★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities. 5 Mar 2025
A chicken by the name Don Murphy (Eva O’Connor), his name attributed to Dónall Ó Conaill, The Liberator, enters the Yurt and surveilles the audience, beady eyes flicking in astoundingly realistic gaze to land on bemused individuals. The Yurts “in the round” setting is a pressure cooker for both performer and audience.
Consistent, incredibly authentic chicken movements, O’Connor’s elaborate costume, red face paint and extraordinary eye make-up render our new fowl friend utterly believable- I bought into it completely!
Don crows and regales the audience members with “I’m only messin’, only windin’ you up!” before launching into the guts of the tale; Don’s is “a simple story,” but, as it is said, the “end is nigh” for all of us in “this claustrophobic place!”
What follows is the extraordinary, if somewhat convoluted, tale of a stoic rooster, who, after almost being crushed in his egg by the woman who was to become his mother, is raised by foster parents Moira and Declan as a strong Irish lad in County Kerry.
Leaving Southwest Ireland, Don experiences the travails of any aspirational actor, albeit a chicken, arriving in New York. Virtually destitute and on the edge of his newfound perch, Don befriends Paulo, a Glaswegian expat pigeon, who takes him under his wing. There are affairs with all manner of humans - Don’s “promiscuous phase”- which is an interesting and amusing narrative device. However, Don’s aspirational association with actors, directors, and producers brings him to encounter ketamine, and addiction follows. Don finds himself again at the edge of his perch, and Paulo again offers solace in the form of a visit to MOMA. There, a gorgeous performance artist, Sadie, a silkie chick from Dallas, catches Don’s eye and he, despite himself, is smitten. One thing leads to another, but it turns out Sadie is not merely a pretty performance artist; she is an activist! Spoilers are not my thing, so I’ll leave the narrative there.
A remarkable solo show, Chicken highlights a whole bunch of systemic issues we are all beset by in a very engaging, humorous way! Are there lots of “cock” jokes? Yes! Is the narrative a little obscure and left field at times? Yes! Is Chicken dull and boring? Absolutely not!
Eva O’Connor is astonishingly good in this unconventional role!
Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 20 Feb to 9 Mar
Where: The Yurt at The Courtyard of Curiosities
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. The Mill, Angas. 5 Mar 2025
“England. 2020. Pinderfields Hospital. COVID lockdown. 2:20 a.m.
A man fights for each breath, determined to make it home to Dot. In his isolated, morphine-fuelled delirium, we witness a frail man reliving his fragmented past.”
What is in the water in Yorkshire? Over the last few years, Yorkshire theatre makers Wright & Grainger and Philip and Jack Stokes have brought some of the finest theatrical experiences to the Fringe!
Quite simply, Dust is a brilliant collaboration between local dramatist Charlaina Thompson and actor Craig McArdle, she with deep family connections to Yorkshire, he a Yorkshire expat!
Effectively, Dust brings the remarkable synchronicity between Thompson and McArdle’s family histories together, particularly where coal mining is involved.
As it happened, Thompson’s great-grandfather was a miner who was awarded the Edward Medal - later converted to the George Cross - for heroically saving a life during a mining disaster. McArdle’s grandfather narrowly avoided the tragic Lofthouse Colliery disaster in 1973 where seven of his mates died. There are compelling truths underpinning this story.
Dust” is also an ‘everyman’ story – that is, the story of every working-class man and woman of a particular era. And the work somehow captures and conveys the subsequent intergenerational trauma. Yes, folks, intergenerational trauma is not confined to a few demographic segments! We all have our crosses to bear! Perhaps, in being a story about a man, Dust doesn’t hit all the boxes seemingly required of theatre at present; it does hit every theatrical mark I can think of with a resounding “bang!”, that bang being the echo of lives impacted by the hard labour required by, and dangers inherent to, Industrialism.
Thompson’s exquisitely sympathetic and evocative crafting of this monologue propels this tale of a life lived in the brutal environment of the coal-pit, very eloquently.
McArdle takes Thompson’s nuanced text and builds the rhythm of his expansive, yet immaculately measured performance to perfection.
McArdles’ investment in this theatrical masterpiece is deep and rich; from the moment he enters as Man, he commands every centimetre of the performance space and auditorium. The intimacy of the repurposed Mill space affords great scope for this consummate performer to directly engage with his audience; the room is absorbed into this extraordinary narrative, a masterpiece in storytelling.
The convention of rapid transitions between the ailing man suffering the ghastly condition “black lung” in his later years, and his early life as a young, Yorkshire scallywag, National Service, wooing, marriage and fatherhood to a brood of five, are as slick as a coal seam is black!
McArdle’s characterization perfectly captures the rough and ready parenting style of a bygone era. This was a style, as a working-class kid of Scottish and English extraction, I was very familiar with!
Similarly, portrayals of pub characters, miners, politicians and journalists are delivered with such disarming honesty as to compel us to identify with them. Across these characters, the implicit code of honour and behaviour, expressed in a glance, a stance and a gesture, was superbly portrayed; the Northern Ten Commandments of this code were cleverly littered throughout the performance to punctuate points in the man’s life. And the denouement is heart wrenching!
Quite simply, this is superb theatre! Again, what is in the water in Yorkshire?!?
Dust. Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 5 to 23 Mar
Where: The Mill, Angas
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Warehouse Theatre. 5 Mar 2025
Sauna Boy is a one man show, and it comes with warnings for strong and frequent sexual references, simulated sex scenes and coarse language, and mild nudity. Sometimes warnings seem to be overstated, but not these – they are warranted. This show is not for prudes or homophobes.
The play is about the experiences of a young man who works in a gay sauna: about the nature of his actual work, his fellow employees, his boss, the customers, and how he relates to it all. The text of the play is deliberately confronting, and the audience physically cringes at times and utters groans of revulsion.
But there is something about the frankness of the script. Written and acted by Birmingham School of Acting trained Dan Ireland-Reeves, Sauna Boy is apparently semi-autobiographical which makes it all the more confronting: some of what is described has actually happened. But which bits? Most, one suspects.
Ireland-Reeves plays the role of Dan (or Danny Boy as he is known to his boss, co-workers and customers) in a prominent (unnamed) sauna in England. He’s an out-of-work actor and needs the money, and he soon proves to his controlling boss (known as ‘Mother’ – do things his way or take the highway) that he is capable of taking on management responsibility, which he does. As manager he sets himself three targets: to get a liquor license, create a website, and make the place so popular that it frequently reaches maximum occupancy. With punishingly long hours and hard work, and with almost losing his own identity, he achieves these targets within a year but falls foul of Mother (as many do) and quits. As he leaves for the last time, so do the concerns of what comes from living a highly exaggerated and mostly insincere existence.
A highlight of the show is the variety of characters that Ireland-Reeves plays. Although they are all larger-than-life and extravagant, Ireland-Reeves breathes sufficient detail into each one to make them credible and unique. His facial gestures, accents and nuanced body language are disciplined and entertaining. Ireland-Reeves confidently moves around the very small black-box acting space with choreographed precision in such a way that it seems much larger. The lighting and sound plots are precise, empathetic with the on-stage action, well thought out and splendidly executed. Kudos to both the designer and operator!
Sauna Boy however does not land any real theatrical punches. Not that every piece of theatre needs to be ‘preachy’ or have a ‘message’, but it needs to know what it wants to be. Sauna Boy is neither a comedy nor a drama. Neither is it a melodrama, nor a musical (the script includes a Sinatra song that is sung by one of the characters). It doesn’t strive to make a noteworthy point. It is however a slice of life, one which most will never experience, but perhaps it relies to much on shock value. It does not try very hard to deeply explore the relationships between what are very complex characters, and this would be fertile territory.
That said, the audience had a great time. They laughed, reacted and engaged with Ireland-Reeves, and gave him generous applause at the end of what was certainly a taxing monologue to perform.
Kym Clayton
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: The Warehouse Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. The Courtyard of Curiosities. 5 Mar 2025
Christopher Samuel Carroll is a Canberra-based Irish actor, director, and playwright, and he is a master storyteller of the first order. His theatrical training credentials are impressive: he is a graduate of The Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College, Dublin, and of École Internationale du Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris. The Canberra Critics’ Circle has described him as “the master of the solo performance” – ‘master’ is almost an understatement – and there are many one-person shows in the current Adelaide Fringe that could take a lesson from him.
The Cadaver Palaver: A Bennett Cooper Sullivan Adventure is, as the title suggests, an extraordinarily elaborate story about an audacious and intrepid (fictitious) gentleman adventurer that involves dead bodies (some of which have been dead for a very long time as it turns out!).
Carroll plays Bennett Cooper Sullivan, a Victorian gentleman, adventurer and Lothario, and for over an hour he recounts at breakneck speed a tale of dash at daring that takes him from Egypt to Edinburgh and to London’s West End. Without giving away any spoilers, it is sufficient to say that along the way he meets a range of exotic persons who both pleasure and pain him as he tries to get to unmask a mystery. Sullivan almost has fantastical powers, and he overcomes barriers in the most attention-grabbing ways. Disbelief at his antics is not just wilfully suspended, it is hung drawn and quartered! But the audience willingly goes along with it all and you can almost hear them saying to themselves “How’s he going to get out of this one?!”.
Carroll’s Lecoq training comes to the fore in the elegant and stylised way he hurls his body around the intimate acting space. Despite the rapid pace of the patter, his diction is flawless, and the text is deliciously Victorian, almost out of a Dickens novel. The piece might be criticised as being a little on the long side, but Christopher Samuel Carroll is a master of his craft, and we hang on his every word.
Kym Clayton
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: The Courtyard of Curiosities
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Goodwood Theatres. 5 Mar 2025
There are young people who have never heard of Charles Manson. Stephen Sewell’s new play will be a jaw-dropping revelation to them and, indeed, so far as historical reflections go, it comes as a shuddering remembrance for the oldies. This all happened during the time of the Vietnam War, a time of lies, of a perfidious Nixon, of political unrest in the USA.
It was also a time of flower power and tripping out.
Dropping acid is not a “thing” these days, but for those who might remember, playwright Stephen Sewell delivers some graphic imagery from the mind of his wild and warped protagonist, Susan Atkins, or, as renamed by Manson, Sadie Mae Glutz. She was the antithesis to flower power. Go-go girls sometimes were. She was one of the murderous Manson girls, part of “The Family”, and as a deprived teenage San Francisco stripper, she was highly vulnerable to the grotesque fantasies concocted by the charismatic musician. In her bubble of drugs and violence, she thought of him as Jesus. Nasty little brainwashed misfit. And her life, before the years of incarceration, were spent partying and adoring Manson. Oh, and committing the odd appalling murder, including that of the pregnant film star Sharon Tate.
Sewell’s Susan brags and gloats. She chills the blood. She is an unadulterated monster, gripping, fascinating and, in a dark and twisted way beneath the Sewell pen, comical, almost cartoonish. Helen O’Connor’s embodiment is superb. She plays her taut, ever high and remorseless, wild-eyed and driven. O’Connor sustains Atkins’ image as a party girl by nimbly reiterating those Go-go moves of the 60s throughout the play. This underscores a sense of the cult-brain superficiality of that cruel carnival of nasty women Manson had gathered. They blew their minds, plotted and hated while hanging out at the house of Beachboys drummer Dennis Wilson.
This compelling new Sewell work gains substance through the calibre and commitment of O’Connor who is known to many for her high-profile television career in Crownies and Packed to the Rafters.
This is an intense and intimate little psycho drama. Its pieces are sewn together with the unquestioned Sewell stage skill. He is the creator of those monumental works The Blind Giant is Dancing, Traitors, and Welcome the Bright World, along with a stream of other stage and screen works. He’s deemed among the top playwrights this country has produced.
That he should quietly bring a work to be premiered in the Goodwood Theatres on the Adelaide Fringe has surprised many. It an out-of-town run looking towards rebirth in Edinburgh. Waiting for word of mouth.
And approbation is forthcoming. It has “legs” for the rest of the world, especially considering its historic nastiness.
We’re all tired of one-handers and yet, strongly directed by Kim Hardwick with efficient production values, Partying with Manson is a wild and quirky vignette of human awfulness which definitely has what it takes to Go-Go and keep going.
Samela Harris
When: 5 to 9 Mar
Where: Goodwood Theatres
Bookings: adealaidefringe.com.au