Sydney Fringe Festival 2011

Overview

The edges of things can be the best bits. Dark corners, musty and long-forgotten places or cutting-edge ideas on the cusp of success. Fringe Festivals hang out at these edges, bridging the gap between acts and audiences that have been searching for each other. While overseas and interstate fringe festivals have a long history, Sydney's Fringe is only a year old, but with its first return engagement this year, hopefully it's here to stay. After some suggestions last year that the show needed a centre, this year's Fringe will be focused at the Addison Road Centre in Marrickville, tying together a staggering list of events.

In Newtown, Newtown Live! launches the show outside the Hub. Three roving evenings will feature a Pop-Up Festival, a mini art-market at the Artcore Guerilla Art Fair and Reclaim the Lanes. The  Festival bar will be at 5 Eliza St,  featuring visits from the Campfire Collective of storytellers. Fridays to Sundays throughout the festival, buskers will be fighting for the $1000 prize in the shadow of the Martin Luther King mural. At the other end of King Street, a night garden will grow at Tortuga Studios.

In Erskineville, Las Dos Fridas brings paintings of Frida Khalo to life, while the Mystery Bus again parties guests in Sydney's lesser-known art spaces. In Enmore, Hardware Gallery brings you its annual Google Exhibition and a night of experimental sound. In Leichhardt, you can check out Filipino Australia and its many names at Aussies of the Magic Mic and Adobo Kind, a bloody Macbeth, 101 L’Afrique's Afro-Latin nightclub rhythms and a festival-long art show at the newly done-up Italian Forum.

In Parramatta, the Riverside Theatre hosts a new version of the classic Pillow Book and art from all around Western Sydney. Comedy will be Showcased at Marrickville's Factory Theatre and pushed Beyond the Fringe in Surry Hills. Nearby, Shakespeare's Will gets to know the life of Shakespeare's wife at the old 505, while Cameron Croker and Faran Martin take Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock onto the stage of Marrickville's Greek Theatre. Across the lawn, the 39 Steps joins farce to classic Hitchcock.