Sydney Fringe Festival is back this September, bringing an abundance of weird, wonderful and wacky performances to some of the city’s best (and most underrated) venues.
What do George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 and seductive British chef Nigella Lawson have in common?
Not much, you might think. But that changes this month, as both are the unlikely stars of their own deliciously wacky productions at the Sydney Fringe Festival.
Everyone, meet cabaret parody Not Nigella and torture-filled rom-com 1984! The Musical!.
Across the month-long celebration of independent arts, venues around Sydney will fill with theatre, comedy, cabaret and shows that are often difficult to imagine until you see them for yourself. This was certainly true for the handful of quirky performances I saw at last year’s Fringe, namely Nun Slut and Scientology: The Musical.
As we gear up for another month of laughs, creativity and, at times, downright confusion, we chatted to two of this year’s Fringe performers bringing brilliantly bold (and very Fringe) shows to Sydney’s stages: Henry Barnes, who stars in the raunchy rom-com 1984! The Musical!, and Hannah Heading, the writer, director and star of Not Nigella.
For both performers, this year’s Sydney Fringe marks their first time taking part in the Festival. They spilled the beans on the inspiration behind their productions, the importance of the Festival and their advice for embracing all the wonderfully weird things the Fringe has to offer.
Orwell’s 1984 gets a rom-com makeover
For Barnes, the opportunity to perform at the Fringe came via a call from a friend asking if he wanted to be involved.
“I said I’d be stupid to say no,” he tells us.
In the “equal parts toe-tapping and soul-crushing” adaptation of Orwell’s famously bleak novel, he’ll be playing Mr Parsons, Winston Smith’s hapless neighbour and co-worker. Barnes tells us that audiences anticipating a straightforward musical adaptation of surveillance, authoritarianism and despair may be in for a surprise.
Without giving away any spoilers, he says to expect “a bit of raunchy fun” with “still a couple of things to think about” for those familiar with the original novel. He added that he’ll be playing Parsons like a “classic shed dad”, a take on the character you’ve definitely never seen before.
Although 1984! The Musical! was created in 2020, it’s never been performed at the Sydney Fringe Festival before. The musical adaptation was co-written by Tom Davidson McLeod and Diana Reid, a bestselling Australian author who recently penned a film adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, due for release this year and starring A-list actress Daisy Edgar-Jones.
McLeod will be producing this performance, with Noa Amiry stepping into the director’s shoes and Sholto Mirrlees-Black starring as Winston Smith. The show features all-original numbers, brought to life with choreography by Ellie Zheng and Isla Mowbray.
Barnes says one of the joys of performing at the Fringe is having the freedom to embrace the strange and the quirky, something the show’s tongue-in-cheek script fully leans into. Yes, the source material of 1984! The Musical! is a dark and eerie reflection of what’s happening in the world today, but sometimes, comedy is the best way to grapple with those heavy themes.
The actor also points out to us that this is the “Fringe”: it’s experimental, alternative and unconventional.
“It’s not Broadway. It’s Sydney Fringe. It’s cool, it’s quirky, it’s weird,” he says. “It’s going to be a bit of fun for us and the audience.”
Not Nigella makes its world premiere
While 1984! The Musical! has already had a handful of performances, Heading’s Not Nigella will make its world premiere at Sydney Fringe Festival. The audience may be seeing it for the first time, but Heading says the idea has been cooking for a while.
The actor laughs as she explains how the idea finally made its way from her mind to the stage: “The whole idea of it is I, as an actor, haven’t been cast. So I thought, why don’t I just cast myself? I’ve had this idea of doing a Nigella Lawson parody cabaret for ages.”
In Not Nigella, the 25-year-old actor takes on the titular role in the one-woman show, which she has written and directed herself. The idea grew from Heading’s long-standing love of Lawson and the cultural conversations that surround her.
“Nigella is a household name,” she says. “She’s such an icon, for both right and wrong reasons.”
Heading based the one-woman play on the 2023 essay Feeling Like a Domestic Goddess: Postfeminism and Cooking by scholar Joanne Hollows. “I read it a while ago, and it truly informed me and my love of Nigella and how I think she’s a misunderstood feminist icon.”
The actress says she’s not interested in lecturing her audience, but rather inviting them to join her in exploring the complicated legacy of the domestic goddess.
“The purpose of my show is not to be so didactic… I want to bring a bit more of a human story to her.”
So, what will the audience profile of Not Nigella look like? Food lovers? Die-hard Nigella fans? Heading laughs. “I think there will be a really beautiful Venn diagram of feminists and perverts at my show, and both are welcome, and both will be disappointed.”
Of course, we had to ask her about her favourite iconic Nigella moment. She immediately mentions the television cook’s famous pronunciation of “microwave”, before recalling a particularly memorable scene from her TV show, Nigella Feasts.
“She is about to lick a spatula, and she’s staring down the barrel of the camera, and she says, ‘Don’t say you wouldn’t ‘. She’s so naughty!”
A place for artists to take the leap
Heading will perform five shows at Erskineville Town Hall’s Emerging Artist Sharehouse, where multiple performers take over different rooms throughout the Festival.
As a self-described “one-man band”, Heading has completely managed the production herself, and while it’s been daunting, she shares that it’s all part of the appeal.
She sees her show as a work in progress, with each performance offering the chance to discover what works in front of an audience. She states that “Sydney Fringe Festival is a great sounding board and starting point.”
“My whole thing with this process has been leap, and the net will appear.” Heading tells us.
That spirit of experimentation is exactly what makes Sydney Fringe so valuable. The Festival gives emerging and independent artists a platform to take a chance on an idea, test it in front of an audience and, in many cases, bring their work to the stage for the very first time.
Embrace the weird
That may be the best piece of advice for anyone sifting through this year’s Sydney Fringe program. Embrace the weird, and try and see as much as possible.
Heading recommends making a night of it at the Emerging Artists Sharehouse, which she describes as a “very efficient way to jam-pack your night with shows”.
“You can stay in the venue, have a really wonderful night, then go to the Erko pub after,” she says.
As for their own Fringe recommendations (aside from their own shows, of course), Barnes is encouraging audiences to catch Toby Quast’s Fantasyland at Marrickville Town Hall.
“He’s a good writer, he’s very funny, and he’s got a voice on him,” Barnes says.
Heading recommends booking the show NEPOBERRY at Qtopia Sydney, which is described as a “camp satire about the offspring of Australia’s ruling class,” or as she puts it, “a show about the Prime Minister’s gorgeous, thotty daughter.”
Barnes and Heading also remind us that there are “some great venues attached” to the Festival. For Heading, a great Fringe Festival space has a certain rough-around-the-edges charm: “a bit of shabbiness, a bit of paint peeling off the wall somewhere, a bar.”
It’s the kind of place, she says, where you might walk in expecting something a “little underbaked”, only to leave “surprised and happy”.
That’s the magic of the Fringe. You might arrive for a musical based on one of literature’s bleakest dystopian novels and leave thinking about the way Nigella Lawson pronounces “microwave”. Or perhaps something even stranger.
This is Sydney Fringe Festival, after all.
1984! The Musical!
Where: Flight Path Theatre, 9b/142 Addison Rd, Marrickville.
When: September 10-19.
Price: $29 plus booking fee.
Not Nigella
Where: Erskineville Town Hall, Emerging Artist Share House, The Office.
When: September 8-12.
Price: $27 plus booking fee.
