Edinburgh’s Underground Hit About Nothing Slithers Into Melbourne Fringe

Feature-SLUGS

The critically acclaimed SLUGS, a breakout hit of the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe from award-winning performance and comedy duo CREEPY BOYS, is coming to Melbourne. Created and first presented during Melbourne’s lockdown, the boys are back to perform the show live and in person at the Meat Market for Melbourne Fringe 2026.

“We CAN NOT express how excited we are to come back to Australia. We spent a year in Melbourne during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, and have such intense, albeit odd, memories of that year,” said the Creepy Boys. “Melbourne is really where we became not just two people dating, but partners, both in life and in art. We’ve said for years, it is our favourite city in the world and we can’t wait to be back.”

Part electro-punk concert, part play, part clown show, and part basement puppet nightmare, SLUGS is a technicolour acid trip. Created by real-life partners S.E. Grummett and Sam Kruger, it features puppet Joni Mitchell, a two-person horse and just about every body part they have. At its heart, SLUGS is two people trying to have a good time while the world burns. For sixty minutes, at least, we are free.

Nominated for Best Show at the 2025 Edinburgh Comedy Awards, SLUGS became an underground hit and earned universal praise with The Guardian calling it “brilliantly smart and beautifully stupid”. Bringing SLUGS to Melbourne has particular significance for the pair, who spent a year living here during the first COVID-19 lockdown, first in Brunswick and later in a “little apartment cube in the sky” in Moonee Ponds. It was an unusual introduction to the city, but one that transformed both their personal and creative lives. This time, thankfully, they get to experience Melbourne with an audience in the room. That relationship between performer and audience sits at the heart of SLUGS, a show designed to exist completely and unapologetically live.

Together as CREEPY BOYS, and through their respective solo works, Grummett and Kruger have toured Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, appearing at Edinburgh Fringe, Soho Theatre, Latitude Festival, SummerWorks, PuSh Festival, Prague Quadrennial, Midsumma Festival, Adelaide Fringe and Fringe World. Their work has also been featured on BBC Radio 4.

Now, after delivering one of Edinburgh’s most talked-about shows, CREEPY BOYS are coming home, creatively at least, to Melbourne. Produced by SKINT and presented for Melbourne Fringe Festival, CREEPY BOYS will present SLUGS at the Meat Market from 1 – 17 October at the Stables at The Meat Market. Tickets on sale now.

Expect music. Expect puppets. Expect clowning. Expect body parts. Just don’t expect them to tell you what SLUGS is about.

SLUGS
Created and performed by: CREEPY BOYS – S.E. Grummett & Sam Kruger
Presented by: Melbourne Fringe
Produced by: SKINT

PRAISE FOR CREEPY BOYS
Best Show Nominee – Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2025
“The underground hit of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe” – The Telegraph
★★★★ The Guardian
★★★★ The Scotsman
★★★★ Chortle
★★★★★ ToDoList
★★★★★ Broadway Baby
★★★★ Financial Times
★★★★ The List
★★★★ The Skinny
★★★★ FestMag
★★★★★ NorthWestEnd UK
★★★★★ Get the Chance UK
★★★★ ‘A gleefully transgressive underground discovery’ – Financial Times

WINNER – Bragi Award, Summerhall Arts (Creepy Boys: SLUGS)
WINNER – Best Theatre at Adelaide Fringe (Something in the Water – S.E. Grummett)
WINNER – Just for Laughs Comedy Award (Fool Muun Komming! etc. etc. – Sam Kruger)

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Em Barrett: The Weird Kid Who Found Home in Structured Chaos

Feature-Ode To A Grape

From birthing maggots onstage to kidnapping celebrities for marketing campaigns, Em Barrett has built a career on the beautifully bizarre. Now the performer brings their favourite creation yet to Melbourne Fringe; a hapless German poet named Johann, whose desperate fight against capitalism and obsession with Elton John makes for what Barrett calls oddly relatable chaos.

Meet The Performer – Em Barrett

What is this production or show about?

Johann is launching a poetry book. Johann is a very bad poet.

Born in Limburg; Germany, Johann packed his quill and moved to the small town of Tīrau, (NZ) to free himself of his parental constraints and find himself as an artist. Now he is ready to share his angst with the world.

With a diary full of inspiration (and sheep poo), Johann has arrived in Naarm to launch (or attempt to launch) his first poetry book.

Unfortunately, as he presents his painfully curated manifesto, he will be sidetracked by his hatred of society, his love for Elton John, and his ongoing frustration with capitalism. Will we ever hear the full book? Do we want to?

Why did you want to be part of this production?

This is a funny question to me, as I have never been sure why. I think as a weird kid turned weird adult, performance feels like the only way I can communicate in the world. (God that sounds really theatre kid-esque, I promise you I am not a theatre kid. Quite the opposite really.) I could never imagine myself in a ‘regular job;’ whatever that means. Performing and making art are really the only ways I feel truly myself.

Em Barrett

What has been your favourite performance or role so far in your career?

I have played a fly birthing maggots live on stage; I have played a magical gateway entity for a real life open world game; I have even played a flavour scientist for the strangest marketing campaign (and borderline celebrity kidnapping scheme) I’ve ever been a part of. But by far, Johann is my favourite role. He is just so awkward, and desperate to prove himself. His fight to keep things together whilst simmering with rage and despair at the capitalist world is oddly relatable.

Have you ever had to improvise or adapt during a live performance? What happened?

Ohhh all the time! I love to incorporate some structured chaos into my shows. For example, Johann is obsessed with asking audiences to suggest poems for him to create. He will then make up a live poem on the spot based on the suggestions. Sometimes they are poems, sometimes they are songs. Sometimes they are just a long tortured vocalisation as Johann stares into the abyss. It’s always fun.

What strategies do you use to manage nerves before you go on?

Eat some good kai (food); breathe; stretch and do a vocal warm up. Maybe do a speed run of the performance. Self care and pre-show warm ups are vital for me to be in the right headspace.

What sort of person is going to love this show?

A show for poetry lovers and haters alike.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

I’m proud to announce that the full season of Ode to a Grape will have Open Captions and a Low Sensory Show on the 30th September. You can find the access guide here: https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/ode-to-a-grape

A huge thank you to Em Barrett for sharing the gloriously weird journey that led to Johann and his rage-filled poetry. If you are ready for live improvised poems, existential vocalisations, and a performer who thrives in structured chaos, grab your tickets to Ode To A Grape at Melbourne Fringe.

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After Dinner

After Dinner

After Dinner Rating

★★★★★

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2

After Dinner took us back to the 1980s with decor, fashion, black stockings and not a mobile phone in sight. The scene was set in a dining/entertainment venue with apricot tablecloths and chairs with touches of gold. With echoes of the television series, Kath and Kim and a little of The Office, the cast threw themselves into a by-gone era of dancing and romancing.

The audience first meets Gordon played by Oliver Wilson. He is a world-weary and sad man in a baggy 1980s suit recently separated from his wife. As he waits for two office colleagues, two women appear at a nearby table. Dympie played by Chantal Harrison enters with a classic 1980s side ponytail and wearing a blue satin dress and stockings. Paula, played by Noa Besser, dressed in what appears to be a genuine padded 1980s ensemble in purple is Dympie’s friend. Immediately it appears that Dympie is one of those people where her life is ‘my way or the highway’. Having no real social intelligence, she rearranges the table to suit her needs. Paula wants to be up close to the band but Dympie is having none of that and chooses a table at the back. Paula reluctantly gives in. They are absolute opposites.

Later, another colleague, Monica, played by Claire Gandy, joins as a grieving widow. At first, social etiquette tries to skirt around death with some funny moments and comments during an awkward conversation. Claire plays the role with enthusiasm and great comedic timing. We are there for her and the audience responded laughing at the intimate and embarrassing details of a mundane marriage. Her two colleagues listen in horror with Dympie shutting down the conversation only focusing on her hunger.

 

There are funny moments during ordering dinner as the throwback to 1980s menus and drinks is explained. All agree that they only order a carafe of white wine, either dry or not too sweet as they haven’t a clue. Claire unravels at the table with Gordon overhearing the drama. He is joined by his colleague Stephen, played convincingly by Nicholas Berthold. Stephen is looking for women and is a clichéd 1980s banker and ‘women’s man’. The outpouring of men’s issues between Gordon and Stephen is funny and revealing and acted with suitable embarrassment regarding ‘men’s talk’.

As the evening develops, in one of the best scenes of the play, Claire Gandy portrays the most genuine, angry and frustrated woman who is all pathos and suppression, seeking answers about wasting her life. She reveals all in a hilarious authentic monologue. The men become involved and with great comedic timing we see the fumbling and bumbling of both sexes.

With 1980s music reminiscent of a pub band in the background, the third male colleague never appearing and the desperate need for any of them to pair off, the conversations are both funny and bittersweet. Not one person was scrolling, trolling or texting, it was all about the language and social comments about dating, dancing and finding love.

To book tickets to After Dinner, please visit https://lanecovetheatrecompany.com.au/.

Photographer: Jim Crew, Lane Cove Creative Photography

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Like A Bird Who Longs To Fly: A Woman’s Road To Freedom

The Deplorables

The Deplorables Rating

★★★★★

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5

In today’s world, what does it mean to be free? Is it a feeling of liberation from the rules that society dictates, or is it a fire of truth within us that refuses to simmer down?

Marking a 2-year benchmark, ‘The Deplorables’, an award-winning production by female-led regional theatre company Skin of our Teeth Productions, marks its final inning at Theatre Works with empowered pride and pure, theatrical joy. Where in a span of 70 minutes, the audience is fully immersed into a no-holds-barred historical tale of female bravery and resilience set in 1874 in Bendigo, where an all-women’s cricket charity match takes place to great communal acclaim with lots of money raised and 22 women praised for their sporting prowess.

As they celebrate their joy and liberation, chaos and backlash ensue – when the press declares that these women are ‘Deplorable’ for playing a male-dominated game, and should instead ‘know their place’ and ‘stay home’. As the story unfolds, we experience the courage and resilience these women face – to fight for their sense of freedom: to be who they are without limitation.

 

Written and directed by Christine Davey, and composed and choreographed by the very multi-talented
 Tess Parker, this heart-warming story begins with a minimal yet highly-symbolic set framed around this 19th-century period. Four descending pillars of chains cleverly embellished with stage props used throughout, in particular; a hand-held 19th-century moustache to depict the male-roles. Birds resting in cages near signs that say ‘Rules Of The Game’. Red and blue uniformed blazers displayed on sewing bodices marking the juxtaposition of identity; of the changing roles that are budding in that society. A curvy armchair depicting a feminine world in which they must sit quietly. While behind, in a trunk marked with the word ‘Hope’ – colourful cricket bats rest in anticipation – hoping to get a game, or perhaps hoping that society changes its tune.

Blending engaging Australian music and striking physical movement, this delightful, quick-witted, show consists of six highly-talented women who bring commitment to their roles with immense energy and enthusiasm; each bringing different layers to tell this courageous tale.

Marie-Claire Tchernomoroff stuns as Barbara Rae with such tender emotion, immediately connecting to the audience with dreams – of achieving more than just sitting still. Of harbouring a secret wish: to fly freely like the bird she tenderly holds in her hands, away from its stilted cage. Danae Reid as Miss Gerber and Aeonie Ostik-Smith as Katie Petrie bring the musical comedy elements of this show to new heights, with beautiful, heartfelt singing and added flavour, displaying their loving relationship with subtle sensitivity. But Tess Parker, stepping into the role of Miss Murdoch? Absolutely steals the show. With her ball of blazing comedic energy, she combines the exact ingredients of humour, storytelling and sass that engaged me thoroughly. Tess Parker managed to entangle me into a world of a 19th-century woman, who despite her limitations, continued to fight for momentary joys – in humour and in sadness. For in watching her, I too was able to embody the feeling of inner-sovereignty, in a world that perhaps even today, seeks to halt the path of what it truly means to be free, for all of us.

To book tickets to ‘The Deplorables’, please visit
 https://www.theatreworks.org.au/2026/the-deplorables

Photographer: Mary Steuten

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