MICF: Glittergrass – Fringe Wive Club

MICF
Glittergrass
Fringe Wives Club
31 March 2019
Malthouse – Beckett Theatre
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Fringe Wives Club

I'd been calling Glittergrass "Clittergrass" – both work.

The Fringe Wives Club have been touring to festivals with pink and purple sequins, clothes with pockets, and a positive and unrelenting feminist attitude for over two years. They're making women, and anyone identifying as female, feel good about themselves by telling stories about amazing women, reminding the I'm-not-a-feminists that you can have a dick without being a dick, and acknowledging the privilege of being able to make many song-and-dances about being a woman.

To increase the power of the club, the original trio (Victoria Falconer, Tessa Waters and Rowena Hutson) have welcomed brilliant new wives Laura Frew and Sharnema Nougar. The new show also has a live band of wives, and everyone who sees and loves them can consider themselves a wife. (It's the only time I'd call myself a wife.)

Does sparkle, song, dance and purple hair change the world? If only it were that easy. But a show that addresses anger, frustration and shame with love, pride and positivity is many steps in the right direction.

And they ain't finished yet. Today I read this story in the Guardian. Our federal government doesn't believe the professional advice about domestic violence and thinks it's better for women and children to stay in abusive relationships because "family". If you think counselling will help, have a watch of this episode of You Can't Ask That on iView. We ain't finished yet.

Being a wife is about way more than pockets, awesome hair and confidence. It's being someone who supports and is supported. It's about creating a world where everyone can feel and be safe. It's about standing up for people who can't stand up for themselves. It's about making equality the bottom line of what we accept in life, rather than something we reach for.

Jessie Hickman: the bushranger no one makes a musical about

Video: Feminist Fuckboi

Fringe Wives Club
Feminist Fuckboi

Fringe Wives Club. Tessa Waters, Victoria Falconer-Pritchard, Rowena Hutson

The Fringe Wives are at the Adelaide Fringe and will be back in Melbourne for MICF.

Enjoy.

MICF: Volcano

Volcano
Tessa Waters
The Furies
1 April 2018
Green Centre, Aphrodite's Room
to 22 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Volcano. Tessa Waters

My review is in Time Out.

MICF: The Music comedy festival edition

MICF 2018
comedyfestival.com.au

We're counting down to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and getting some sleep in while we can.

If you haven't picked up a paper copy of The Music's MICF edition – look at that cover! – you can read it here on issu.com.

I interviewed Tessa Waters, Laura Davis and Showko, and there are a pile of great interviews with  SM favourites like Zoe Coombs Marr, Jean Tong, DeAnne Smith and Neal Portenza. And lots of others. If the festival guide is a bit daunting – bloody terrifying – start here and get to know the performers from more than just a blurb.

Review: Clittery Glittery

MICF
Fringe Wives Club
Clittery Glittery
31 March 2017
Greek Centre, Parthenon
to 22 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Fringe Wives Club. Clittery Glittery

Loved this so much that I'm knitting them a #pussyhat each.

My review is on The Age/SMH.

What to see on the last day of the Fringe

Melbourne Fringe

What to see on the last day of the Melbourne Fringe?

Tessa Waters

Most of the Melbourne Fringe is over BUT not all of it. I'm off to La Mama to see Blaaq Catt and Hart. 

Those shows are sold out, but you can still see Neal Portenza...Tracey at 8.15 and Tessa Waters: WERQ in Progress at 7.15 at The Courthouse Hotel – where there's also good food, good beer, board games and $10 Espresso Martinis.

I've seen 38 shows this Fringe. If I can* get from Carlton to North Melbourne, I am going to try to get to Tessa and Neal AGAIN. Tessa's in a work that changes every night and I really didn't see what Neal's Tracey has turned into.

And they are two of the funniest and smartest clowns around.

#SeeTessaAndNealTonight

(*My La Mama show finishes 5 mins before Tessa's starts, so unlikely.)

MICF: WOMANz

WOMANz

Tessa Waters

28 March 2015

Melbourne Town Hall, Lunch Room

to 19 April

comedyfestival.com.au

WOMANz

The MICF bar was high and tingly when WOMANz grabbed my tits and gave me a snog. That's one way to get a good review, but being amazingly awesome helps as well.

Tessa Waters is WOMANz. After wow-ing the Edinburgh Fringe, she won Most Outstanding Comedy at the 2014 Melbourne Fringe and has been exciting people at festivals all over the country in 2015.

In a bedazzzled body suit and black tights that understand that big hair means having big hair everywhere (she talks about it; many of us bonded), she's part Oestrogen Goddess but more a woman who knows herself and knows that her self was meant to dance.

She dances when she feels happy, confused, sexy or just over it. If you want to understand what "dance like no one is watching" really means, see WOMANz. And if you're not crumping by the end, it's because you cracked a rib laughing.

Waters's combination of character, clown and physical theatre says more about gender and self-acceptance than the feminist section in Readings. Blending madcap with sophistication, it's comedy that makes feeling positive about yourself the only way to feel.

As many stars as sequins on her ART pants.

There's a version of this on aussietheatre.com.au.