Today’s guest reviews of three fringe shows come cour­tesy of Tony Barnes. Thanks Tony!

The Fringe Wives Club — Glittery Clittery

A year ago, while tour­ing sev­er­al of her shows at the 2018 NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val, Tes­sa Waters men­tioned that she had anoth­er show in devel­op­ment that she would bring to the 2019 Fringe. Fringe Wives Club Glit­tery Clit­tery is the show that Waters was refer­ring to and since mak­ing those com­ments Glit­tery Clit­tery has won Spir­it of the Fringe at Edin­burgh 2018 and Best Cabaret, Ade­laide Fringe 2018. Cur­rent­ly run­ning until Sat­ur­day in the late night slot at Bats, it is a cabaret show that deliv­ers live­ly songs, eye catch­ing cos­tumes and dis­co dance moves that are both comedic and fun. Glit­tery Clit­tery cel­e­brates all things cli­toral. Fit­ting­ly it pro­vides an all-encom­pass­ing sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence that teas­es out a his­to­ry of igno­rance, mis­un­der­stand­ing and sup­pres­sion that formed around the cli­toris. Lead­ing us out of the quite recent dark ages Glit­tery Clit­tery pro­motes body pos­i­tiv­i­ty, knowl­edge and can­did­ness. But the desire to edu­cate remains sec­ondary to Glit­tery Clit­tery’s greater pur­pose, pre­sent­ing cabaret as the very best vehi­cle to pro­vide mean­ing­ful enter­tain­ment.

The shows abil­i­ty to deliv­er on its intent hinges on the tal­ents of co-writ­er­s/per­form­ers Vic­to­ria Fal­con­er, Rowe­na Hut­son and the afore­men­tioned Tes­sa Waters. Per­son­al­i­ty is to the fore, the per­form­ers exude charis­ma, self con­fi­dence and the cama­raderie gained from many months on the road. As much can be seen in the ram­bunc­tious ad-lib­bing that weaves through­out the show and the song lyrics that are made up on the spot by Fal­con­er in response to audi­ence sug­ges­tions.

Glit­tery Clit­tery is a show that dis­man­tles bar­ri­ers between per­form­ers and the audi­ence. It’s an excep­tion­al­ly well craft­ed, fine­ly honed and road test­ed pack­age and it’s not hard to see why it’s suc­cess­ful­ly trav­elled the world. It’s arguably one of the most thought pro­vok­ing shows at the fes­ti­val and inar­guably one of the most enter­tain­ing.

Fringe Wives Club Glit­tery Clit­tery on at Bats The­atre to 23 March 2019.

Dry & Damaged

Dur­ing the open­ing show of Dry & Dam­aged at Ivy Bar, come­di­an Clara Van Wel’s informs us that this is her first ever full length stand up com­e­dy gig. It offers the audi­ence the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see a show being devel­oped as it occurs. Though billed as run­ning for 50 min­utes Van Wel’s wealth of mate­r­i­al means that the show on open­ing night ran for an extra 30 min­utes. It cer­tain­ly offered val­ue for what was already a Koha show. Dur­ing that time Van Wel cov­ered a range of top­ics includ­ing men­tal health, rela­tion­ships, fam­i­ly, sex­u­al­i­ty and much more. The deliv­ery was often rapid fire and tan­gen­tial. Van Wel seems fas­ci­nat­ed with com­ing at top­ics from fresh per­spec­tives and chal­leng­ing the audi­ences abil­i­ty to make asso­ci­a­tions in order to get the joke. Van Wel rejects a dumb­ed down take on world and tries to take the audi­ence with her. It’s not a jour­ney for every­body at this stage in its devel­op­ment.

It’s rare to see a show in such a nascent form. It takes con­sid­er­able courage from the per­former to test the waters in this way and a cer­tain amount of for­bear­ance by the audi­ence. Whether Van Wel decides to trim and hone Dry & Dam­aged or con­tin­ue to try out her full reper­toire remains to be dis­cov­ered by future audi­ences. While the new­ness of the mate­r­i­al makes for a slight­ly uneven show Van Wel already brings to the stage a unique per­sona that pro­vides an excel­lent plat­form for deliv­er­ing a dis­tinc­tive and mem­o­rable hour of comedic insights. It’s a show for the curi­ous adven­tur­er.

Dry and Dam­aged on at Ivy Bary to 23rd March as part of the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val

Missing Lids

Miss­ing Lids by Dis­cotheque starts with five yel­low cos­tumes on stage, the lights go out, the dancers appear in match­ing out­fits, the lights go out again and the yel­low body­suits are donned. A voiceover advis­es the audi­ence that they are at a con­tem­po­rary dance per­for­mance and not to be alarmed, just in case they’d wan­dered into the venue by mis­take. The sar­don­ic advis­ing sig­nals that this will be a sly and sub­ver­sive show that’s going to chal­lenge and pro­voke. Fur­ther voiceovers indi­cate that the show could be about per­formed fem­i­nin­i­ty, the mar­ket­ing of beau­ty, gen­der roles and social con­for­mi­ty.

The chore­og­ra­phy of Hol­ly New­some cre­ates dance moves that are alter­nate­ly robot­ic, fren­zied, self con­scious­ly posed and per­formed with a touch of fury. It’s breath­tak­ing in its pac­ing and intense, sug­gest­ing the psy­chic strain that is imposed on all of us at this time and place. There is also a play­ful­ness to the show’s pre­sen­ta­tion. It uses humour and satire to expose the absur­di­ty of mod­ern expec­ta­tions about behav­iour and pre­sen­ta­tion. Miss­ing Lids embod­ies a sub­stan­tial crit­i­cal view­point that dri­ves what is a coher­ent and con­vinc­ing nar­ra­tive. Its con­clu­sions are open to a range of audi­ence inter­pre­ta­tions, leav­ing us rich­er than when we first entered the per­for­mance space.

While the dancers (Bree Timms, Issy Estrel­la, Olivia Foley, Neve Pierce and Tiana Lung) are required to oper­ate as an un-indi­vid­u­at­ed col­lec­tive dur­ing a few of the syn­chro­nised sequences dur­ing the first half of this work, the ensem­ble’s exe­cu­tion is sharp and pre­cise. The unre­lent­ing pace is main­tained and places con­sid­er­able demand on the dancer’s tech­nique and sta­mi­na. The dancer’s skill and phys­i­cal con­trol are con­vinc­ing­ly demon­strat­ed. As the show pro­gress­es the dancers break out the clois­ter­ing body suits mask­ing their faces and become indi­vid­u­alised. It’s telling that it requires a group effort to free the first dancer and one of many pow­er­ful moments scat­tered through­out the work.

As a show Miss­ing Lids deliv­ers lots of ideas while pro­vid­ing a dynam­ic and vis­cer­al expe­ri­ence for the audi­ence. Rec­om­mend­ed.

Miss­ing Lids is on at Te Aua­ha to 23rd March as part of the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val