Making a show about nothing sounds simple enough. For SKINT, it raised a few awkward questions about what we’re actually leaving at the door when we go out for a laugh. Ahead of SLUGS at Melbourne Fringe, the team talks puppets, plastic shirts and whether switching off is ever quite that straightforward.
About The Show – SLUGS
What is this show about?
It’s about nothing! Completely and utterly nothing! A perfect nothing of a show to smooth-brain you for one whole hour. An hour where no one has to think about anything political or existential or anxiety-inducing. What could possibly go wrong?
How would you describe this show to someone who has never seen anything like it before?
It’s part comedy, part techno-concert, part gross-out freak show, with puppets!
How did this show come together? What was the creative starting point?
For many years, we had been talking about making a band called SLUGS, or maybe a puppet band, or maybe a show with puppets and music and high energy comedy. We would often joke, while working on other shows, “oh well, that idea is far too much, but it’d be perfect for SLUGS” but had no real unifying idea for this supposed show. It was a bucket where we’d dump all those “too much” ideas. Then after we began touring the international Fringe circuit for a couple years, we began to notice a tendency present in many “comedy” shows (though by no means was it exclusive to this genre) – shows that asked us to leave the world at the door and be free and laugh for an hour. We felt (and feel) somewhat complicated feelings about this. We began to wonder what if we tried to make a true show about nothing. Could we? Should we? What makes something a “nothing”? What makes it a “something”? What would it reveal about the act of trying to not think about the political nature of our lives?
What is the element of the show that is hardest to explain but unmissable in person?
The sweat. We cannot reiterate enough how much this is a high energy show. We actively have to fuel ourselves with electrolytes after. Our plastic shirts will never smell clean, no matter how much we wash them.
That and the live feed camera puppets, they really transform the space in a surprising and delightfully simple way.
Who is this show for? Who is going to have the time of their life?
SLUGS is for everyone burnt out from scrolling, exhausted from headlines, and suspects their best days are behind them. It’s the perfect cocktail of genre-less chaos for that part of our mind that sees a killer meme and can’t decide whether to cry out of laughter or tears.
What is going to genuinely shock or delight people?
We think we look very cute in our plastic-blow-up-chairs-turned-cunty-tops and feel it is the perfect intersection of our desire to look cute and stupid.
What do you want the audience to feel in the final moment?
Joy! Laughter! A reprieve from despair! It has been an increasingly pessimistic few years and finding the energy and drive to keep going is hard. It’s brutal. It’s been on our Sluggie minds quite a lot.
Thanks to the SLUGS team for chatting with us. To book tickets to SLUGS, you can find session details and tickets on the Melbourne Fringe website.
