★★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Book Music & Lyrics by Amity Dry. Arts Theatre. 12 Mar 2026
There are moments in the theatre when you know what you are watching matters. Not because it is flashy or provocative, but because it is resolutely true. Within the first five minutes of this show I felt that unmistakable certainty. This is one of those rare shows where laughter, recognition, discomfort and compassion sit side by side, and none of them feel forced.
Amity Dry, singer songwriter, musical theatre writer, has created something deeply humane here. She has also assembled a cast that is musical theatre dynamite. Their collective pedigree includes Miss Saigon, Les Misérables, Hamilton, Six and Urinetown. There is not a weak vocal moment. Harmonies are rich and assured, solos are delivered with interpretive intelligence, and the emotional shading throughout is the kind that only comes from performers who understand that singing is not about volume or virtuosity, but about meaning.
What struck me most powerfully is that this is a musical about ordinary women, and that is precisely where its brilliance lies. It’s not woke. It’s not driven by a gender identity agenda.
It is not an academic middle class didactic feminist treatise telling working class women how they should be. There’s little swearing. There are no tits and ass. There is fearless, if occasionally a little cliché, honesty. There is celebration of ordinary women that is deeply feminist in its spirit. Life, this show reminds us, is often messy, sometimes unfair, occasionally shit, but still worth turning up for.
There is a great deal of lived experience in Dry’s writing, and it shows. At times the book edges close to sentimentality but pulls back before slipping too far. Dry’s wit and understanding that clichés exist because they hold truth is evident. And it’s a musical, after all.
At the heart of the piece are four women whose lives intersect through a long-standing ritual of fortnightly Friday drinks. Time poor, emotionally stretched, and subject to life’s many curveballs, some thrown by circumstance, others by decades old choices or momentary lapses of judgement, they keep showing up for one another. That, too, is a quietly radical act.
Dry plays Lily with moving sincerity. A devoted wife to Patrick, who is, I think, an accountant, Lily is a proud café owner and unacknowledged community catalyst, and a mother of nineteen-year-old twin boys recently embarked on the adventure of a gap year, and she is left, suddenly an empty nester. Lily is lonely, disoriented, and quietly grieving the woman she once was. Dry’s performance is moving and personal. Lily is brave enough to acknowledge that sometimes endurance looks like resignation.
Jess, played by Chloe Zuel with panache, warmth and emotional nuance, is the free spirit returned home after six years abroad, with stories of her Latin lover, Lorenzo. But she returns for a far more sobering reason, to care for her mother, who has cancer. Zuel balances sass with vulnerability superbly, charting Jess’s journey from free spirited traveler to unexpected bridezilla with humor and heart.
Kerrie Anne Greenland’s extraordinary portrayal of Kate shows great attention to character arc, delivering what are arguably the most dramatically poignant moments of the evening. Fiercely independent, ambitious and self-sufficient, Kate is a solicitor whose carefully constructed life is derailed by a one-night stand with a man who was, quite simply, a dick, pun very much intended. Greenland portrays the progression from the initial crack in Kate’s armor to its complete breakdown so completely that it is deeply moving.
Then there’s Bec, played by Dee Farnell with a masterful balance of comic timing and gravitas. Bec is a mother besieged by three children, a loyal friend, Jess’s cousin, a weary yet committed partner to Matt, and a woman who uses sarcasm as both shield and sword. Farnell’s delivery is razor sharp, but she never lets humor blunt the truth.
The fractures that emerge between these women feel honest. Their different lifestyles, values and stages of life create tension, but ultimately sisterhood prevails. The triumph here is not neat resolution, but resilience.
Bec Francis’s set and prop design functions almost as a fifth character. Static, it is transformed through inventive and evocative use of projections within window spaces, creating a strong sense of time passing and lives unfolding. It is elegant, economical, and beautiful. Jo Casson’s direction holds the entire piece together with clarity and grace, shaping character arcs, visual cohesion and narrative flow. Nothing feels rushed or lingers too long.
Musically, Matthew Brind’s arrangements, augmented by Marco Callisto, give the tight, responsive band led by Martin Cheney a score that is rich, textured and emotionally moving. Dry’s musical sensibility shines throughout. The songs serve the story, and the result is clever, artful and moving. Of the twenty-two song set list, I was particularly taken by the ensemble renditions of Another Day” to open the show and Bridezilla but Lily’s How Did We Get here?, Kate’s pleading Go To Sleep, and Bec and Jess’s Come to Bed, blew me away!
This show made me laugh. It made me weep, with sadness and joy. It made me think of my late grandmother and mother, my partner, my female friends and colleagues, my niece, and the young woman at the checkout at my local Foodland. Exceptional women. Ordinary women. As if those terms are somehow opposed.
This is a triumph for Australian musical theatre. It deserves a life beyond Fringe. It should tour. I will be nominating this work for Adelaide Critics Circle and Fringe Awards. The Perfect Life should be seen widely, nationally and internationally.
There are only nine performances left, and they will sell out.
Go. See it.
John Doherty
When: 12 to 21 Mar
Where: Arts Theatre
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
