The drama of it all: pulling back the curtain on Fringe’s world-class theatre
From a show fusing comedy, opera and space travel, to fresh takes on the Bard, Fringe artists are treading the boards in spaces as diverse as a library, former chapel, a garden and a yurt.
Several shows at the aptly named Courtyard of Curiosities highlight the diversity – and eccentricity – of its 2025 program.
First, there’s UK performer Sam Blythe’s Method in My Madness, a one-man take on Hamlet incorporating clowning and illusion. Then you can step into the State Library’s Circulating Library for The Art of Storm-Whistling, a new Australian play inspired by maritime legends. And for a bird of a different feather, they plucked Chicken from Edinburgh Fringe.
One of a suite of theatre works being curated by Joanne Hartstone Presents, Chicken tells the story of “a proud Irish man, a hopeless ketamine addict and one of his generation’s greatest actors… who also happens to be a chicken”.
Historic spaces host intimate performances
Britt Plummer, programmer and co-producer of the Courtyard with producer Nick Phillips, says she first saw Irish actor and writer Eva O’Connor perform Chicken in a 20-seat underground space at Edinburgh Fringe venue Summerhall.
“The way that she does it within the round, it’s almost like you’re in a chicken coop. And as soon as I saw it, I thought, it has to go in the Yurt.”
The Yurt is a 60-seat pop-up venue within the Courtyard of Curiosities, a Fringe hub that also hosts shows in historic buildings at the Migration Museum. It was launched by Plummer and Phillips in 2023, a year after the closure of Adelaide’s much-loved Bakehouse Theatre had left many theatre-lovers concerned about a dearth of small theatre spaces in the city.
Plummer’s programming focus is on “high-quality Fringe theatre that thrives in intimate spaces”, especially works that break the fourth wall. In 2025, it is presenting 60 shows – more than double that first year – and has partnered with the State Library to turn its Circulating Library and Hetzel Lecture Theatre into Fringe venues.
Eva O’Connor in Chicken. Photo: Madison Griffiths
Along with The Art of Storm-Whistling, which continues until March 23, the Circulating Library is hosting shows such as UK theatre-maker Casey Jay Andrews’ Oh My Heart, Oh My Home, which features a set with a doll’s house that is enhanced by the vintage-book-lined walls behind it.
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Plummer says Andrews is also a designer for Punchdrunk Theatre in the UK and had a clear vision of how they wanted to use the library.
“They didn’t want to play traditionally on the stage. They wanted to flip the audience and play a kind of almost semi in-the-round with the books as the background.
“It’s a story all about home – it’s about a meteor shower but it’s also about home – and when you see all those tiny little rooms of the house and then you’ve got all the books behind you, it kind of shows you something in a grander scale within this beautiful room.”
The Hetzel Lecture Theatre, which has been converted into a black-box theatre space with a raised stage, is ideal for accommodating a larger-scale production such as performer Eliza Sanders’ Manage Your Expectations, directed by ex-Adelaidean Charley Allanah, which opened this week and uses comedic storytelling, contemporary dance and a live-feed audio-visual element to explore “universal concepts of human relationships”.
Asked what she would say to encourage Fringe-goers to explore shows beyond the large outdoor hubs in the East End, Plummer says simply: “There’s opportunities to see world-class theatre.”
“Our program is curated, so we go and scout works throughout the year but we also do a callout. This year were able to program 60 shows but we had around 200 apply for a spot, so it’s highly competitive and it’s curated; it’s high-quality work.”
She adds that the same holds true for other venues that program a lot of theatre, such as Holden Street Theatres, Goodwood Theatre, The Mill and AC Arts.
“You’ve got international works programmed alongside local artists, and a bunch of different genres within the theatre category as well… there’s a mixture of Shakespeare and clowning and puppetry and slapstick, and a lot of different methods that we don’t see year round in Adelaide.”
Family struggles and the odyssey of a sports fan
Holden Street Theatres, long respected as the home of quality theatre during the Fringe season, got off to a strong start this year, with its Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award winner Why I Stuck a Flare up My Ar** For England and Shellshocked both earning awards and a string of five-star reviews. The former follows on from the success of the venue’s exceptional 2024 show Grav, about Welsh rugby player Ray Gravell, but despite its title, Holden Street Theatres’ artistic director Martha Lott says Flare isn’t a straightforward sport story.
“It’s actually about growing up. It’s based in a sport story but it’s about fandom and about a young man choosing a mentor. Like, who does he follow? What does he follow in life? And who does he become?
“It’s definitely a sort of an odyssey… it’s a beautiful, sad and funny story.”
Lott says storytelling and high-quality performance are key factors in her selection of shows for the Holden Street Theatres program. She believes audiences currently have an appetite for more light-hearted works.
“I think they want to be taken out of the difficult parts of life, not dragged into it. So it does sort of come down to what’s happening in the world.”
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Holden Streets’ performance spaces range from the character-filled old church dubbed The Arch, to a garden with a capacity for up to 40 people that throughout Fringe is hosting Peter Goers’ short and sweet Romeo and Juliet in 15 Minutes.
A play opening in The Arch this week which also provides comic relief is The Platypus, a two-hander written and directed by Australian actor Francis Greenslade (Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell, Winners and Losers), and performed by John Leary and Rebecca Bower.
Greensland says The Platypus features “a bit of Shakespeare, a bit of Oscar Wilde and even some Sondheim-inspired musical theatre… It reflects the struggles of a very recognisable family, with plenty of Easter eggs for theatre nerds thrown in”.
John Leary and Rebecca Bower in The Platypus. Photo: Mark Gambino
Also opening at Holden Street this week, It is I, Seagull is a comedic show by UK artist Lucy Mellors that blends her operatic experience with the true stories of Soviet female cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Valentina Ponomaryova. Lott describes it as “a beautiful propulsion into the unknown”.
“It’s done in such a gorgeous way with the mashup of opera and theatre in this in-your-face-type high-energy piece that’s absolutely beautiful and poetic.”
Goodwood Theatre – which encompasses a 215 raked-seat theatre and two studio theatres – has promoted its 2025 Fringe season as its “biggest and most ambitious” yet. Among highlights are Adelaide writer and performer Tracy Crisp, who is presenting all six of her solo, memoir-based shows, most of which have sold out or are close to selling out.
Other Goodwood Theatre shows include FRAGILE: Handle with Care, which premiered in Scotland but is inspired by the story of a Vietnamese boy who was adopted and raised in Adelaide after being evacuated during the Vietnam War, and In Session, described as an improvised therapy session developed and produced by two clinical psychologists.
Along with Chicken and It is I, Seagull, the 2025 Fringe offering from Joanne Hartstone Presents includes a timely tale from the UK by performer Seamas Care titled Help! I Think I’m a Nationalist, which features the bagpipes and includes sessions at both Goodwood and Adelaide College of the Arts (AC Arts). The AC Arts program also features Guy Masterson’s solo adaptation of Orwell’s Animal Farm (performed by Sam Blythe when he’s not on stage at the Courtyard playing Hamlet in Method in My Madness).
Breakout performances from emerging talent
Meanwhile, at multidisciplinary CBD arts venue The Mill, 13 companies are presenting works in an intimate 50-seat blackbox theatre space dubbed The Breakout. Among them is Dust, a one-man show premiering at Adelaide Fringe which follows “a frail man reliving his fragmented past” against the backdrop of post-World War II England.
Psychopomp, a new work by local actor and writer Poppy Mee, directed by Temeka Lawlor, was developed through The Mill’s 2024 Centre Stage Residency, and is being presented at The Breakout in partnership with Arts Unlimited (the Adelaide Fringe Foundation).
Sam Blythe performs a one-man take on Hamlet in Method in My Madness
“Poppy is an incredible talent, as both a performer and devised theatre-maker… and with Temeka’s influence this show will certainly get you thinking and feeling deeply about human existence in a good way, with a bit of a cackle!” says The Mill CEO and artistic director Katrina Lazaroff.
Holden Street Theatres’ Martha Lott says Fringe has traditionally been the launchpad for artists to get shows off the ground. She advises Fringe-goers to try to see all the genres.
“Try and see something in theatre and dance and music and comedy,” Lott says. “It’s a great experience to go to the Garden or Gluttony or Fool’s Paradise, it’s great fun, but the true essence of going to Fringe is to try something that you probably wouldn’t normally try, and there are so many options.
“You can go and see something that you know is going be good because it’s got five stars and awards and everybody else says it’s good, and you can also go and try something that you’ve never heard of.”
This article was produced with the support of Adelaide Fringe. Fringe continues until March 23, and the full program can be found here.