With a jam-packed calendar featuring more than 200 events, celebrating the theme Collective Identity(s), the 2025 Midsumma Festival promises to be a transformative celebration of storytelling, creativity and community. With so much on offer, Australian Arts Review takes a look at twelve events worth checking out.
A Body At Work
Theatre Works: 28 January – 1 February
Frankie van Kan achieves the improbable task of exposing more of herself than ever before, in this deeply intimate piece of confessional theatre. Directed by theatre Alumni Maude Davey, A Body at Work is the tale of a queer woman’s seventeen years, and counting, in the sex industry. Beginning in a strip club, with insightfully refreshing antics of strip club culture and the perceived power dynamics between workers and clients, Frankie unpacks her own whorephobia and the unravelling of boundaries. As she regales you with stories of the body as a commodity and navigating queerness in this honest, humorous and heartfelt journey, Frankie asks the question – will they love me at my Madonna when they’ve relished me at my whore?
An Evening Without Kate Bush
Fairfax Studio – Arts Centre Melbourne: 5 – 8 February
Enter Strange Phenomena, howl with the Hounds Of Love and dance on the moors with Wuthering Heights. Kate’s not there, but you are. Starring Sarah-Louise Young, this award-winning cult cabaret pays glorious tribute to the music, fans and mythology of one of the most influential voices in pop music. From releasing Wuthering Heights aged just 19 to selling out the Hammersmith Apollo nearly 40 years later, Bush has always surprised and confounded her critics. Through it all her fans have stayed strong. Whether you’ve been a ‘Fish Person’ for decades or recently joined the shoal via Stranger Things, release your inner Bush at this joyful, unique and mind-blowing show.
Blacknificense – The Cotton Club Experience
The Chapel – Chapel Off Chapel: 24 – 25 January
From the Duke Ellington to Eubie Blake to Cab Calloway to Luther Vandross, Joti Van Carlos Gore has many stories to tell. Blacknificense is an immersive dive into the musical journey inspired by the Cotton Club Era. Reflecting a time when you dressed to the nines and every moment from electrifying rhythm with smooth velvety vocals accompanied a myriad of emotions heightened by band orchestrator, Adrian Szondy.
Feeling Afraid as if Something Terrible is Going to Happen
Fairfax Studio – Arts Centre Melbourne: continues to 1 February
“I’m 36, I’m a comedian, and I’m about to kill my boyfriend… ” A permanently single, professionally neurotic stand-up finally meets his Mr Right and then does everything wrong. But is Mr Right quite what he seems? And how far will the comedian go to get a laugh? A dark new comedy about vulnerability, intimacy, ego and truth from the Olivier Award-winning Producers of Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. Written by Marcelo Dos Santos (Lionboy, Complicite) and directed by Matthew Xia (Blue/Orange, Young Vic), Feeling Afraid as if Something Terrible is Going to Happen stars Tony and Olivier-nominated actor Samuel Barnett (The History Boys, Beautiful People).
Gender Fluids by The Huxleys
Victorian Pride Centre: 20 January – 8 February
The Huxley’s take over the Pride Centre in a celebration of the natural world’s ingenuity and resilience, spotlighting the gender fluidity of marine creatures like the starfish, sea slug, and oyster. Through a dazzling mix of framed photographs, textile banners, costumes, and video, the exhibition captures the luminescent glory of these organisms in playful, sparkling tableaus. Each piece radiates the exuberance of life beyond rigid binaries, inviting viewers to revel in the freedom of fluidity and the boundless spectrum of identity. Will and Garrett Huxley are Melbourne-based collaborative performance and visual artists who work together as The Huxleys. Their work frequently subverts traditional ideas of gender and body type, transforming them into something magical and unique and occasionally grotesque. In this series, they create images and costumes emulating these gender-fluid sea creatures, reflecting nature’s ability to adapt, evolve, and forge its own extraordinary path.
Labyrinth
Magdelan Laundry – Abbotsford Convent: 31 January – 8 February
In the haunting corridors beneath Abbotsford Convent, Forest Collective presents a reimagining of their highly successful opera-ballet & piano concerto. Through this immersive theatrical experience, you will descend into the labyrinth of Greek myth, witnessing first-hand the ordeal of Theseus, Ariadne and her half-brother, the Minotaur. Evan J Lawson’s music and Daniel Szesiong Todd’s libretto confront themes of shame, isolation and redemption, while maverick Melbourne pianist Danaë Killian gives powerful voice to the work’s dramatically-embedded piano concerto. Ashley Dougan’s visceral, yet lyrical choreography and the vision of director Cathy Hunt bring a desperate humanity to this epic tale. Re-enter the Labyrinth in 2025.
Lauren Bok: Boklesque
Bluestone Church Arts Space: 30 January – 1 February
A one-woman burlesque variety show of tease, hilarity and monsters of mayhem A hilarious burlesque variety show in which the acts and the host are all performed by one woman, the award-winning comedian and burlesque jester Lauren Bok. Be delighted and devoured by a stunning array of the finest vaudeville acts from all around Lauren Bok’s brain! Meet hula hooper ordinaire Poppy Loppyplops, the queen of dimness Gothzilkia, the cabaret travesty Ivana Showoff and the balloon-erific bombshell, Rose De La Fleur Le Saint Teeze! It’s Dita Von Teese meets The Muppets in this ridiculous, raunchy, rollercoaster of a show!
Michael Griffiths – It’s a Sin: Songs of Love & Shame
Primrose Potter Salon – Melbourne Recital Centre: 31 January
Vale Park, Adelaide, 1987. Michael Griffiths is about to start a new Catholic Secondary School. New uniform. New peer pressure. New everything. He’s also trying to navigate his sexuality in a time when the AIDS epidemic was full blown, when the Grim Reaper was on TV every night and homophobia was everywhere. In these times, the coolly melancholic songs of electronic duo Pet Shop Boys – aka Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe – provided solace, and a safe space to explore feeling out of step with the world. Directed by Dean Bryant (Sweet Charity, Assassins) and featuring Julian Ferraretto on violin and Dylan Paul on double bass, It’s a Sin sees Griffiths bring his inimitable cabaret style to PSB classics like Rent, Love Comes Quickly, Suburbia, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk, Go West and It’s a Sin, linking each song to some of the most important (and sometimes hilarious) episodes, incidents and people in his life. Most movingly of all, it gently but unflinchingly explores the challenges of long-term relationships.
Not For Children’s Programming
The Motley Bauhaus: 20 – 26 January
Open wide, come inside, it’s ‘Slay School!” The comedy cabaret that’s as cheeky as it is hilarious! Blending your favourite childhood TV shows with stories of dating disasters, new relationships, and STI stigma – because who knew adulting could be so delightfully awkward? Featuring original tunes that’ll have you singing along and a few cheeky twists on your beloved childhood classics, this cabaret mixes nostalgia with naughty into a perfect cock-tail. Feel the joy in this one hour comedy, from an out of work actor that gives Noni Hazelhurst a run for her money.
Panti Bliss: If These Wigs Could Talk
Fairfax Studio – Arts Centre Melbourne: 4 – 9 February
The ‘Queen of Ireland’ Panti Bliss is packing her frocks and tottering her way to Melbourne this summer with her record-breaking, smash-hit comedy, If These Wigs Could Talk. Following a lifetime of accidental activism, far-fetched shenanigans and making a full time show of herself, notorious drag queen Panti Bliss is now taking a moment to question her purpose and place in this changing world. Expect salacious stories, impassioned polemics and some seriously funny soul searching. Panti will take us from rural Mayo to London’s glittering West End to the Irish Ambassador’s residence in Vienna, where the answer to her existential question presents itself where she least expects it. Following record-breaking runs at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and Soho Theatre in London, Panti invites you to learn from her ridiculous mistakes, laugh at her glittering failures, and share in her triumphs, in this big, beautiful and brilliant night out.
Sauna Boy
The Motley Bauhaus: 28 January – 8 February
Back by p0pular demand! Dan works at the south-coast’s most successful and infamous gay sauna. A place where men from all walks of life come to relax, socialise and most importantly… f**k. Join Dan as he navigates a hidden world of lust, friendship and unorthodox working relationships. From multi-award winning writer/performer, Dan Ireland-Reeves, comes a semi-autobiographical look behind the curtain of one of the world’s most secretive and seductive industries. Pulsing with frenetic energy and laced with sexual tension, Sauna Boy is guaranteed to touch you in more ways than one. Welcome to West End Sauna…
Thirty-Six
fortyfivedownstairs: 21 January – 2 February
So there’s this party she’s having. It might be a funerary rite or a birthday celebration, depending on your perspective. Either way she’s wearing the dress, her first lippy, and she’s making a special meal. The flowers keep coming and the candles get blown out. Performed by Bayley Turner (Thrive: Queer Work Out Loud), directed by Kitan Petkovski (The Inheritance), and co-written by Turner and legendary UK playwright Jo Clifford (The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven), Thirty-Six is an empowering and cathartic new work that explores the complex relationship gender diverse people have with ageing, mortality, grief and growth.
The 2025 Midsumma Festival continues to Sunday 9 February. For more information and full program, visit: www.midsumma.org.au for details.
Images: Frankie van Kan stars in A Body at Work – photo by Darren Gill | Sarah-Louise Young – photo by Steve Ullathorne | Joti Van Carlos Gore – photo by Joel Devereux | Samuel Barnett stars in Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen | Gender Fluids by The Huxleys (supplied) | Labyrinth – photo by Jasmin Bardel | Lauren Bok: Boklesque – photo by Lauren Bok, Nick Robertson & Jayden Byrne | Michael Griffiths – photo by Claudio Raschella | Not For Children’s Programming – photo by Samuel Roberts & William Boyd | Panti Bliss – photo by Patricio Cassinoni & Niall Sweeney | Sauna Boy (supplied) | Bayley Turner stars in Thirty-Six – photo by Meagan Harding