Terror Australis

Overview

Imagine a place where everyone takes a day off to drink while watching horses run around a track, regardless of whether it's actually a public holiday where they're living. Imagine a place where guzzling the cheapest of cheap plonks from a foil bag — and then using it as a pillow once it said shiny, squishy container empty — is a rite of passage.

You don't need to imagine either, really. You already live there. And it's this, the comedic side of the Aussie identity, that Leah Shelton parodies in her blackly comic cabaret Terror Australis. Quite simply: you haven't seen our sunburnt nation quite like this.

Wearing thongs, rocking up in a ute and being all-too-aware of just how brutal our landscape can be is recommended given that Shelton unravels a sweltering pulp film mash-up of Australiana. So is having a sense of humour about what makes the country both great and entertaining.