The latest of the Fringe

The Fringe Festival in Perth

Ever since the Fringe Festival – or Fringe World Festival as it is properly called – piloted in Perth in 2011, it’s seen a steady growth. In 2018, it had officially grown to the world’s third biggest Fringe after Edinburgh in Scotland and Adelaide in South Australia. Other key Fringe festivals take place in Amsterdam, Brighton (UK), New York, Hollywood, Prague and Grahamstown, South Africa.

Russel Square in Northbridge is just opposite the location of the former Oneworldbackpackers, the hostel I once lived in for almost a year. I used to spend lots of time there lying underneath the big trees in the little park with a book, listening to the rustling of the leafs and the weird sound that the crows in Australia make. During the Fringe, Russel Square transforms into “The Woodside Pleasure Garden”, one of the main Fringe venues alongside Yagan Square, The Perth Cultural Centre and The Ice Cream Factory.

Featuring many pop-up venues, food stalls and a couple of bars, the venues are usually abundant with weird, funny and glamorous-looking folk participating in the festival in one way or the other. I had only ever been to Adelaide Fringe before and I just love the mix of artists and acts from a range of styles including circus, cabaret, comedy, music, dance, theatre, film and visual art.

I managed to see five shows ranging from circus and cabaret over music to stand-up comedy, thanks to Fringe-fan Liam who picked all the right acts (since I didn’t know any of them). I have listed my favourites below (in no particular order because they were all fabulous):

The Madonna Circus – Reinvention

Just the right mix of great Madonna-songs, circus and drag show, the Madonna Circus – Reinvention featuring award-winning BarbieQ brought us up to a great start with a definite raunchy element to it. I have never seen a man perform on the pole like Mr Pole World 2014 Blue Phoenix. The show was a really fast-paced ensemble of alternating dance and circus performances with a bit of ridicule. I was in bits when drag queen Cher came on stage towards the end of the show for a medley of Abba’s “Gimme gimme gimme” sung by Cher and Madonna’s “Hung up”.

Fuego Carnal

Award-winning Fuego Carnal combined great humour with fire shows, acrobatics and circus performances that were sometimes so intense that I had to turn my head because I couldn’t bear to look. I really loved this really fast-paced and varied show in its entirety. One of my favourite acts was a comedian / singer who dragged someone’s poor husband on the stage for an utterly comical gig during which she seemingly tried to seduce him. He played along really well – I guess at Fringe, you just have to expect anything.

Best of Edinburgh Comedy

I wanted to see one stand-up comedy show although it can be a bit hit and miss for me. Sometimes I really get it and / or like it, and sometimes not at all. We chose this one randomly out of the numerous comedy acts on offer and I doubt we could have chosen any better: The three Scottish comedians Leo Kearse (2017 Scottish Comedian of the Year), Stephen Buchanan (2018 BBC Award Winner & 2018 Scottish Comedian of the Year) and headliner act Raymond Mearns had tears streaming down our faces as we were breathless with laughter. Highly recommended!

Instinct

Expecting a Burlesque show first and foremost, I started laughing as soon as I heard the voice of a woman impersonating Sir David Attenborough to open the spectacle. “Attenborough” introduced every act, all of which were dressed up as some kind of animal. On top of the burlesque-erotic element, most performances were genuinely funny. I thoroughly enjoyed this show and acts such as the anglerfish pictured below, as well as – of course! – David Attenborough “herself”.

Some of these shows are also currently running at the Adelaide Fringe Festival so if you happen to be in the sunny side of this world, make sure you don’t miss it!