Features/What to SEE/Fringe World Festival/Multi-arts

What to SEE: Hot tips for Fringe in January

10 January 2022

Feeling overwhelmed by the Fringe World program? Fear not, Seesaw Mag’s editors have combed this year’s offerings to find something for everyone.


With over 500 events at this year’s Fringe World, punters are spoiled for choice. How do you narrow down the wealth of options on offer?

Don’t fret pumpkins. The Seesaw Mag team has combed the program to find recommendations to suit every taste.

This week we’re bringing you our picks from the first fortnight of Fringe World. You can also check out part 2, with highlights from the second half of Fringe, plus our tips for The Blue Room Theatre’s Summer Nights program!

For those who want a laugh

Dr Ahmed Gets Hitched
14-16 January @ the State Theatre Centre of WA

An image from the Fringe show 'Dr Ahmed Gets Hitched'. Pictured is a man gesturing towards the audience with a smile on his face.

Award-winning comedian / dermatologist Dr Ahmed invites you to attend his “Big Fat Gay Greek Pakistani Wedding”, and there is simply no earthly reason not to accept.

Promising moussaka, Bollywood-style dancing, and consultation services for your skin conditions, this show gives to the world of comedy what trifle gives to the world of desserts: ingredients that, on paper, don’t belong together but make a delightful reality. While it could be a bumpy ride to the altar, with detours through stand-up and cabaret, the happy outcome is set from the start: Love Wins.

Read Seesaw Mag’s review of the 2021 season of Dr Ahmed Gets Hitched

Quizaret
21-29 January @ Studio One at Camelot

Pictured is the logo for the Fringe World show 'Quizaret'. Which shows the shows title in the foreground and red theatre curtains in the background.

What happens in a comedy show where cabaret meets circus under the guise of a pub quiz?

Having read the press release, I confess I’m still not totally sure, but whatever it is sounds like a lot of fun! Put yourself in the capable hands of professional festival stars Beck Wilson and Scott Chocolate, plus special guests, and see for yourself what’s in store.

Bring a group (there is a family-friendly matinee session) or come on your own, and compete for fabulous prizes, including the coveted “golden” (or maybe just pyrite) pencil!

For art appreciators (and wannabe artistes)

Toy Stories
14 January – 12 February @ Midland Junction Arts Centre

Pictured is an little green alien sitting within a metallic silver UFO for the Toy Stories Fringe World exhibition.

Head out to Midland Junction Arts Centre to take a turn through the sometimes cute and other times creepy “Toy Stories” exhibition.

Running until 12 February, the exhibition brings together works by artists such as Cecile Williams, who collaborated with inventor John Davey to create a jack-in-the-box-style mechanical rabbit, hobbyists like Barry Tyrie and his model railway country town replica, and community groups, like Narrogin Doll Factory and their papier-mâché puppet heads.

Pictured: Emanuel Arkeveld, ‘Spaceship’, paint on MDF, plastic, metal, 28 x 18cm. Photograph by Acorn Photo.

Djinda Boodja workshops
Piano and Paint: 17 Jan, High Tea Art Sessions: 19 January, Musical Pinwheels: 18 Jan – 13 Feb @ Djinda Boodja – Star Country

Pictured is three pinwheels made from straws and sheet music in the foreground and a wall of greenery in the background for the Fringe World event 'Djinda Boodja worskshops'.

Djinda Boodja, the new arts and culture organisation that has grown out of Abmusic, is giving audiences opportunities to get hands-on with making.

If you’re in the mood for painting you can daub along with a classical piano score at Piano and Paint, or let your brushwork be inspired by a range of delectable teas at their High Tea Art Sessions.

If upcycling is more your jam, head along to Musical Pinwheels to re-use old sheet music in this classic lo-fi papercraft workshop.

For theatre lovers

2 Marys
14-16 January@ Midland Junction Arts Centre

Pictured for Fringe World's show '2 Marys' is a woman dressed as a man. She has light stubble and wears a black top hat and suit jacket over a white shirt. She holds what looks like a cane in front of her which she uses to lift her hat slightly.

Mary Shelley, of Frankenstein fame, and Mary Diana Dods team up to protect a pregnant but unwed friend from 19th century social pariahdom. The solution? Marriage, of course, and what better groom than Dods herself? This subversive tale of desertion, devotion, and deception is the product of Perth playwright Suzanne Ingelbrecht’s KSP writer’s residency, shining a light on this wild but ostensibly true story.

Read more in Seesaw Mag’s Q&A with playwright/director Suzanne Ingelbrecht

Pictured: Shirley Van Sanden plays Mary Diana Dods in Suzanne Ingelbrecht’s upcoming ‘2 Marys’. Photo: Chris Horgan, Organic Productions.

My Greatest Period Ever
14 – 20 January @ Lotterywest De Parel Spiegeltent at The Pleasure Garden

Pictured for Fringe World's show 'My Greatest Period Ever' is a woman in a red one-piece bathing suit lying on some white sand. Below her crotch the sand changes to a rainbow of colours which appear to be coming out of her.

If you are a menstruator, you are probably not in the habit of thinking of that (ahem) period of the month as the GREATEST EVER. Folk-singer-come-period-preacher Lucy Peach is here to change your mind.

Explaining the phases of the menstrual cycle with sweet empathy, witty banter, and an assisted handstand, Peach informs, delights and impresses. Whether you need to hack your own cycle, or support those close to you who do, this show’s previous sell-out seasons attest to its widespread appeal.

Read Seesaw Mag’s review of Lucy Peach’s 2018 season of My Greatest Period Ever

Or for something completely different at Fringe

Playground VR
14 January – 13 February @ Perth Cultural Centre

Pictured is a virtual reality world. This world features blue and lilac skies, clouds and a golden staircase leading to a rainbow.

Put on your Oculus Quest headset and take a trip into your childhood fantasies with Playground VR.

Explore a space where the inconvenient limitations of the physical world, such as pesky gravity, need not apply and your imagination has room to skip and play.

Offering luscious candy-coloured visuals and a whimsical soundtrack by Birds of Tokyo’s Glenn Sarangapany, Playground VR is a multi-sensory immersion into a video game type world.

Fantasie
14-31 January @ The Royale Theatre

Pictured are two aerial hoop dancers one in red the other in a white sharing the one hoop. All around them are green lasers setting the ambience for the show.

Looking for something spicier?

Local and international award-winning stripper Frankie Fatale pushes the NSFW envelope in Fantasie, bringing the sometimes secret world of striptease to a mainstream stage. Fatale plans to “blow the lid off more acceptable ‘naughty’ shows” in this feature-length performance, promising aerials, a full cast of dancers, a splash zone, and candid nudity captured on a big screen.

Not for the faint-hearted, Fantasie sees Fatale working to legitimise and destigmatise sex work.

Want more? Check out What to SEE: More hot tips for Fringe and What to SEE at The Blue Room this Summer

Pictured top is Dr Ahmed Kazmi in ‘Dr Ahmed Gets Hitched’.

Like what you're reading? Support Seesaw.

Author —
Claire Coleman

Dr Claire Coleman is a pop musicologist, choral conductor and musician. She trained classically in piano, but wrote her doctorate on nostalgia in indie folk, and continues to lecture remotely in pop music studies in Berlin and London. Claire compares the high of bullying strangers into singing to doing hypothetical illicit drugs, so watch out or you might end up an unwitting participant in one of her choral adventures.

Past Articles

Read Next

  • A Circus Sensation by ZAP Circus Zap sparks an hour of power
    Features

    Zap sparks an hour of power

    27 October 2024

    A hard-working touring duo dazzles regional audiences of all ages, writes Sarah-Jayne Eeles.

    Reading time • 5 minutesCircus
  • Reading time • 7 minutesFilm
  • Waves of influence span an ocean
    Features

    Waves of influence span an ocean

    19 October 2024

    Diverse codes of creativity around Indian Ocean are on show in Bunbury through iOTA24. Olivia Little reviews two exhibitions as a part of Seesaw’s Regional Mentoring Program.

    Reading time • 8 minutesVisual Art

Cleaver Street Studio

Cleaver Street Studio

 

Cleaver Street Studio