comedy - Whats The Show

The Uks Mark Silcox Is The Successful Gold Trader For Melbourne Comedy Festival

12/03/2026 Breaking News

There’s Gold at the Motley Wherehaus This Comedy Festival with the UKs Mark Silcox! “Mark Silcox, the long-reigning king of gold-plated anti-comedy, strikes again.” ★★★★★ The Skinny (UK)

The UK’s Dr Silcox is coming down under to tell us how to find gold with The Successful Gold Trader! No, not in the Ballarat goldfields, but instead in the highly lucrative gold market! Silcox, a favourite on the UK comedy scene (as seen in BBC’s Mandy by Dianne Morgan, Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back (Channel 4) and Uncle Shady in Man Like Mobeen by Guz Khan (BBC)), is a successful gold trader who delivers a show for Melbourne Comedy Festival designed to entertain and share the secrets of his success! And as for those 1-star reviews, Mark is proud of every single one of them and actually encourages them! Disparage and you shall see!

Ex-scientist and a UK-qualified science teacher Dr Silcox, heading into his sixties, faced considerable financial insecurity and an uncertain retirement outlook. He managed to change all of this with success through a gold trading strategy. Focusing on the gold market, his methodology began to yield significant results. Over a single quarter, he achieved 100% return on his initial capital, transforming his modest £500 trading account. Silcox is now a successful trader, leveraging his experience to motivate his audience. He shares his personal journey and provides insights into his analytical techniques for gold speculation with his new show The Successful Gold Trader. Audiences will receive insights, stories and an entertaining evening coupled with powerpoint presentation that shows just how Dr Silcox did it – and how you can too! Given he doubled £500 in three months, this is a must-see show for every punter struggling in the unstable economy. The Successful Gold Trader will play at the Motley Wherehaus running from 23 March to 19 April.

BIOGRAPHY
Mark is an ex-scientist and a UK-qualified science teacher. If you meet him, you will immediately realise that you have met someone who has mastered the skills of passing academic exams and yet has no idea how things work in real life. His no-nonsense approach to anything he does puts off everyone around him. Mark fails to understand why? Mark has not made a link between the academic world and real life. He is an idealist, minimalist, belongs in this world, and he is a traveller. He respects machines and machines never let him down. He is natural with machines and yet it took him seven attempts to pass his driving test. This had been the biggest setback for him, while his wife and daughter passed their driving tests before him.

Before Mark started doing standup comedy, he was a well-respected badminton player in his local club simply because of his grip on the game. The grip he developed by working hard over the years. The arrival of a few young Chinese players in the club put Mark off from playing badminton and he registered for a stand-up comedy course at Citylit to find a new hobby. After finishing the course, Mark did 60 gigs in clubs and bars all over the country, then he went to Germany to work as a scientist and stopped doing comedy for three years. Mark started gigging again in September 2012 with a completely new and clean routine.

PRAISE FOR DR SILCOX
“His utter commitment, stretching out each petty victory or defeat into a matter of great importance is all hilarious.” Steve Bennett, Chortle
★★★★★ A Young(ish) Perspective
★★★★ The Scotsman
★★★★ Chortle (UK)
★★★★ To Do List

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Coco: The Time-Travelling Tart

09/03/2026 Genevieve Hudson🥉

Coco: The Time-Travelling Tart Rating

★★★★★

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Fast-paced, a little unhinged, and riotously funny, Coco takes audiences on a journey through the raunchier side of historical events. Already known and loved in the UK, Coco has boldly come to Australia in 2026 to give a sneak-peak into what really happened with many iconic figures such as Napolean, Queen Elizabeth the first, and right back to the original apple-tart herself, Eve.

Typically, there’s the expectation in Fringe season that everyone lets their hair down and just enjoys some entertainment. Intimately seated in the Yurt of the Courtyard of Curiosities at the Migration Museum, audience participation is an absolute must rather than just an option, as your hesitation or failure to respond will often lead you to take a bigger role in the evening’s entertainment that you might have planned. A delightful combination of Clowning, storytelling, and character comedy, Coco feeds off her audience’s laughter, shock, and heckles. Coco, a highly absurdist persona of comedian Max Norman, is a self-proclaimed enthusiast for champagne and shenanigans of the salacious variety throughout her historical ventures. Joyous and irreverent, she channels Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous with her statuesque frame, blonde hair, sunglasses, but with a much cheekier and more devious undertone. Drawing her audiences in with her smooth voice and cheeky grin, she cleverly keeps them engaged through courage and connection as the show progresses. From collaboratively creating pyramids in Ancient Egypt to electing a new Pope, this raucous expedition across time will have you complicit in some of the historical shenanigans that occur.

While the set is largely minimal, Coco certainly more than makes up for it through charisma and movement through the space. The sound and lighting do play large parts in moving the story along, predominantly through the initial setting of each era and the all-important time travelling taxi. From coloured lights and mini torches, simple sound cues, dry ice, and apples suspended on string, these subtle elements only enhance the performer’s efforts in storytelling.

While the later timeslot may deter some people, it certainly ensures that no one under 18 will likely wander this way. With a couple of warnings and a maturity rating for 15+, it assuredly indicates that this is not the show to bring your family to – unless you’re all adults with a quirky sense of humour. If you’re looking for something fresh, chaotic, and queer this Adelaide Fringe, Coco the Time Travelling Tart will have you laughing from shock and hilarity throughout.

To book tickets to Coco: The Time-Travelling Tart, please visit https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/coco-the-time-travelling-tart-af2026.

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15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical

28/02/2026 Rob McKinnon🥉

15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical Rating

★★★★★

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15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical is being performed at Arthur Arthouse, an art-deco building on Currie Street with its ‘Avant-Garde Furnishings’ signage still attached (echoing its former function) which is known for housing innovative productions.

The intimate space of The Box Theatre contains about 30 seats and a black stage where, as we entered on opening night, a smiling St John Smith sat in a wheelchair dressed in an ill-fitting surgical gown with a bandage around his head, next to him were two seats with objects covered with black cloth – one was obviously a skeleton as foot bones poked out of the bottom. Behind St John Smith was a tv screen and books.

The very affable St John Smith (a forty something man) apologised for the lateness of the start and the handful of audience members smiled back accepting his apology. He further told us that they haven’t had time for a proper tech run of the show but assured us the tech ‘God’ (Oscar) the young man in the corner would help out. St John Smith left the stage that became black, we were handed fake microphones for the karaoke parts of the show and the performance began.

Set in the 1990’s, the narrative of the show is that 15 year old Elon Musk is recovering in hospital from a beating he received at school for a homophobic slur Elon had tormented a boy with. In the hospital room Elon is visited by the skeleton ghost of South African photojournalist Kevin Carter who became famous in 1993 by taking a Pulitzer Prize photo that depicts a starving emaciated Sudanese child who has collapsed in the dirt as a vulture waits in the background. Kevin tells Elon that he will become the richest man in the world and explains the things that this will bring. Kevin further tells Elon that there will be another famine in Sudan in 2026 and asks Elon to use a fraction of his future wealth to relieve the suffering the famine will create. Later, Elon is also visited by an apparition of his father and young Elon is perplexed about what he should do with his future wealth.

Interspersed throughout the show, audience members sing along karaoke style to hits of the 1990’s. There is a Spotify playlist that upcoming audience members can prepare with – 15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90’s karaoke musical – playlist by stjohnmckay.

The one-person show by writer, director and performer St John Smith is dark and on opening night contained a few glitches which would probably be ironed out along its run, if they were unintended, although they did add an extra appeal to the performance.

15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical is a highly entertaining show (glitches included) ideal for the creative space of Arthur Arthouse and St John Smith’s performance is imperfectly charming.

Proceeds from the show will be donated to Sudanese famine relief.

Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
Rating; 4/5

15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical
season is: Thu, 26 Feb – Tue, 10 Mar

Times: 8.30 pm

Venue: The Box at ARTHUR ARTHOUSE

For more information: 15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical | Adelaide Fringe – 20 February – 22 March 2026

To book tickets to 15 YEAR OLD ELON MUSK the 90s karaoke musical, please visit https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/15-year-old-elon-musk-the-90s-karaoke-musical-af2026.

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Meteors

27/02/2026 Rob McKinnon🥉

Meteors Rating

★★★★★

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Meteors chronicles the journey of writer and performer Melissa Pullinger in dealing with the sickness and death of her mother from cancer. The writing cleverly entwines the narrative of the events of her life balancing humour against the darker aspects of the story. Pullinger’s performance is absorbing and connects the audience with her memories making Meteors one of the exceptional hours of this year’s Fringe.

Meteors begins with a funny anecdote of her obtaining glasses to watch an eclipse and the image of waiting to watch meteors in Tea Tree Gully becomes the connecting device of the script.

In a non-linear manner, Pullinger details other stories like a date she had at The Exeter Hotel where she tells her male companion that her mother is dead and how he relates to that in terms of the death of his cat for which she comforts him. Other stories detail how she and her mother had to speed home from a piercing Pullinger was having because her mother’s colostomy bag was full and another of her mother’s treatment of avoiding all light, so the family had to live in the dark. Pullinger further details her and her brother’s experience at her mother’s funeral, which is the first funeral they had attended, and how their neighbours tried to help the family with an overloading supply of lasagna filling their fridge and creating an abundance of still unclaimed Tupperware. She also relates her meeting with her Danny DeVito lookalike counsellor, and the effect counselling has had on her.

The single actor nature of Meteors means that there is nowhere to hide on stage and Pullinger’s performance is highly engaging and her skills as an actor are superb as she masterfully unfolds the narrative for the appreciative audience.
Connor Reidy directs Pullinger across the intimate space of The Breakout at The Mill incorporating Will Spartalis’s sound designs and compositions and signaling shifts in the script by using lighting changes. The stories exceptionally unfold on the minimalist stage with just a floor rug, a wooden chair, and a step to the stage. The other creative collaborators are Ren Williams and Pullinger’s brother Connor Pullinger.

Pullinger, Reidy and Williams are the co-founders of the Cram Collective and Meteors was developed through The Mill’s 2025 Centre Stage Residency in partnership with Adelaide Fringe through their Arts Industry Collaborations program and is their debut show at the Fringe serving as another important example why such programs are crucial for the development of young South Australian talent. While this is their Fringe debut, the Cram Collective have already created a growing list of well received productions.

Brilliantly written and performed, Meteors is an authentic story of a young person’s passage with grief through a series of deftly entwined anecdotes and a show that should be included in everyone’s Fringe program this year no matter how large or small that schedule is.

Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
Rating; 5/5

Meteors season is:
Thu, 19 Feb – Sat, 07 Mar

Times: 6.00 pm

Venue: The Breakout at The Mill

For more information: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/meteors-af2026

To book tickets to Meteors, please visit https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/meteors-af2026.

Photographer: Daniel Marks

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