★★★★
Adelaide Fringe. Anna Thomas. Holden Street Theatres. 14 Mar 2026
She arrives in a fugue of guilt-laden chaos: out of breath, carrying too many bags.
She is Woman, 2026. Her life is on overload.
Anna Thomas deposits the bags in the four corners of the neatly swept Barbara Hardy Garden stage and, switching into graceful theatrical mode, offers a brief meditation on the physics—and metaphysics—of shadow. It gives pause for reflection.
But not for long. Thomas’s Fringe show roars into recognisable reality as a comparative study of women’s coping mechanisms. She presents four types, each in varying states of coping (or not). Motherhood and school routines are no child’s play. Keeping all the balls in the air against the clock—getting everything right, pleasing everyone—is daunting. To be the “perfect” woman requires an obscenely early start and a lot of self-sacrifice.
It isn’t funny. But Thomas makes it so.
She works the audience with ease and draws out surprising truths. It’s rather fun—until it isn’t. The laughter becomes an interlude as her four sample women push through their demanding days and familiar challenges: delivering baked goods to school, navigating incompetent male colleagues, and absorbing the daily grind of modern expectations.
Thomas, who performs with fine stage discipline and a lovely voice, then appears to commit the ultimate live-performance sin: she picks up a script and refers to it. For a moment, you can almost see stars dropping from the show’s rating. Then the penny drops. Of course she—and we—need points of reference in the race of modern life: cars, clothes, endless washing, shopping, cooking, accommodating the needs of others, work, deadlines…
It’s easy to send it up. It’s hard to live it.
And where, in the harried transience of it all, is the self of Woman?
This is a fast, furious, clever and highly entertaining slice of Fringe. Women: get thee hence, and feel the sweetness of sisterhood.
Samela Harris
When: 14 to 22 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
