Fleabag brings the filth to Sydney Festival
Filthy, funny and unflinching. If those are three words that you look for in a night out, then you’ll be pleased to know that Fleabag is coming to Sydney Festival in January. If you’ve seen the TV adaptation, you’ll know that this is the story of a dry-witted, sex-obsessed and morally unhinged twenty-something. The stage production is an outrageous one-woman play, which fearlessly exposes female sexuality and anger through Fleabag’s modern anti-heroine. The play tackles lust, grief and guinea pigs.
Playwright Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s no-holds-barred, witheringly rude and hilarious monologue won multiple awards at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe and was adapted for a critically acclaimed and wildly popular BBC TV series. After being nominated for an Olivier, the original Fleabag play (starring Maddie Rice) is coming to Sydney as part of an awesome Sydney Festival 2018 line-up.
Sydfest, the annual cultural celebration, returns to transform the city from 6-28 January, delivering the highest quality art, music, theatre and big ideas from Sydney’s CBD all the way west to Parramatta. Highlights, along with Fleabag, include contemporary ballet Tree of Codes, a unique collaboration between choreographer Wayne McGregor, artist Olafur Eliasson and musician Jamie xx, and the critically acclaimed Barber Shop Chronicles, direct from London’s National Theatre, exploring the role of the barber shop in the lives of African men.
Also look out for Aquasonic, an ethereal underwater concert performed by five Danish musicians on custom-made instruments whilst submerged in aquariums and the Australian premiere of Town Hall Affair which reimagines a raucous 1971 feminist debate. You can also catch The Wider Earth bringing to life Charles Darwin’s five-year journey across the planet exploring new species, featuring an award-winning cast by Queensland Theatre and masterfully-built puppets from Dead Puppet Society.
Oh, and seeing Mad Max with a live score by Morricone Youth will be awesome, as will an expansive plastic toy landscape with towering toy dinosaurs, Jurassic Plastic by Japanese artist Hiroshi Fuji and Four Thousand Fish, a large-scale art installation at Barangaroo featuring a giant ‘nawi’ (canoe) and thousands of fish made of ice, to be returned to the harbour.
Elsewhere, don’t miss ol’ mate Gotye, New Zealand’s Aldous Harding, Argentina’s latin hip-hop trio Fémina, English performance artist and musician Genesis P-Orridge, America’s indie folk exponents Mount Eerie and Julie Byrne and protest anthems from Tunisia’s Emel Mathlouthi.
Full full line-up and tickets, head to the Sydney Festival website: https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2018/
