It is no news to us that Adelaide has an extensively vibrant arts scene, and there is no other time of the year which showcases this better; The Adelaide Fringe.

The Fresher team went out to experience some of the plethora of shows on offer during this month of madness. Here’s what we saw, and what we have to say…

Bring Your C*NT

by Gas Leak in the Air Productions

Gas Leak in the Air Productions freaked it with this one… ‘Bring Your C*nt’ at the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2026 was a tribute to all things queer, fashionable, and, of course, cunt! The show was fashion forward, and fabulously sustainable, with a cast oozing with charisma, charm, uniqueness, energy, nerve, and talent.

This show has everything; fashion, storytelling, positive affirmations, lip syncs, audience participation, sketches, and queer love. As well as my personal favourite, the fashion runway. Throughout the night, I was overly excited to see what would come out of the curtain next: Diversity Hire doing the splits, Mary Jean valentine in a chain mail dress, Ashley lip syncing as Lorde, Olivia with a glass of positive affirmations and Lilly Lulu in an outfit made entirely of underwear. So cunt.

I attended the relaxed viewing and it was incredibly thought out with an interpreter, raised house lights, lower music, and with sensory items available. The show still wowed just the same. And I truly don’t believe any show could hold a flame to the comedy, fashion, pop culture references, high brow commentary, and overall stage presence of Bring Your C*nt.

— Mia Damiano

Crepuscular

by Abbey Amber

“Do you want to hear a bedtime story?”

This is the question Abbey Amber poses at the start of her one-woman Fringe show, Crepuscular. For Amber, there is ‘a special place in [her] heart for storytelling’ and ‘being able to share a part of your heart to an audience.’ The part she trusts the audience to hold is woeful yet hauntingly bittersweet, sculpted on a stage of nostalgia and tenderness. In the sheer organza and tatters of childhood blankets, we see through time itself. A liminal space between past and present, self and other — like twilight, like crepuscular zones.

Amber iterates that “[she’s] not trying to make grief beautiful,” a theatrical impulse perhaps stemming from Butoh principles: a style of Japanese theatre she has trained in. Like Crepuscular’s stage, Butoh is a liminal art that borrows from Ma, a Japanese term for the gaps and intervals of time, space and being. Eastern influences can be seen in Amber's use of shadow theatre, which amplifies the imagery in her story and gives the audience an evocative impression.

She dips between third-person narration and comedic first-person interjections, creating a dynamic that reinforces the importance of storytelling: grappling with the personal through the universal. Though specific details are omitted, it is clear that crepuscular’s inspiration arises from Amber’s own complex relationship with memory. As she revisits her mother’s old room, space and scent revive her childhood recollections, whilst lamenting the brain’s inability to preserve each crease. Yet, when the dust settles, she holds the memory of her childhood in stories, in a book she has spent the show searching for. In the words, she finds her younger selves stuck in time, and a story whose conclusion she has spent years chasing. On stage, we are moved by her realisation that this story’s conclusion is written, but hers is not.

Crepuscular is a eulogy to childhood and a reclamation of self-agency. It is the present making sense of the past and choosing to move forward. Though woeful in tone, its soul is etched in hard-fought hope, pulsating with love and life.

—Estee Loke & Seraphina Zhang

The Mirror

by Gravity & Other Myths

The Mirror is a striking exploration of spectacle, surveillance and the body, blending live singing, physical theatre and multimedia into a deliberately disorienting experience. Its most compelling device is a live selfie camera, treated as a performer in its own right – capturing distorted projections in an endless mirror effect as the lead singer weaves through and above the audience.

The work thrives on tonal instability: surreal spectacle gives way to backstage intimacy, from a drawn-out “wedding” sequence of interlocked lips and lifts, to moments where performers casually reset onstage in a broken fourth wall interlude. Haunting vocals sit alongside absurd humour as pop lyrics are recontextualised through choreography. Dead or Alive’s You Spin Me Round (like a Record) and Adele’s Rolling in the Deep are featured in a sequence drawing laughs from the audience, as the performer sings to a selfie camera hand, unfolding in real time on a projector screen.

Though disorienting, the shifts remain coherent, sustaining a restless, unpredictable energy. As a dancer and creative, I found The Mirror an invigorating convergence of performance, concept and physicality; truly a bold and compelling work from this Adelaide-born troupe.

— Elaine Goh

10,000 Hours

by Gravity & Other Myths

10,000 Hours was an expert masterclass in the power of pure talent to enrapture an audience. With simple grey costuming, striking LED displays and the raw artistry of agility, I was blown away with everything Gravity & Other Myths threw at me. Each new segment illustrated a fresh take on modern acrobatics, from a game of chicken, to pass the parcel, to pretend, to pictionary. 10,000 Hours was childish fun reimagined in death-defying stunts in mid-air.

It began simple enough, testing and increasing the difficulty of a warmup routine, but slowly ascended into a crescendo of jumps and leaps, using the human body as nothing more than a prop to move and bend, and throw across the stage. All while the giant LED clock ticked, counting to 60 minutes, to the end of the show and the final stand of the ultimate challenge against what the human body is capable of. Through the impeccable lightwork – a performance in and of itself – and gradually increasing tempo of the movements, each new chapter had me not only at the edge of my seat but on the brink of a nervous breakdown, thoroughly anticipating what could possibly top all of what I had seen. And they managed to do it every single time.

In the age of spectacle and theatrics (of which I thoroughly enjoy mind you), simple yet refined and powerful performance is incredibly refreshing, and I cannot wait to see what GOM brings to the Fringe next year.

— Amber Lomax

Woke Loud Witch

by Cecilia Ronson

When I walked into the HandleBar homebase – a big warehouse bar just north of Chinatown – I didn’t know what to expect but when I heard 80’s hits floating through the air and saw a very theatrical cellophane-covered cauldron towards the back of the warehouse, I knew. It was, ultimately, exactly the kind of set-up that you would expect from an Adelaide Fringe show.

I took a seat and before long the witch themself appeared, informing us that she had been tasked by the World Woke Witch Committee (WWWC) to make this month’s magic potion, with magical donations from the audience, which had been handed to us in bags beforehand. These included a retired twink’s last harness, a referral to a doctor who actually listens, and carabiners from multiple lesbians. All of it went into the cauldron, accompanied by jokes delivered with the wit and accuracy of a large-scale stand-up show.

But the best part of the Woke Loud Witch was her inclusivity. It was a small space, and because Cecilia engaged with each of us it made the performance feel really cozy and welcoming to all, (even the two straight men who were, in her words, “brave enough to show up”). I was the biggest fan of the crowdwork aspect, as well as their commitment to making so many very gay and political jokes, all of which (witch?) left every audience member unable to stop laughing by the end of the show.

And so I think all of our reactions were the best reply she could have given to the online comment which inspired this show:

“Conservative gays like me can be funny. It's the woke gays which are the issue”.
In my opinion, Cecilia woke-ly and loudly proved them wrong, sincerely.

— Liam Wooley

We also saw a Burlesque show at the Fringe, check out our exclusive review below…

see our review on Evana De Lune's Burlesque