Review: That One Time I Joined The Illuminati

Melbourne International Comedy Festival
That One Time I Joined The Illuminati 

Lou Wall
Storyville Melbourne
8 and 18 April 2021
www.comedyfestival.com.au

Lou Wall

Very excited to have my first review in Witness Performance.

MICF: Maeve Marsden, Fat Musicals: A Body of Work

MELBOURNE INDEPENDENT CELEBRATORY FEMINIST
Maeve Marsden
Fat Musicals: A Body of Work
26 March–5 April
Malthouse Theatre
comedyfestival.com.au

Maeve Marsden, Libby Wood

If there were ever a show written for me, this is it. And I don't need to convince anyone who has seen Maeve and Libby perform that they need to go.

If you could see anyone (possible or impossible) in your audience, who would it be?
Lizzo.

What is one of your favourite comedy festival memories?
My favourite moments at the comedy festival are always backstage. I love the energy of performers gathered about a mirror, warming up, chattering, all that nervous energy. Performing cabaret in a group means there's this real collegiate atmosphere. I've always had a sort of romantic feeling about dressing rooms.

Who is one of your favourite Melbourne Indie Celebratory Feminists?
Ali McGregor. She's a fierce and talented performer, she always works to support emerging or early career artists - especially women – and she's always eager learn more, politically and creatively.

What three shows are you not going miss this comedy festival?
Annaliese Constable Perfect Child
Louisa Wall Lousical the Musical
Krishna Istha Beast

What else could MICF stand for?
Maeve Is Crushingly Fantastic.


GIVEAWAY COMPETITION

1 double pass to

Fat Musicals: A Body of Work
27 March
8.30pm
Malthouse Theatre

EMAIL with FAT MUSICALS COMPETITION in the subject
Closes on 24 March 2020

MICF: Lou Wall, Lousical the Musical

MELBOURNE INDEPENDENT CELEBRATORY FEMINIST
Lou Wall
Lousical the Musical
26 March–5 April
Malthouse Theatre, Shell Room
comedyfestival.com.au

Lou Wall. Photo by Emma Holland

If you've seen Lou Wall, you know you have to see her again. If you haven't seen her, get in while you can. I'm trying to write something that doesn't make me sound like a fan girl, but I am.

If you could see anyone (possible or impossible) in your audience, who would it be?
Probs Lizzo. I'd be like wtf are you doing here Lizzo!?!? We'd laugh and then I'd finish my set while she accompanied me on flute.

What is one of your favourite comedy festival memories?
A couple of years ago I did my first comedy fest and my show closed on my 21st birthday. We were drinking from 11am in the morning and after I finished my show I decided to swim in the NGV fountain. It was pretty refreshing tbh.

Who is one of your favourite Melbourne Indie Celebratory Feminists?
I adore Jordan Barr. Dark, deeply satirical, filthy material that makes me cackle.

What three shows are you not going miss this comedy festival?
Chi Ngyuen LOTUS (DELIGHTFUL OMG)
Catherine Cohen The Twist... She's Gorgeous (Literally dead that Cat is performing in Aus)
Amrita Dhaliwal and Gemma Soldati in The Living Room (Cannot wait to see this off chops pair of clowns)

What else could MICF stand for?
Maybe It's Chronic Fatigue.


GIVEAWAY COMPETITION

1 double pass to

Lou Wall Lousical the Musical
27 March
7.00pm
Malthouse Theatre, Shell Room

EMAIL with LOU WALL COMPETITION in the subject
Closes on 23 March 2020

What Melbourne Loved in 2019, part 10

Today Kerith, Sarah and Zoey talk about deep-gut feelings that stay around long after the show has finished. And Kerith talks about how working on something you love has nothing to do with quotes and stars: "I guess it's so special because it feels very powerful to become a part of a community and accomplish something together. And help each other and cheer each other."


Kerith Manderson-Galvin
Artist

Kerith Manderson-Galvin. Photo by Cam Matheson

Favourite moment of 2019.
Last year I loved Skye Gellman's End Grain and this year I loved the exhibition they curated for Sidesault Festival, Subjective Spectacle. It was elegant and clever and still a bit funny, and a really interesting way to spend an hour. Beautifully curated as an event with multiple performances and one that also worked as one larger performance. I loved it. It was an honour to be there.

My other favourite: Tenfingerz and Famous Artist Sebastian Berto's Fast Fashun. It is probably one of my favourite things I've ever been to really. A tonne of clothing waste was refashioned by participants into outfits for runway shows. You could watch the shows or be a part of it. It was like being on Project Runway, but actually it was so much more than that. Tenfingerz's events are unique. Maybe people say this all time about other people – and it's possible I've said this about Tenfingerz in another year's what I loved – but I don't think there is anyone else that does what Tenfingerz does.

And this event was really special. I guess it's so special because it feels very powerful to become a part of a community and accomplish something together. And help each other and cheer each other. Gee, the more I think about it, the more impressive it was. And the fun! I had so much fun! It's SO. FUCKING. NICE. TO. HAVE. FUN. Also, I made a skirt out of a handbag and felt like a genius, which is also very nice. And I discovered my love of the bonnet. AND I have used skills that I learned at Fast Fashun after it ended, which maybe matters more. It affected the way I live my life.

Incredible.

Oh also. Mecha – Festival of Experimental Art was such a joy.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Fast Fashun 2.0.
Lydia Lunch: Retrovirus (again).
Ruby Jones's album launch that I have decided will happen next year.
Next Wave festival –  probably. I just went to their website and it was hard to navigate.
Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands. I won't actually be around to see but I would have been looking forward to it.

SM: I saw Kerith perform in A Normal Child by Disability Slapstick Plan and MUST's The Bacchae by Rob Reid at La Mama. Both shows I loved but wasn't able to write about. My moments with Kerith were a couple of hours in The Bacchae when their character was sitting on the side of the Courthouse stage and watching. They was so absorbed that I kept drifting back to watch them watching and listening, which made me even more aware of what they was watching and listening.

Sarah Collins
Writer, photographer, performer

"I’m not sure if this is an ok photo, but considering my other favourite theatre moment this year was getting to photograph Alison Bell and compare facial features at long last, it’s probably appropriate."
AB, Sarah Collins. Photo by John Leary.

Favourite moment of 2019.
Far and away the best thing I saw this year was a show by Amritha Dhaliwal and Gemma Soldati called The Living Room at The Butterfly Club, which came out from LA for the Melbourne Fringe.

I’ve never watched two clowns take an audience from hysterical laughter to fighting back tears in the blink of an eye quite so skilfully.

I’ve also never seen an audience taken on a ride quite so (unexpectedly) necessary.

This show stayed with me for weeks. It was so seamlessly performed that when reflecting back upon it I couldn’t even piece together how they’d pulled it off; I simply had these delightfully nutty, indescribably sad, and utterly joyous images in my head as keepsakes.

Incredible.

Looking forward to in 2020.
The Living Room! They’re coming back for MICF. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket. (SM: Or buy one.)

SM: Sarah's been working on a YA novel this year; I can't wait to read it. But my favourite moment was when we realised we'd both seen The Living Room. And her child's kinder photo that will haunt the families of her classmates.

PS: Sad to see that YouTube/Target have removed her boob ad from an earlier year.

Zoey Dawson
Writer etc

Zoey Dawson

Favourite moments of 2019.
WAISTD and EQUINOX (their opening to the Castlemaine State Festival) by Deep Soulful Sweats,  Poopie Tum Tums by The Very Good Looking Initiative, Barbara and the Camp Dogs at Malthouse, Unwoman by The Rabble, Wake in Fright at Malthouse, Subliminal Massage by Marcus McKenzie and Club Greg at Melbourne Fringe, Mullygrubs by Leah Filley and Harry Thompson at Melbourne Fringe.

So many other shows I didn't get to see! I was a woeful theatre goer this year and vow to better next year. But  the moments I most remember this year were all the stand out performances! So I am going to make a wee dedication to those, because fuck we have a talented city of THESPIANS:

Ursula Yovich in Barbara and the Camp Dogs. I was very sad to hear that Ursula is retiring from the stage, but also unsurprised after seeing this performance that came absolutely from the pit of her gut, and that's where I felt it. I feel so lucky to have seen her play the exquisite, damaged and hilarious Barbara and I won't soon forget it. And that voice; hooley dooley.

Jennifer Vuletic in The Rabble's My Dearworthy Darling at Malthouse. An actor at the absolute height of her powers, completely in and of her body and with a gravitas that makes you tingle from the inside out. I felt this performance was just for me, as I'm sure every other person in the theatre did. I had to have a lie down afterwards.

Yumi Umiumare, Dana Miltins and Mary Helen Sassman in Unwoman. I am such a fangirl of Mary Helen and Dana as an acting duo. I think they've been working together, what? Since they were born? And it was such a delight to see them smash it out of the park in the second act of The Rabble's incredible show.  This whole company is bloody soaring at the moment. My top draft pick for 2020. Full credit to the girls. Anyway, back to the ACTING.  I think I levitated with joy watching Dana and Mary Helen devour this visceral, graphic and hilarious material, and watching Dana describe her first poo after giving birth was absolutely my theatre highlight of 2019. Then Yumi Umiumare came along and did something that brought me back down to earth and made it cave in. Torturous, unending, beautiful; a profound physical performance that communicated something unspeakable.

Lou Wall as Satan in Oh No! Satan Stole my Pineal Gland!. Iconic. Masterfully underplayed, impeccable comic timing and deeply disturbing. I know she's basically still a teenager but can someone plz give Lou a major state funded theatre company to run and her own talk show immediately?

Charles Purcell as an anxious camel come drag-cassowary in Mad as a Cute Snake at Theatre Works was something very special to behold. Charles is always a beautiful performer, but this was like watching him emerge from his chrysalis as his very own, fully formed spirit animal. I wept. Are you supposed to do that in children's drag theatre?

The incomparable Zahra Newman in Wake in Fright. What even...? How does she...? How will we ever, as a city, be truly worthy of Zahra's talent? After seeing her obliterate canonical roles on the mainstage for years it was SO SATISFYING seeing her play a version of herself and tell us (some of) what she really thinks.

Marcus McKenzie in Subliminal Massage. Marcus is by far the most stone cold weirdo I know, as well as one of the most talented. I loved seeing him orchestrate this surreal beast that somehow condensed all of his bonkers energy into a sneakily very-moving show. He is such a generous and uncompromising and effortless performer and I can't wait to see what he does next.

Looking forward to in 2020.
Pretty much everything everyone else has said, as well as following around the above performers and makers to see what they do next. Can't wait for basically everything at the Malthouse; what a great season! And I am peeing my pants excited to see Declan Greene direct Nick Coyle's Feather In The Web at Red Stitch; a very very funny sicko play that made me lol so much when I read it. And Stephen Nicolazzo's Orlando with the criminally talented Chanella Macri! What else?? Everything! Asia TOPA! Next Wave! Artshouse! Western Edge Youth Arts! Probably heaps more things made in carparks and public toilets now that arts funding is in the bin! But I've happy to put on my warm coat. I just hope we keep making stuff.

SM: Another easy one. Zoey wrote Australian Realness. I don't think I've ever used this cliche, but what a journey! From the opening scenes and wondering if she really had written a very funny and very nice middle-class play to having no flipping idea where it was going to go and loving every twist, even when it was twisting and turning that bloody reality mirror in front of us middle class theatre goers. And watching an audience go from having comfortable expectations about a nice safe play to the walls falling down and having all those expectations shattered. More please.

Melbourne Fringe: The good news stories

MELBOURNE FRINGE
12–29 September 2019
melbournefringe.com.au





So Melbourne Fringe is over and we have a couple nights off before Melbourne Festival begins. I saw a lot of shows – I think 31, but it's a blurr – and missed that many again that I wanted to see.

So many people don't see, go to or cover Fringe because of the big curated Festival – and they miss out on so much. Melbourne Fringe is the event where we see the beginnings of works that go on to change how we make theatre. It's where we see stuff that will never be seen again. It's where you will see an artist who connects with you and you and know that you are going to see everything they do. It's where arts community and audiences are developed and built, and where no one gives a toss what the sponsors think.

These are some of the many good news stories this Fringe.

Danny Delahunty and his team creating a new Fringe Hub at Trades Hall. So many more venues. A place full of history that reminds us every moment that the word "union" means working together.

Indie media stepping up again. There was the ARTery podcast - EVERY DAY, thanks to Jason Cavanagh and host extraordinaire May Jasper. Myron My at My Melbourne Arts saw 61 shows! And wrote about them. The only way to get the context, depth and importance of this event is to see a lot.

Awards. Yep, sometimes awards they are guff, but a lot of Fringe prizes are support to get to other festivals, and the "best" ones are decided by panels of industry people who also see so many shows throughout the festival. It's one to be genuinely chuffed about.

Ones that made me smile.

Andi Snelling's Happy-Go-Wrong is off to the Adelaide fringe.  (I talked about this on ARTery podcast.)

Andi Snelling.  Happy-Go-Wrong

Bron Batten's Waterloo is off to North Melbourne and to Edinburgh. I can't wait to see what this show becomes. This means that I somehow have to get to Edinburgh next year. As an arts writer, if I saved everything I earned as an arts writer in a year, I couldn't even get a flight. And that's more than others get.

Oh No, Satan Stole My Pineal Gland directed by Jean Tong and Louisa Wall won Best Ensemble. They were.

Claire Rankine won a producing award for Polygamy, Polygayu, which she also directed  and it was developed and performed by Alice Tovey, Charity Werk, Margot Tanjutco and Hayley Tantau.

Alice Tovey, Margot Tanjutco, Charity Werk, Polygamy, Polygayou. Photo by Ling Duong

Bryony Kimmings won Best Theatre for I'm a Phoenix, Bitch (ARTery podcast). She's still one of my favourite artists and even if I wasn't 100% sure about this work, its impact is astonishing. I've spoken to people who say their lives have changed since they saw it. Produced by Daniel Clarke and Arts Centre Melbourne.

Selina Jenkins's BOOBS won Best Cabaret. It's one of the best shows I've seen this year (ARTery podcast).

My favourite story is the two clowns from LA, Amritha Kaur Gemma Soldati, who came to Melbourne and knew no one and won Best Comedy. I saw The Living Room because someone from The Butterfly Club told me about it. (Those networks of people really do work.) It only ran for a week and us who saw it now have some pretty good bragging rights. If you missed it – well, I told you it was good.

Frobert and Joshua Ladgrove. Pic nicked off Facebook.

My nearly-favourite story isn't a prize (but this show won the Golden Gibbo at MICF). Joshua Ladgrove Presents Melbourne’s Only Bilge Pump Sales Seminar sold out – in the good way, the every seat filled way. Add an extra star to my comedy festival review. Three years ago, he did a Fringe show with an audience of nine: we will always be the Portenza Nine.

There many other artists and shows that I could mention – and hopefully did on Twitter – , but a lot of them are going to get lots of words in the future. And I many never have known about them if I hadn't seen them in this festival.

Review: Oh No! Satan Stole My Pineal Gland!

MEBOURNE FRINGE
Oh No! Satan Stole My Pineal Gland!
21 September 2019
Fringe Hub: Trades Hall - New Council Chambers
To 29 September
melbournefringe.com.au

Oh No! Satan Stole My Pineal Gland

My review is in Time Out. 

MIDSUMMA: Truly Madly Britney

MIDSUMMA
Truly Madly Britney
Theatre Works and Stage Mom
20 January 2019
Theatre Works
to 9 February
theatreworks.org.au

Truly Madly Britney. Photo by Lachlan Woods

Pop icon obsession is dismissed as much as it is understood. Can anyone really say that there isn't at a pop star that will be your bff as soon as you find a way to meet? Truly Madly Britney dives hilariously into the frustration and pain under the glittery joy of knowing too much about your icons and the chorey to every video.

Adam (Adam Garner) loves Steve (Nick Clark) so much that he's happy to max their credit cards to go on a pilgrimage to LA to pay homage to Britney Spears circa 2007 – the year the Mousketeer-cum-teen-superstar-cum-queer-guiding-light-goddess is remembered by photos of her shaved head –  that culminates with meet-and-greet tix for her Vegas show. Or LIVING THE DREAM for a boy, who was once in teen pop band, in love with a boy, who works in retail at the biggest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere.

Of course following the dream of a breakdown is never going to go smoothly, especially as they meet fellow Britney fans. There's airbnb host Chad (Alex Threw) who isn't at all gay, and Judy (Louisa Wall) who has backstage passes for her and her terminally-ill son Kevin (Karl Richmond). And Chanella Marci is everyone else, starting as a Savage Garden fan; all Australian boy couples look like Savage Garden.

Writer Alberto Di Troia began developing the script when he was studying at VCA and met director Hannah Fallowfield. They bonded over Britney and it's since had a reading at the MTC Cybec series and been welcomed by Theatre Works for Midsumma.

It's so wonderful to see Theatre Works's Midsumma season mixing international shows with new writing, emerging creatives and a cast who are on their individual ways to becoming favourites. Without this kind of support, shows like this don't get the chance to develop and new voices aren't heard. Truly Madly Britney will develop further, but don't wait for the next season.

Like a pop star having a really shit year, extreme is the only way to go. And they do. Although it's a bit uneven, director Fallowfield finds a lovingly outrageous tone that's backed up with close harmonies of camp, consent, and finding comfort in knowing that you're not the only one going through hell. Designer Bethany J Fellows creates a Vegas mood with a single light-globe budget and adds layers of meaning by being anti-Vegas and showing all the stagecraft secrets. And it all works towards a climax so magnificently wrong that anything less would be offensive.

What Melbourne Loved in 2018, part 9

Today we move from the comedy festival to the the Fringe and celebrate all the opera that's made in Melbourne.

Lou Wall
Lou (lol)

Favourite moments in 2018
Witnessing Natalie Palamides live swallow 17 raw eggs dressed as a chicken in Laid at MICF was probably the best and filthiest piece of theatre I have ever seen – a life highlight. Honourable mentions go to Nakkiah Lui's fierce as fuck Blackie Blackie Brown at Malty, a mind-blowing production of The Fall at Arts Centre Melbourne  and I Wanna Know What Love Is at Chapel off Chapel. And, obv, Virginia Gay as Calamity Jane was everything.

Looking forward to in 2019
Alberto Di Troia's Truly Madly Britney at Theatre Works is 100% going to be the gay christmas my January needs. After seeing a reading of it at MTC's Cybec this year I can't wait for the full production. (Tbh I am in it, but I'm still damn excited to see it from the wings lol). Also keen to see Golden Shields at MTC and finally catch Muriel's Wedding when it makes its way to the superior city.

SM: 2018 has been a pretty amazing year for Lou Wall. I saw her in the return seasons of Romeo is not the only fruit and It's not me, it's Lou at MICF –  she did two different shows most nights! – and the wonderful Lou Wall's Drag Race at Melbourne Fringe. This, too, has to come back; it was the show where she found her voice as an artist – while showing us how some fucked attitudes to gender are going to disappear as the next generations take over our stages. My favourite moment was talking with her about Betty Grumble and her telling me how she took her mum to the show. As I walked away, I realised that I am possibly older than her mum.


Danny Delahunty
Festival Producer, Melbourne Fringe

Danny Delahunty. Photo by Sarah Walker

Favourite moments in 2018
So hard to choose just one! So here are my two. Break Up [We Need To Talk] by New Zealand ensemble Binge Culture. It was a five hour (improvised) durational performance, with five actors playing out an argument that ends a long-term relationship. They rotated between playing either the protagonist, or as part of a four-person chorus of their partner. Beautiful, funny, touching, and very very moreish.

Just as much a standout moment in my year was Bighouse Dreaming. Technically excellent – writing (Declan Furber Gillick), direction (Mark Wilson), performances, vision, execution – it all had it for me. But more than that it was such an incredibly powerful work that knocked me down for days.

Looking forward to in 2019
Ah, it's so early! But from things I've already got tickets to, I'm super looking forward to The Legend of Queen Kong at Arts Centre Melbourne! Oh, and finding out why they had to rip out and rebuild the whole Princess Theatre stage to accommodate special effects in Harry Potter and The Cursed Child! I have tix in the middle of Row E for the second week that cost me as much as a house deposit, so I don't have long to wait!

SM: I sat with Danny for the end of Break Up [We Need To Talk]; I wish I'd seen more of it.

Paul Selar
Opera critic

Paul Selar

Favourite moments in 2018
As far as opera went, a rather well-balanced season of works fired up the local scene. I’m not giving too much away right now because all will be revealed in my humble Twitter evening on 27 December in the Fouth Annual OperaChaser Awards, my fun way of acknowledging the production achievements and breadth of talent across the medium.

Of the government-funded companies, Opera Australia pulled off a riveting little masterpiece for its first foot in the door with Malthouse Theatre for Brian Howard’s Metamorphosis. I haven’t ever experienced the Malthouse feel so capacious and director Tama Matheson brought together an insightful fusion of disturbing drama and discordant soundscape and transformed it into an extraordinary and inquiring theatrical experience.

I also loved director Kasper Holten’s wildly imaginative interpretation of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Opera Australia’s big-budget co-production with London’s Royal Opera. What was so rewarding about this production was how Holten’s hybrid storytelling mixed theatrical illusion with characters reinterpreted as part of the theatre and it still leaves so much to ponder.

As state company Victorian Opera’s appearances on the calendar in Melbourne were thin, it seemed so wasteful that such a seductive and ethereal quality that was created for Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande was all but over in just two performances. A superlative cast, creatives and young musicians from ANAM worked marvellously together to produce a work of exceptionally high standard.

On the independent scene, Melbourne Opera continued to pull off some ambitious and exquisitely staged hard-hitting work. In particular, there’ll be mentions for Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.

Smaller independent players were less prominent but Gertrude Opera made history in bringing Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale to the stage in its Australian premiere. Ruders’s score is a spectacular conglomeration of sonic form and director Linda Thompson gave its disturbing story an absolutely thrilling account in a knockout simple production as part of her inaugural Yarra Valley Opera Festival.

For more, come join me with champagne on Twitter @OperaChaser at 5 pm 27 December for the enjoyment it gives me to announce all.

Looking forward to in 2019
I’m looking forward to everything Melbourne can do in showcasing the art of opera. At least the year will be starting well with more Wagner in February with not one, but two fully staged productions: Melbourne Opera’s The Flying Dutchman and Victorian Opera’s Parsifal. It’s 2020 I’m concerned about. After so much gorgeously produced Wagner works Melbourne has been treated to in the last few years, what will it be like without him?

SM: I see shows vicariously though Paul. He sees work I'll never have the chance to see (os) but I feel like I have when I read his reviews.

MICF: It's not me, it's Lou

It's not me, it's Lou
Louisa Wall
30 March 2018
Shell Room, Coopers Malthouse
to 8 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Lousia Wall

There's a few nights left to do the Lou Wall double at Malthouse; she goes from It's not me, it's Lou, her solo show, to the raved-about Romeo is Not the Only Fruit. 

Lou's in her early 20s, so she has plenty of indulgent Facebook statuses as fodder for her cabaret about being part if the social media generation. I love social media, but I'm so glad it didn't exist when I was in my teens; us Gen Xers may be the last generation who only have memories of our teens and twenties.

But it's lucky for us that Lou didn't delete her status updates and is happy to admit her iPhone love.

And she knows that her cabaret's not a cabaret – could theatre be a lie!? – even with are songs, sequins, and a trackie.

Keep an eye on her; she's only going to get more awesome.

And she's totally MICF – Melbourne Independent Celebratory Feminist.

MICF: Romeo is not the only fruit

Romeo is not the only fruit
The Furies, Jean Tong & Stephanie-Bowie Liew
29 March 2018
Beckett Theatre
to 8 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Nisha Joseph, Louisa Wall, Pallavi Waghmode, Sasha Cheryllyn Chong, Margot Tanjutco

It's going to be hard to get tickets for Romeo is not the only fruit next week. So, book now. I know it's very early to call the must-see show of the festival, but if you miss this, you won't know why the rest of us are singing a song called "Fuck you".

Writer and director Jean Tong had me at the Jeanette Winterson reference.

This secures a certain section of the audience, but there's also atrocious reality tv shows (The Spinsterette), dumplings, soy sauce fish, vagina mime, more intersectional references than there are types of dumplings in Melbourne, and a chorus called the Incompetent Dead Lesbians. And sequins.

First seen – and loved – last year at the Butterfly Club as part of the Poppyseed Festival, Romeo is not the only fruit has developed in Fame-size leaps and has already been seen by more people than its first run. It proves how important small stages and and small festivals are for developing new work; shows need to be seen before they can take over the world. And it proves that seeing independent and new work at any festival sometimes gives you bragging rights of seeing first productions.

Juliet (Margot Tanjutco) lives in fairish Verona with her mother and grandmother, and has an unseen  interfering chorus of guardian angels (Nisha Joseph, Pallavi Waghmode, Sasha Cheryllyn Chong). Mum and G-Ma want Juliet to breed the next generation and encourage her to accept a nice boy, even if he can't cook rice, and to give up her dream of being a pilot and flying into the high blue. When tall, blue-eyed Darcy (Louisa Wall) moves into the street, Juliet invites her home to dinner. G-Ma welomes Darcy by offering white bread and butter (white people are unusual in Verona; "We are so not racist" may push Avenue Q's "Everyone's a little bit racist" off the top of the best-music-theatre-songs-about-racism list) but the angels don't care about the food because they know what happens in popular culture when two women fall in love...

They die. The lesbians always die.

"Why, why, why, do the lesbians always die?". (Can we please have the soundtrack album with James Gales's music and Tong's lyrics.)

This show tears open the love tropes of mainstream stories. Especially the one that difficult lovers – like queer women – are conveniently removed by death. Darcy's already lost a couple of girlfriends and the angels met their deaths by daring to be in love. One angel has a quilt remembering all the dead pop-culture lesbians – she's filled one side and the other is almost full.

Do these star-crossed lovers overcome canons of expectation? And poison?

That'd be telling.

Does Romeo is not the only fruit subvert every boring expectation of love stories to be the most joyous fuck you to everything that deserves a fuck you?

Yes.