working in a vaccination clinic – she’s back on the home stage injecting some fresh laughter into the Adelaide Fringe.
Arj Barker’s Adelaide Fringe return is like a 30-year greatest-hits album that has been remastered and refined with a few new tracks for an hour of hilarious musings. ★★★★
New circus show The Defiant finds joy and strength within its dystopian, post-apocalyptic world, offering a refreshing take on a well-trodden theme. ★★★★½
Last Fringe, an arts reviewer referred to Pasifika performer Thomas Fonua as ‘black pudding’, sparking debate about racism in arts media. After a year-long silence, the artist’s drag diva alter-ego, Kween Kong, offers a take on the saga in an Adelaide Fringe show.
In Nella, writer and performer Julia Mayer weaves a vivid and heartfelt tribute to her nonna, retracing her steps from a young woman leaving Italy, to growing old in Adelaide. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Just as comfortable with operatic arias as he is with modern power ballads, Dr Lane switches confidently between song and spoken word, his love for the music evident in the emotion he brings to this performance. ★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Anchored by Cal Williams Jr on guitar, this journey through highlights of the Mississippi and Georgia blues, with Mary Trees on percussion and Kory Horwood on double bass, is an utter delight. ★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe
The Mensforth Quintet delivered an eclectic mix of songs to an appreciative and nearly sold-out audience in the beautiful garden of the Treasury 1860 courtyard as they stepped up to the ‘feeling good’ label. ★★★
Adelaide Fringe
Where better to delve into tales of poverty, conflict and resilience than Bowden, once inner-west slum, now desirable city-fringe home to a diverse and growing population. ★★★★
One Hour Photo is a snapshot of one man’s life – captured from 30 hours of interview and a lifetime of turbulent after-images. ★★★★½
Two women are cast on to a desolate beach. As they begin to get their bearings, the world will never be the same. Nor, perhaps, will yours. ★★★★★
A high-profile comedian visits a war zone in Kabul and it not only transforms him, but also the things he wants to write about. This often comic memoir looks for answers to serious questions. ★★★★★
The 2022 Adelaide Fringe kicks off tonight, marking the start of one of the hallmarks of Adelaide’s festival season.
Festivals
With the Adelaide summer festival season kicking off this week, we asked some of InReview’s writers and critics to share their must-see Festival and Fringe shows and events – from theatre, comedy, music and dance to visual art and literature.
Adelaide Fringe
THE BUSINESS OF ART | The Defiant is bringing a femme-led vision of dystopia to this year’s Adelaide Fringe, marking another important Fringe milestone for show creator and Gluttony co-director Elena Kirschbaum.
