★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Presented by Holden Street Theatres. Thebarton Theatre. 21 Feb 2026
Holden Street Theatres’ Adelaide International Comedy Gala is the hottest ticket for comedy in the Adelaide Fringe. And you’ll have to wait a whole year because it’s only on for one night and 1892 people at Thebarton Theatre saw it and probably you didn’t. $30 for ten comedians over three-and-a-half hours would have to be the best deal in the Fringe.
Host Eddie Bannon’s banter with audience members only went so far and he wisely cut back when the top acts were on a roll.
First cab off the rank was South Australia’s Tilly Harrison. She thrice announced she was polyamorous and said that it can lead to a lot of questions, but it didn’t lead to much humour on Saturday night. The audience didn’t care for her schtick much judging by the applause. However, I asked a 12-year-old who probably shouldn’t have been there what was his favourite comedian after seeing the first six and he said Tilly Harrison. So maybe I’m having trouble stepping over the generation gap. Maybe I’m Pollyanna when faced with polyamory. Maybe I’m jealous. And to be clear, I did not bring the 12-year old, I met her at the bar. With her mother, silly!
The show really started with Sydney’s Daniel Muggleton bedizened in a metallic red tracksuit - good trademark. Third up was Aussie bloke James Donald Forbes McCann who’s made it big in the States and lives in Austin, Texas. He kept the momentum going by saddling the horrors of the 20th century on women getting the vote. Yes, he takes chances. His earlier shows had titles like Wolf Creek The Musical and The Sound of Nazis. The interval was abuzz with speculation because the line-up is not really final until it happens.
TV personality Nikki Britton kicked butt starting off the second act. Her female-focused sexualised humour was easy to get. By now, the night was hot, hot, hot. Then the crowd erupted when Will Anderson's name was announced. His rapid fire, maniacal delivery articulated the funny bone of the dairy industry, something he grew up with. The cream on the cake of the second act was David Collins and Shane Dundas tied at the navels as the Umbilical Brothers. Their physical comedy act of mime and mic effects was astounding. In their 25th year, they attract an audience of both newcomers and significant repeat business. Talk at intermission was about how beautiful the renovated Thebarton Theatre looked and who would be stepping on stage for the third act.
Confirming a pattern, the third round opened with another female comic, Georgie Carroll. The former nurse gets plenty of material from motherhood, matrimony and emergency wards. Her routine on fanny pics for the tele-doc was so funny. Peter Helliar found the funny bone with the Princess Diana Parmigiana and the Andrew food on the kid’s menu. He’s got a relaxed, natural style. Then to riotous acclaim came TV’s quiz show host, Tom Gleeson. Personally, I’m not a big fan—he’s a bit smarmy for me—especially in contrast to the preceding Helliar. Yes, being the boss of the AC at home can be funny, but really? The audience loved him. The last act should be the strongest but Venezuelan-born Ivan Aristeguieta repeated the learning English routine from his current show—a well-worn topic by our immigrant community of comedians who can be funny in their second language, which is amazing when you think about it. A lot of people haven't heard this stuff before and found it a great finish to the night.
I guarantee you the Gala gets a lot of repeat business and attracts increasingly more famous talent, so you better get your tickets early next year. Bravo!
David Grybowski
When: 21 Feb 2026
Where: Thebarton theatre
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Slingsby Theatre Company. 22 Feb 2026
A tree once more becomes central focus in the second triptych instalment of Slingsby Theatre’s A Concise Compendium of Wonder.
Ursula Dubosarsky’s adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant is an enthralling tale in which the glorious tree of Wilde’s story takes on that significance of deep heart tied to the sense of life and hope children playing within it gain from it as we know it. The tree links them to each other, to nature, to a full life in a way an audience today knows, but doesn’t live it as societies did aeons ago.
The 1800s based work is redolent with creative means of the time. Simple ball games. Light projection screens of early pre photographic era form and shadow puppetry, wonderfully realised by Mark Oakley and Lighting Designer Chris Petridis. The cast of Nathan O’Keefe, Ren Williams and Elizabeth Hay are full of joyous gusto as they play, tell the story, and give life to puppets and unseen characters. Quincy Grant’s score is a delightfully keyboard led one of fun, much as it manages some deeper, darker moments.
The hint at what’s to come begins as you enter the space and are asked to put your hand into a memory box. Its interior is cold. These memories are given a number. Remember the cold.
Dubosarsky has written her play as a series of nine memories, each projected on a floor to ceiling scrim.
A tree is a whole world. An ecosystem. Bonding place. This is as Ada, a puppet little girl played by Elizabeth Hay knows and loves it. The girl who sits and listens to everything, hears what others cannot and befriends a little snail she names Quill after her little brother who died only hours after birth.
Director Andy Packer’s production is one in which storytelling becomes a blend of means enabled by Ailsa Paterson’s design.
Grey boxes open, light within them, revealing special props; little gardens, puppets, mini plants, a tiny version of Quill the snail, his shell lit up.
Means in which a little puppet Ada, aided by a human, gives life to a vulnerability only such a scale can give. Just as little Quill the snail does.
Against that is magnitude of the Giant. Booming voice. Thunderous presence. Terrifying tall walls of his home and the stone barrier he builds surrounding the tree he has banished the children from.
All this grace of emotional and physical scale is so gently but powerfully deployed to express a deep dilemma. Why do great truly giant forces need to covet and deny the very joy of life affirming nature and community?
How do you break through stone barriers, bring back warmth and hope. Restore connection between nature and humanity?
Ada’s brave choice to do so is a special kind of power. The smallest of humans finding a way that seems impossible. Led by a snail song, gift of nature. It is a beautiful thing to experience and ponder.
David O’Brien
When: 18 Feb to 15 Mar
Where: The Wandering Hall of Possibility
Bookings: my.adelaidefestival.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Moa, Gluttony. 21 Feb 2026
Gasha is a high energy explosion of contemporary circus skills, vibrant colour, dazzling visual LED projections, and both recorded and live techno music, all assembled under the premise of celebrating modern Japanese culture in a multicultural and globalised world. (The cast of six included Caucasians and Japanese.) The very large audience was up for a noisy and jaw-dropping celebration and that’s exactly what they got, in bucket loads!
The plan to draw everything together under such a broad theme as ‘the culture’ of particular country works at a superficial level but doesn’t really hold up to closer inspection. The very best physical theatre/circus shows have a clear and compelling narrative that is evident to the audience, and although Gasha often ‘looks’ Japanese, it isn’t entirely apparent what the show is trying to say. There is no narrator or MC to help us along.
The show begins with a striking projection of a rising moon on a large backdrop which silhouettes one of the cast in a strong and static pose. The image is arresting; you momentarily hold your breath in anticipation of what is going to follow; the colour and lighting effects almost evoke fear and caution.
The first act gives us a woman suspended aloft by her hair as she rotates and gyrates at speed with unyielding fluidity. Again, you hold your breath and question whether she is safe? This is followed by another performer twirling multiple hoops in every which way with almost every part of her body. Such cleverness, and agility. Then a man shows strength, grace and timing as he makes a Cyr Wheel do seemingly impossible things with him in, on and around it.
This is seemingly all a warmup for more aerial antics with sashes and straps forced to submit to the will of lithe bodies that toss themselves around with abandon high above the stage as if gravity doesn’t exist and personal physical safety is not an issue. In moments of stillness, as the performers strike and hold poses with their bodies and straps bathed and sculpted by gorgeous light and colour, they form shapes suggestive of Japanese written script. Just stunning.
And then there are the obligatory balancing acts, but one of them has a distinct Japanese feel to it The performer works with four large parasols made from paper and bamboo, and… not to give anything away… balances all of them in seemingly impossible ways.
In between acts a solo musician plays a range of percussion instruments and what looks like a traditional Japanese Shamisen, except it has four strings (not three) and is tuned to sound much like a banjo. And of course it is electric, and he plays with the passion of a lead guitarist from any iconic western heavy metal band. He looks imposing dressed in his Japanese costume and his face painted as if in homage to David Bowie. He cleverly plays music that sounds oriental, but then its not, as it morphs into western riffs.
At the end the sun rises on a different Japan, and a body is again stunningly silhouetted in dazzling colour.
This show is such fun. The cast give generously of themselves ,and the crowd loves them for it.
Kym Clayton
When: 20 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: The Moa, Gluttony
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Marcel Cole. Courtyard of Curiosities, Migration Museum. 21 Feb 2026
Charlie Chaplin considered The Goldrush to be one of his finest works, so it seemed appropriate for Marcel Cole to open his homage to Chaplin with a condensed performance of this 1925 silent film. In the intimate space of the Chapel Theatre, treating the stage as a 3D film set with the movie screen as backdrop, is most effective.
Cole’s mime skills serve him well in his character creation; dressed as Chaplin’s famous Little Tramp’ replete with white face and toothbrush moustache, Cole inhabits the character effortlessly.
It’s a little jarring then, when he breaks the fourth wall and starts whispering to audience members, guiding them in stage moves and characterisations in the biographical part of his ‘interactive’ show. I’m not sure there’s another way to do this, but it’s initially odd all the same.
With so many characters required to inform his life story, Cole draws on various audience members to depict his mother, his wives, his brother etc, a device which of course has varying success, depending on the reaction and nous of those chosen. On this occasion, the choice for brother Sydney, after a shaky start, joined in with gusto, and clearly made a young man very happy to be part of the action.
Using a well-thumbed autobiography as his touchstone, Cole takes us through the highs and lows of Chaplin’s personal life and career, and the transition of the show from the silent era to ‘talkies’ is very effective, with Cole effecting a ‘terribly, terribly’ British accent, as did Chaplin in his talkies, which rather belies his boyhood which was shaped by poverty and workhouses.
There’s a lot of stage time devoted to The Great Dictator, Chaplin’s film in which he parodies Adolf Hitler. I’m still at a loss to understand the interpretive dance scene, in which Cole strips down to his underwear and tosses around a large white balloon whilst (skilfully) pirouetting and leaping about the stage, with gaff tape swastikas attached to his nipples. Art, eh? Reciting the closing monologue from the film, we are rudely reminded that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same).
It’s a bit of a rush through the McCarthy era, the accusations of Communism and his eventual exile from the US, and his triumphant return to receive an honorary Academy Award, but Chaplin’s life was so extraordinarily full that it’s almost impossible to condense it within an hour. Cole makes a fair fist of it, and it ends strongly and yes, leaves one wanting more.
Cole was last here with Ukulele Man, telling the story of George Formby, and he brings quite a skill set—acting, dancing, mime, singing—to writing and presenting this biographical form of theatre. There is a lot more to come from this young man.
Arna Eyers-White
When: 19 Feb to 8 Mar
Where: The Courtyard of Curiosities, Migration Museum
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Arch. Holden Street Theatres. 21 Feb 2026
Why should you believe me? We all know the Peter Goers is my best mate. How could I find fault in his Fringe show? I never do.
Just as he does the show for the love of it and for the old faithfuls in his audiences, so do I annually pen a paeon of loving irrelevance.
Now on the eleventh of his “trilogy” of fringe shows, it feels like putting on a dear old slipper. Cosy, funny, predictable, good quality, value for money…and now, with the new seats in The Arch, even more comfortable.
Of course, as he notes, his audiences are dropping off - the perch. That's a wee bit of a problem when your demographic is the oldies, the “pre dead” as he insists on calling them. Or “us”, I should say. None of us expects to get old, dammit.
Goers has a lovely new high-end pinstripe suit for this new Fringe season. Hot off the Salvo’s racks.
And, as a raconteur, so to speak, believe it or not, he has a mass of new old stories.
So, he keeps us chuckling and guffawing for a very nice hour.
And, not one to hog the stage, he shares it with the inexhaustibly good-spirited Sandi McMenamin who does some spectacular twinkle-fingering on the keyboard. She brings the house down and then brings on Robin “Smacka” Schmelzkopf for song. Young at Heart, he sings. With gusto in that glorious voice. He can aways make an audience swoon.
And back to Goers it goes for a few more showbiz anecdotes and deft observations and, OMG, what a good punchline.
Over and out of 2026.
Can he do it again?
Never say die. Especially to oldies.
Samela Harris
When: 21 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Arch
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au