★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Holden Street Theatres. The Arch. 18 Feb 2026 Media Day
Duane Forrest is his name. Rasta is his game.
I’m telling you now, this man is about to become the darling of Fringe 2026. He’s been here before, so he was already “discovered”. But now, he is “adopted”.
He sings Bob Marley songs, but just some of them. His repertoire is broad and so is his vocal range. Many are the tunes which resonate with his audience. He includes his audience, involves it, encourages it and, above all, enlightens it as he entertains.
His is not a mere musical show. It is a cultural emancipation on several levels. Duane is a Canadian of Jamaican heritage. He has an abundance of locks, the sort we used to call “dreadlocks” but now, thanks to Duane, realise that they are just locks which scored a second-rate label somewhere along the way. Rasta style hair has spiritual roots, so to speak. And also, are a symbol of resistance.
Nazarites, Zion, Rasta, slavery, family trees…such are the references encompassed by this endearing performer.
As much empathy as whites may have, they cannot “be” black. And, largely, are oblivious to the nuances of identity experienced by those who are. Duane Forrest has a way of imparting this. There is no rancour in him. He is a man of sweetness and good spirit. But he has grown through the shadows and has learned the true meanings of Caribbean songs we have chorused in blithe cheer.
Duane’s show is anything but your average one-man musical Fringe show. It is a sophisticated production with excellent audio-visual content as well as a complex lighting plot delivered at Holden Street by Harry Ferguson.
Buffalo Soldier will never sound the same again. But, thanks to Duane, Don’t worry, Be Happy, is now etched deeper, and perchance in future every hearing will be to revive the memory of Duane and his locks.
Samela Harris
When: 18 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Arch
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★1/2
Adelaide Fringe. Holden Street Theatres. The Arch. 18 Feb 2026 Media Day
Martha Lott pushes boundaries and pulls triggers in this extraordinary work of her own creation.
Her new play is nothing less than an act of bravery.
It presents a mother and daughter awaiting a school headmaster’s verdict on the choice of captain of the debating team. Tiger mum, Martha, has extremely high expectations of and for her brilliant daughter. Her main debating rival is a talented Chinese student called ChiChi and the competitive fear and loathing are eating into her.
Mum is a former debater who has worked as savvy political strategist, she simply cannot countenance that her daughter is closely challenged and she is consumed by indignation and cultural resentment.
Her outbursts of racial stereotyping are really confronting not only for the daughter but for the audience.
This is not the first play Lott has penned. That Boy was written around the theme of a divergent lad. So, Lott already has broken ground with daring scripts not to mention stupendous performances.
When the daughter of The Debate is called in to see the headmaster, the vituperative mum is left alone in the waiting room. She vents even more spite in a fugue of restless, roaming fury. Therein she brags her power as a strategist. And therein ensues the grand denouement of the play.
The play begins with the two protagonists seated facing each other. Initially, the daughter is fairly monosyllabic and clearly used to her mother’s nagging dominance, Director Nick Fagan makes an odd directorial decision to keep her in profile throughout the first section of the play and, indeed, also at the brilliant climax when Amelia is carrying the action.
This city is familiar with the onstage power and brilliance of the award-winning Martha Lott and, indeed, she is extremely potent in this difficult role she has written for herself. There is a contextual incongruity, however, in the strident ‘Strine style of her delivery as a doyen of the debating culture.
Daughter Amelia Lott-Watson acquits herself magnificently. Lovely voice. Lovely, composed stage presence. It is her first Fringe role, and it is laudable.
The play itself will generate some lively foyer talk. While it deals with social media, cyber bullying, AI and things on the zeitgeist, it also is decidedly un-“woke”. Great grist for the Fringe mill. A must-see.
Samela Harris
When: 18 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Arch
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Holden Street Theatres. The Studio. 18 Feb 2026 Media Day
When Holden Street brings in an Edinburgh winning show, it is certain to be an Adelaide winning show.
And, here it is.
With rollers on. Hair rollers.
Produced by Jasmyn Fisher-Ryner and directed by Tatenda Shamiso, it presents its writer and star in Jade Franks.
Franks depicts another Jade, this one an ambitious Scouse gal who defies the British class system to carve an unlikely path into Cambridge University. Not one to let naivete hold her back, she abandons her job at a Liverpool call centre to become a cleaner of not so much the hallowed halls of Academia but the bedrooms of the student quarters. Hence, she is both earning and paying her way at Cambridge and discovering that student life is not so clearly about cleverness as it is about class. Jade has a dire Scouse accent but somehow inches her way into the snooty social scene and even finds romance.
Franks tells it with piercingly astute stabs into the smug pretensions of the British upper classes. And she has come to the right place to tell her tale. There is still plenty of schadenfreude in the Colonial Aussie psyche to love a bit of a British class-clash on stage.
That Franks is a vivid and able actress telling this tale is all that is needed to make Adelaide Fringe audiences whoop with delight - which is what they are doing now at Holden Street.
There are many shades to her characterisation of Jade and many classic characters in her narrative. They populate the stage and evoke our assorted emotions. It’s a terrific production and another feather in the cap for Holden Street’s Fringe Awards.
Samela Harris
When: 18 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres, The Studio
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Funk Soul Productions. Goodwood Theatres. 30 Jan 2026
That Guy in the Foyer loves opening nights. The buzz in the air, the sense that something might just go gloriously right or spectacularly wrong. And opening night of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee went very, very right.
This is Funk Soul Productions’ second musical outing, and once again Immi Beattie and Gracie Greenrod demonstrate why they were named 2025 Adelaide Critics Circle Emerging Artists. Their previous success with The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals hinted at ambition and flair; Spelling Bee confirms maturity, confidence, and a great understanding of tone. A musical rarely staged in Adelaide, this production is dynamic, warm, and joyfully assured.
As far as I can ascertain, Adelaide has seen two prior productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the most recent in 2017 by Marie Clark Musical Theatre, and before that Adelaide Youth Theatre’s 2014 staging directed by Brendan Cooney, a production remembered for its high-energy, comedic snap. I didn’t have the privilege of seeing either but the critical acclaim they garnered was clear. Funk Soul Productions’ iteration of the show first staged on Broadway in 2005 is equally outstanding!
At its core, Spelling Bee follows six mid-pubescent spelling champions discovering, often painfully, that winning isn’t everything, and losing isn’t the end of the world. Rachel Sheinkin’s Tony Award–winning book and William Finn’s vibrant score are delivered here with a light but assured touch. The potentially made-up words arrive thick and fast, the dreaded “ding” of the bell denoting an incorrect answer, lands like a parent’s disappointment and, beneath the comedy, there lies thought provoking reflection on childhood loneliness and the need to be seen. Six spellers enter; one leaves a champion. The others get a juice box and, as we find during the epilogue, some emotional growth.
Greenrod’s direction keeps the show moving at a cracking pace, supported by a clean, flexible set of her own design. Audience participation, often a theatrical nightmare, is handled with warmth and good humour and is inviting rather than intimidating. Musical direction by Beattie keeps Finn’s score, albeit recorded, lively and precise, while Allycia Angeles’ choreography adds physical wit and momentum without ever overpowering character. Lighting by Greenrod, Steven Durey, and Angeles and sound managed by the maestro that is John McCartney, effectively and subtly supports the storytelling.
The cast is uniformly strong. Ruby Pinkerton brings polish and nostalgia to host Rona Lisa Peretti, the former spelling bee champion turned successful realtor. Amelia Boys is quietly extraordinary as Olive Ostrovsky, grounding the emotional spine of the piece with restraint and truth. Boys plays Olive’s character arc with impeccable nuance, culminating in a deeply touching revelation of the profound loneliness experienced by a young girl whose mother is preoccupied with a spiritual quest and father who remains achingly distant. It’s a nuanced performance that lands with anyone who experienced moments in childhood where all they wanted was to be validated by parents. Boys, Pinkerton and Parisya Mosel’s rendition of The I Love You Song is heart rending.
Corey Major leans gleefully into Chip Tolentino’s baseball-capped bravado, steering Chips Lament—a song detailing a teen boys response to a girl he finds…well, deeply alluring—with confidence and comic ease. Neve Sargeant delivers a sharply observed Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, tightly wound with ambition, woke consciousness and parental pressure, while Yasmin Fitzgerald’s, Marcy Park is a study in perfectionism beginning to crack. Fitzgerald’s energetic delivery of I speak Six Languages is something to behold.
Matthew Boyd is gloriously odd as Leaf Coneybear, drifting into trance-like states impossible not to find hilarious, while Flynn Turley anchors the chaos with edgy, tenuous authority as Vice Principal Douglas Panch who constantly mispronounces the name Barfée. Parisya Mosel brings warmth and emotional weight to paroled counsellor Mitch Mahoney as well as a range of other characters.
Spelling Bee is notable for its musical high points, and this cast delivers them well. Olive’s My Friend, the Dictionary lands with aching tenderness, William Barfée’s Magic Foot is a masterclass in physical comedy, and the ensemble number Pandemonium crackles with controlled chaos. Those moments are capably brought to life in dance by Allycia Angeles’ choreography, which never overwhelms narrative or character with spectacle
The standout for me is Jaxon Joy as William Barfée. Intensely awkward and physically inventive, Joy delivers a rich performance that while emphasizing the comedy never loses sight of the character’s vulnerability. It’s a performance that understands exactly why Barfée matters.
A delightful addition to the performer bios in the program notes, the inclusion of each cast member’s favourite words, was a small but thoughtful touch perfectly encapsulating the show’s exploration of language, individuality, joyful nerdiness and the production teams attention to detail.
Fast-paced, funny, and, for me, unexpectedly touching, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee staged by Adelaide’s dynamic Funk Soul Productions, is memorable event for all the right reasons.
Go. See. It.
John Doherty
When: 30 Jan to 7 Feb
Where: Goodwood Theatres
Bookings: Closed
Red Phoenix Theatre Co. Goodwood Theatre. 16 Jan 2026
The ultimate feast for greedy theatre fiends. Red Phoenix crams nine plays into one night at the theatre.
They are short plays, some very short. They are very different. And they are delivered with professional flourish by a mass of very fine actors and directors plus techs and backstage support. The full catastrophe as Zorba might say.
But in the nicest way.
This production is season three, and it is a rip roarer. Audiences are colour-tagged in three groups, so they swap venue to venue in the theatre, sitting in each venue for three plays. Each group has a characterful minder, so the pack movements are slick and there’s the bar for stops betwixt and between. This promenade formula was devised by Red Phoenix when Covid restricted audience numbers. It was a way to fill the house and make a buck without crowding. The groups can be bigger these days.
In the Main Theatre, the night begins with In Farce, by Steven Bucko, a quaint confection based on the endless opening and closing doors of classic farce theatre. Directed by Norm Caddick it is a delicious folly, albeit it needs a bit of a hurry-up. Chilled Wine by Dorothy Lambert and directed by Alicia Zorkovic is the least pithy of all the plays but works as an attenuated revue skit. Indeed, the following play, Go to the Light by Laurie Allen is also a big skit. This one, however, is as pithy as can be as a diabolical send-up of Facebook addiction. Several of the plays are very skit-like and take one back to the long-lost days of revue. A Bottle for a Special Occasion by William Kovacsik is tragic comic with a tinge of romance, as is When I Fall in Love It Will Be by Susan Middaugh. It centres on the tragedy of dementia; melancholy charm and lovely performances therein from Adrian Barnes and Lisa Lanzi. This work is under Libby Drake’s direction and if there’s a director’s competition in the production, she wins outright with imagination and exuberance, bringing the cast of Jan Probst’s Road Trip back and back to The Studio stage as an unruly band of stagehands changing sets. They throw out funny memes and create delicious chaos. As for Road Trip, what a clever little work of physical comedy with gorgeous characters. On Queue by Morey Norkin and James McLindon’s Choices are part of Hayley Horton’s directorial three and perhaps the trickiest and least pithy, despite valiant performance. These are very fine actors, a hearty reminder of the quality of stage acting which surrounds us in this city. Up there at the top are Michael Eustice and Sharon Malujlo who perform a period costume piece by Rob Taylor called Mrs Thrale Lays On…Tea! It is an outrageous and ingenuous gem and wild actors’ exercise. It features also one of those jewels of bit part excellence from Zoe Battersby as the maid.
There is too much to praise and too many names. Rounds of applause to Lyn Wilson, Lindsay Dunn, Joanne St Clair, Laura Lines and Bec Kemp, Cheryl Douglas, Peta Shannon, Jo Coventry, Adam Tuominen, Matt Chapman, Jack Robins, Jethro Pidd, Stuart Pearce, Jess Corrie, Laura Tregloan, Monika Lapka…and, and, and…
Include there Richard Parkhill, Will Gee and all the corollary workers.
Red Phoenix continues to be a classy company.
Samela Harris
When: 15 to 24 Jan
Where: Goodwood Theatre
Bookings: trybooking.com