My favourite part of Fringe each year, is walking into a show blind. Purely based off reviews from friends, a cool poster, the fringe feed, anything – I love not at all knowing what to expect, and being totally surprised. Casey Filips: Virtuoso is the perfect example of this.
A one man play of sorts, we follow the eccentric Tobias Frazier-Finlay through the audition of a life-time. Now, I want you to picture every exuberant, quirky, dramatic character you know combined into one, and that’s the kind of guy we’ve got. Mr. G, Sharpay Evans, even a little Miranda Sings it’s all in there.
The black-box rehearsal room at the State Theatre centre sets the scene perfectly, with Tobias strutting in from the back of the room as if really entering an audition. As with any standard casting call, he opens with a bit about himself, and of course his headshots, giving us a quick taste of his skillset (of which there are many!).
We then jump into a scene read, where he of course displays his natural ability to take notes from the panel (or in this case audience!). Naturally, hysteria ensues. I was amazed by Filips’ ability to not only perfectly mimic audience members but seamlessly taking on their daring requests.
For his final display of talent, we are treated to a – rather interesting – self-devised piece inspired by the majestic life of a manatee that left audiences doubled over with laughter. A big shout out must of course go to the gentlemen called upon to form part of the demonstration, the true star of the show (much to Tobias’ dismay).
Audiences also enjoy brief glimpse into Tobias’ future and where his career lands, a perfect crescendo for a man whose clearly given his life to the arts, but I’ll keep the exact details a secret for audiences to enjoy.
If you ever remember being told by your drama teacher “you have to fully commit to the bit, doing it 50% makes you look more ridiculous” this performance is a fine example. Offering a barrel of laughs and complete and utter tom-foolery in the best way possible from begin to end, this is a fringe favourite certainly not to be missed. Perfectly titled, Filips’ in fact, a Virtuoso.
To book tickets to Casey Filips: Virtuoso, please visit https://fringeworld.com.au/whats-on/casey-filips-virtuoso-fw2026.
Walking into Belvoir St Theatre felt like reconnecting with an old friend, one whom I have had multiple warm experiences with over the years, and Dear Son only deepened that relationship. Those who know me are aware of my self‑preservation from “spoilers”, so I walk into these situations with just the bare bones of what delight is about to unfold. I was unaware what other “old friends” would be part of this powerful experience.
When director and co‑adapter Isaac Drandic stepped onstage before the show to tell us that Luke Carroll was ill and could not perform, I was briefly disappointed, having known Luke in my youth and followed his career since. Brief is the key word, because it was announced he was being replaced by Aaron Pedersen, an actor who once showed me immense kindness when I was a wide‑eyed Melbourne wanderer in another life, and whose work I also hold in very high esteem. In other words, I already knew I was in for quite a treat before a single word was spoken.
Dear Son, based on the book by Thomas Mayo and adapted for the stage by Drandic and co‑adapter John Harvey, gathers five Indigenous men in what feels like a coastal “men’s shed” to ask, again and again, “What is it to be a man?” through letters, yarns, song and embodied storytelling. The set design by Kevin O’Brien creates warmth and place with deceptively simple means: sandy ground, a rustic wooden covering, two park tables and a glowing sunrise upstage, an inviting representation of a communal gathering space that is both specific and symbolic. It immediately feels connective, it feels personal.
Our five Indigenous actors – Jimi Bani, Waangenga Blanco, Kirk Page, Aaron Pedersen and Tibian Wyles – begin by waving reverently to the audience as words are projected behind them. Video designer Craig Wilkinson’s projections fill the upstage screen with terms like “Father”, “Son”, “Artist”, “Protector”, held by these strong, proud figures as they claim space and create warmth, before those words are undercut and complicated by others that have been used as weapons against Indigenous people for generations, ushering us into Act 1: Letters of Struggle.
The group moves between letters to fathers and sons, shared conversation, humour that is deliciously specific, and moments of song supported by composer and sound designer Wil Hughes’ evocative soundscape. They unpack the impacts of colonisation and the generational trauma wrought by acts of violence, malevolence and cruelty, while also honouring resistance, love and the everyday work of breaking cycles. Lighting designer David Walters gently shifts us through time and tone, from campfire intimacy to something closer to ceremony, with haze and shadow allowing the stories to sit in a liminal, memory‑like space.
The individual performances are powerful, moving and deeply poignant, and the ensemble work is quietly transcendent. It is hard to believe that Pedersen has entered the fold so recently; he integrates with a calm, centred presence that never pulls focus from the collective but deepens it. Wyles often anchors the musical moments with guitar and voice, Bani brings an easy charisma and storyteller’s ease, and Page moves deftly between gravitas and wry humour. Blanco, who also serves as choreographer and movement director, gives the production its physical language.
These stories unite the men in shared trauma, and a far more powerful desire to transcend it by breaking the walls of toxic masculinity down. It’s an important dialogue and unpacking for men, but they are also very clear on the importance of women in their stories and how respect for women should be centred.
There are familiar public figures and stories represented amongst the letters and the production was beautiful, emotional and powerful, but the real tear‑jerker was when each artist shared their own personal lived experience and a meaningful piece of themselves in reverence to the vulnerability they have been celebrating and advocating for throughout.
Dear Son is an important and deeply moving work of First Nations theatre that should not be missed.
Melt Festival is an annual open-access festival of Queer arts and culture staged across Magandjin/Brisbane, Australia. To celebrate the festival kicking off, Pip theatre in association with Melt hosted a launch event. This event showcased a wonderful exhibition of artworks and photography by Luke Brohman, as well as some live music and showcases of what the festival has to offer. The energy was enthusiastic from the eager participants as we met appearances from York Lit, Daniel Bruschweiler and JD Zamora just to name a few.
Upon entering the space we were greeted with a glass of bubbles and a walk through the studio presenting Heart Full of Omens by Luke Brohman. It is an eye catching exhibition presenting detailed paintings, drawing, photography and projected clips. Set amongst moody lighting, the paintings draw you in with their exquisite intricacies and hidden detail. The pieces seem to leap out with so much texture and the occasional inclusion of three-dimensional elements. The paintings offer many expressive faces worked in amongst the chaos, and seem to be pensive and serene. The artworks inspire joy and contemplation, with contrast between intense energies and calm.
The photographic works take a different approach, combining many tastefully natural figures with repeating shapes and symbols. The photography contains good composition and clarity; emulating a feeling of something ritualistic. With repeating and melding figures it feels at points like a cosmic kaleidoscope. Some further attention to detail could be important for future photography adventures, such as ironing crinkles out of backdrops or editing them in post-production. All in all, Heart Full of Omens is an enjoyable series and was a perfect introduction to this event.
We were then invited to explore the terrace which was very atmospheric with charcuterie on offer. The live Jazz music was an excellent backdrop to precede the announcements to come. We were then greeted with York Lit in a spectacular sequined silver get-up, a well regarded drag performer. Lit is performing as part of the show Kings of Kaos being presented by Melt, which is a cheeky drag variety act including six kings. Daniel Bruschweiler was introduced to give us a taste of Square Peg Bonus Hole, another fantastic act included in Melt.
Brushweiler introduces us to the concept of the show, what it is like to ‘never live up to expectations’. JD Zamora AKA JD Jephson is presenting traumageddon at Pip Theatre as a part of Melt. This show is said to be a real rollercoaster, a musical rendition of JD’s trauma that takes you through the highs and lows. There are countless more performances, acts and events as part of Melt Festival which is very exciting.
Overall, the launch was a fun event with many people at the ready to delve into the festival and all its offerings.
Mmmmmm… conceptual. Such was the tagline of Tommy Misa’s seventy-five minute exploration into grief and culture, Working Class Clown. And yet, what was immediately impressive about the piece, is that it wasn’t. Not really. The show, although tackling conceptual ideas, used Samoan clowning and a deep and grounded connection to the mundanity of life to traverse those ideas with an empathetic intelligence and humour that made sure it never flew too unreachably high into cerebralism. In the towering industrial theatres of Carriageworks, a stage set with what upon first glance looks like nothing more than a pile of leaves and towering poles is nestled. Against the concrete backdrop, they seem almost out of place as natural objects, which, in many ways, becomes the point.
As the piece opened, Misa’s performance strengths became immediately obvious. Misa moved like a dancer, each micro-adjustment fluid and controlled; a charismatic performer with an easy sensuality that spoke to the argument of the piece. Every emotion, confusion, grief, excitement, happiness, sat firmly in his body as the narrator took us through one of the early Samoan myths of creation. As he joined us in the modern day, we were gifted with the stunningly effective costume design of Katie-Louise and Lilian Nicol-Ford, an oversized blue linen shirt and pants that effortlessly elevated Misa’s physical work on stage. This was accentuated once more by Amber Silk’s lighting design, done so well and concentrating each moment so deliciously that I am officially converted against the lights-up lights-down shows I once championed.
As we moved into the modern day, the piece took on its more grounded, honest edge. We joined Misa in line for Centrelink, and felt both their boredom and desperation as the system once again ignored them. Both we, the audience, and Tommy, the performer, coped with this ignoring of our needs through laughter. In front of our eyes, Tommy became the disinterested government worker, the eastern suburb white friend who can never truly understand what poverty feels like, and the teachers who turned their nose up instead of reaching out with understanding.
Each moment, when scratched just beyond the surface of humour relays a tragic institutional truth about our society, and yet, when faced with the reality of what little those of us who are ignored by the system can do about it, our only choice is to laugh. Laughter, in a sense, was the thesis of the piece. Can we decolonize ourselves through laughter? Can we use it to move through grief? Can we use it to heal?
Another significant throughline of the piece was language. Like many, growing up in primary and high school in Sydney, I was told that most indigenous languages in Australia and the Pacific were either dead, or mostly dead. The hidden underlying message of that wording being, there’s no use bothering to try and save them. Working Class Clown disproved this with a grin and audience participation. As the sole performer on stage, the audience, in many ways, became the secondary character, and our interaction was done almost entirely within the framework of the Samoan language. Through the comedy of the text, and the mass of people learning at the same time, one thought came immediately to my mind: this isn’t that hard. And so I return to comedy as a tool of decolonization.
Perhaps the tragedy of high school and university history classes had told me that imperialism was simply too great a power to ever contend with, but here, in this room of strangers, imperialism showed its delicate white underbelly and revealed to us its weakness of empathy. This also connected us intimately to the culture being explored on stage, and allowed us to almost grieve as a collective, and in turn, provide Misa with the safe space to be as vulnerable as he was.
As a performer, Misa continued to impress. His vocal work was deliberate, and controlled right down to the breath work, which we heard perhaps too much of at the level his mic was set at. Their comedic timing and character work remained a highlight of the show experience, and his subtle shifts into the emotional lowpoints of the script once again proved to me the power of the double-sided coin of comedy and tragedy. Further, the piece sat very culturally inside Sydney, which was a welcome change from the more conceptual shows on the market which are set more inside an “idea” than a place. Towards Misa’s more emotional moments, he did briefly fall into rhythmic traps which leaned more demonstrative than legitimately emotive, however with the content being discussed, I couldn’t truly fault them. It also didn’t stop every emotional moment from giving me full body goosebumps, as we watched legitimate emotions sit just behind the emotional guard of performing.
Lighting also continued to show off, both with moments of individual spotlight, and particularly memorable moments of the lights coming up on us as the audience, forcing us to participate. Another highlight was the voice-message from Gussy, played by Imbi, which was performed beautifully, and gave Misa the break they needed to create the emotional high that would carry them for the rest of the show. However, I must admit my favourite moment, one that brought me fully to tears, was Misa’s retelling of a family in line for housing – which they don’t get – and the gifting of a dandelion from the family’s oldest son to his exhausted mother.
A one-man show is a challenge, it gives you no one to rely on but yourself, and it was here that one of the only two true weaknesses of the show appeared. At a smattering of points throughout the show, Misa began to say something and then rapidly changed direction, which left the sentence not quite making sense. This came to a head as a line drop, which although is not a crime in and of itself, did manifest as a drop in confidence which affected the later half of the show. This, however, I am empathetic about. It is difficult enough to learn a part in an ensemble piece, where there are people on stage that can bail you out. A one-man show is an entirely different beast, and this show was almost half an hour longer than the others I’ve seen this year.
A truly mammoth amount of content for a singular performer. The piece’s second, and truly I believe only other flaw, was that although it made interesting points, the connective tissue between those points was often weak. This problem was much less noticeable in the first half of the piece, but towards the end, as the script tried to fit more and more ideas into itself in dwindling time, the jumps became more and more distinct – which caused confusing pivots between emotional states that didn’t quite make sense. However, each individual idea on its own was well fleshed out and conceptually impressive, even as the larger cohesiveness of the argument began to warp.
Easily the most impressive portion of the show was watching Misa, and then Misa and some brave volunteers from the audience who weren’t wearing wobbly heels like I was, build the world in front of us. This began with Misa building a puppet in real time out of paper, which was used beautifully to represent his child self. However, the second, and more impressive example, was the building of the home. The section began with one of the rawest displays of vulnerability I’ve ever seen on stage, as the lights came up on all of us whilst Misa honestly asked for help to lift the roof onto the poles he’d placed down.
As the home came together, the emotion hidden behind those guardrails of performance crept to the surface, and as the sunset behind the home was created, both Misa and their audience were left in a choked awe (and admittedly misty-eyed). Indeed, it became never-more clear than in that moment that we weren’t just watching a character work through something, but Misa himself process his grief in front of us.
Working Class Clown functions spectacularly as an exploration of grief through comedy and culture, and although it trips on minor faults of performance and argument, as a cohesive experience, it was an incredibly impressive piece of theatre. Each element was well considered and equally well executed, and I left with both a true sense of emotional catharsis, and a deeper understanding of a culture that I hadn’t had the chance to learn much about.
