The 42nd annual Melbourne Fringe Festival returns this October, with a veritable buffet of more than 470 diverse events taking place across the city, inviting audiences to ‘eat your art out’.
Boundaries will, as always, be pushed across performing arts, music, dance, cabaret and many more wild, wonderful categories set to entertain, provoke and astound.
As usual, there’s of course an offering created by and/or for a queer audience in Melbourne Fringe’s 2024 programme. There are a number of queer highlights. . . First up, ‘Bisexual Intellectuals’ – a bold evening of cathartic comedy chaos using original musical comedy and tap dance to dismantle biphobia.
‘Seen & Heard’ sees the art of storytelling meeting the thrill of the variety show, featuring a selection of Melbourne’s most beloved drag and cabaret artists: Tina del Twist, Anna Lumb, Frankie van Kan, Maureen McGillicuddy (Granny Bingo), and Lazy Susan.
‘A Brief Episode’ from Ash Flanders and Stephen Nicolazzo is a semi-autobiographical work – a true story about what happened to Ash as he tried to turn his last show into a TV project while overseas. It’s funny and sad, ultimately leading to the death of his mother. It’s heavy, uplifting, and moving.
Scout Boxall
Scout Boxall will relive a very difficult night of withdrawal off medication in a regional Victorian town via an hour-long dramatic monologue/stand-up show called 'God's Favourite'.
What did Melbourne’s foxiest morons get up to during the pandemic? Find out in ‘Fountain Lakes In Lockdown: A Drag Parody Play’ starring Art Simone, Thomas Jaspers, Leasa Mann and Scott Brennan.
The Huxleys will present ‘The Winner Takes It All’, a grand-slam queer takeover of the sporting world. . . Where Melbourne’s queer community can live out their own glamorous, athletic dreams. It’s a large-scale participatory event come photoshoot, where members of the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies are invited to a domain that they may have long dreamed of, but may have never been comfortable participating in: competitive sports.
Heartfelt Havoc Productions presents, for the third year running, ’T4T: A Transgender Showcase’ – a variety spectacular of trans performers, performing for a trans only audience. You can expect comedy, burlesque, music and drag like never before.
‘Apocrypha’ is alt-circus for the unholy – an ensemble show from Mitch Jones journeying beyond the canon of mainstream culture: a tightrope walker dancing along rusty chains. . . An acrobat spinning hoops which blacken his body. . . Contortionists balancing precariously on bluestone boulders.
'Apocrypha' - Image © 3Fates Media
Get ready for a three-day rave condensed into an hour, via ‘The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave’. It’s an endurance-based dance work, to the booming techno album ’Nocturbulous Behaviour' by Suburban Knight.
‘HOMO FOMO’ explores the rules that dictate ‘how to be a queer person’. It’s about nightclubs, which are more complex than usual representations of glitter, mirror balls and sweaty bodies suggest. What do these rules do. . . And what happens if you break them?
What’s more important than being smart? Here, it’s being queer. . . And you’ll get points for it too, at ‘The Big Queer Quiz’. It’s trivia with heaps of gay content, pop-up performances, big silly prizes and good vibes. . . Hosted by Tom Noble.
Check out the full programme.
Melbourne Fringe is on from 1-20 October.
