Overview
Flowers aren't the only things that bloom in Sydney each September. The first month of spring also means a vibrant lineup of theatre, cabaret, music, dance, art and whatever else that Sydney Fringe Festival can fit within its program, all blossoming around the Harbour City. It's as diverse as flora, too, so you might start your 2024 fest experience making shapes to house music's history, then take an audio guided tour with a stranger, then get your ABBA fix. In-between, a collaboration between Ngaiire and Anna Polyviou awaits, then a parody of The Hunger Games.
This year's Sydney Fringe will have the entire month flourishing — so, from Sunday, September 1–Monday, September 30 — and it has the numbers to prove it. The festival will feature four precincts, making its presence known in the Inner West, central Sydney, the city's east and at a Greater Sydney precinct. It'll span 12 hubs, including its first-ever Queer Hub. And ensuring that there's no shortage of things to see, 400-plus events will fill all of the above.
From the aforementioned highlights, the Soweto Gospel Choir is doing double duty. Its first spot on the roster is with Groove Terminator, teaming up for a History of House session to commemorate dance music through the decades. For its second Sydney Fringe show, the choir is performing new concert Hope, a celebration of the music of protest and freedom.
If you're keen on potentially making a new friend, that's where Two Strangers Walk Into a Bar... , the brainchild of Australian actor Tilda Cobham-Hervey (The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart), comes in. ABBA fans can get excited about Abbey Paige Williams' ABBAsolutely Abbey, while the odds will forever be in your favour to laugh at Definitely Not a Hungry Game: A Parody Musical. As for Ngaiire and Anna Polyviou — and ACID FLWRS — they're joining forces for songs, florals, a dessert bar and Maker's Mark cocktails at Just Desserts.
Helen Page
Plus, Qtopia Sydney is the new Queer Hub's location, hosting shows such as MONSTER by Florian Wild, and one-man musical A Shark Ate My Penis: A History of Boys Like Me from trans musician and actor Laser Webber.
Another new hub: the First Nations Hub at PACT Centre for Emerging Artists, where Coloured Stone will provide a one-night-only soundtrack, the Yalgali Markets will showcase First Nations artisans and makers, and the Koori-oke Open Mic & Scratch Night will feature everything from tunes to poems in ten-minute bites.
Over the entire lineup, attendees should also make a date with Anna Dooley's endometriosis-focused one-woman show ENDHOE, Plate It Forward and The Ethics Centre collaborating on food and conversations about Sydney's cultural scene, and Joan of Arc retelling Voices of Joan. Or, there's two evenings of hip-hop battles, Bay 43 becoming a piano bar, a hub for multicultural comedy and pop-ups across The Rocks.
Racing through Romeo and Juliet in ten minutes, dancing to Asian pop, sipping your way through POOF DOOF's drag brunch, seeing The Simpsons given the adults-only burlesque and drag parody treatment, dancing again to a Daft Punk tribute, a comedy gig that's also a ghost tour, an unscripted riff on Jane Austen, a drag satire of Kath & Kim: if you don't already have enough on your agenda, there's clearly more to add.
Festivalgoers can also show some affection to the musicians sadly lost at the age of 27 — Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix among them — and, in a separate show, to Charlie Chaplin.
Belinda Rolland © 2022
Sydney Fringe Festival 2024 will take place from Sunday, September 1–Monday, September 30. For further information and tickets, head to the fest's website.
Top image: Helen Page.