★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Gravity & Other Myths. Gluttony The Octagon. 11 Mar 2026
I once loved evenings at the Adelaide Fringe when you stepped into a tent already humming with possibility, an energy that makes an audience sit with anticipation before anything has begun. The larger venue around it, devoid of sideshows, with maybe a few food trucks and a bar or two, was not a carnival but lent atmos. There was a vibe beyond food and booze and people gawking or looking for a show ride.
It’s been a long time.
The miasma of mainstream comedy, once classy and innovative, now tacky burlesque, and tribute shows, made me doubt I’d ever experience this again: The Mirror has restored my faith!
The lights dim. A black curtain slides across the cyclorama. Neon frames. Blood reds. Real atmosphere.
A tower of bodies becomes a single bemused soul. A neat formation dissolves into a tangle of limbs and laughter. Simple theatrical devices, executed with finesse, deployed with cheek and precision, tell us everything we need to know about the evening ahead; it’s going to be a fun adventure!
Welcome to Gravity & Other Myths’ The Mirror!
I’ve been a member of the Adelaide audience watching this company grow for over a decade now. From the electrifying immediacy of A Simple Space to the theatrical ambition of works like Out of Chaos and The Pulse. With The Mirror, GOM takes another great leap forward, blending contemporary circus, live music, and theatrical storytelling into something that feels both spectacular and strangely personal; it’s like the pre-commercially tainted days of Cirque du Soliel when it had artistic integrity! That’s a long time ago!
Directed by Darcy Grant with associate direction by Jascha Boyce, the production explores a world of image and identity. Mirrors, cameras and screens hover around the stage like silent witnesses, quietly suggesting the strange performance culture of modern life. And here it’s explored and translated through the lens of contemporary circus; and what a circus!
The remarkable acrobats, Ash Youren, Em Gare, Hamish McCourty, Georgia Webb, Issy Estrella , Lewis Rankin, David Trappes, and Leann Gingras move with a level of trust only a well drilled ensemble can. Bodies stacked, launched, caught, twisted and balanced, defy both anatomy and gravity.
GOM reminds us what we are watching is not magic. It’s people!
Threaded through the acrobatic chaos is the musical magic of the show composed by composer/performer Ekrem Eli Phoenix, and performed exquisitely by MC and vocalist Megan Drury.
Amid the acrobatic chaos, Drury effortlessly, vocally toys around the recorded score.
Serving as a muse of sorts, Drury guides us through the evening with warmth and wit, her voice cutting through the spectacle to ground the acrobatics with something unmistakably personable and engaging. In this, Drury’s style, when working with internationally acclaimed Wright & Grainger, is similar. Drury is the consummate storyteller, brilliantly engaging!
The music itself plays deliciously with familiarity. Britney Spears’ Toxic appears not as a club anthem but as a slow, seductive pulse beneath a precarious balancing sequence. Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine was rendered as I have never heard it, somehow piercingly plaintive while conveying warmth and optimism.
The production is sleek and deceptively restrained. Matt Adey’s lighting design transforms the stage into ever-changing reflections and shadows. LED panels and live camera feeds occasionally project performers’ faces mid‑acrobatics, their sweat, concentration and the occasional mischievous grin filling the screens.
In a culture obsessed with curated identity, the question quietly emerges: What do we actually see when we look at ourselves?
GOM never sits on this question too long; it’s simply dangled in front of us like the sometimes skimpily clad performers!
Human constructions dissolve into kinetic frenzy before we can linger on a thought too long and bodies climb over one another like waves forming and reforming a living architecture, only to vanish.
Drury looks mildly confused, as if wondering where everyone went. The cast returns triumphantly to demonstrate their prowess as individual acrobats and bow to a standing ovation.
This is what Fringe is about! Challenging, edgy, cheeky, sexy, thought provoking, and unique! Walking out into the mild Adelaide evening afterwards, I noticed something interesting; nobody was talking about tricks. They were talking about people.
I suspect this is exactly what Gravity & Other Myths hoped we might see when we looked in The Mirror. And this, dear reader, is what a Fringe show is!
Go! See it!
John Doherty
When: 20 Feb to 22 Mar
Where: Gluttony The Octagon
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
