ON THE FRINGE
MY FIRST INTRODUCTION to the Adelaide Fringe took place under a canopy of festoon lighting and gum trees in a sequin-fuelled sequence of madcap encounters at the Garden of Unearthly Delights. Within the first three hours I’d engaged in an existential conversation, via text messages, with a lemon-scented gum, got cosy with some naughty nanas played by Melbourne comics Thomas Jaspers and Kyle Minall in their retro caravan, and allowed myself to be spooked by spirits – well, some very clever sound art – in a pitch-black shipping container. And within my three days at the Fringe I had danced on stage to a soundtrack of Happy Mondays, joined a toxic ‘girl squad’ in an experiential commentary on social media and was serenaded by a hotpant-wearing, accordion-playing boy wonder from Berlin.
Such random experiences are the Fringe in a nutshell, says festival director and
