In the intimate confines of Club Voltaire, Finding Glitter in the Storm lands exactly where it should: right in the chest. Written and performed by Josh Moyes, with dramaturgy by Lachlan Plain and musical support from Tim Wild, this is storytelling that feels both deeply personal and generously communal.
Moyes has a magnetic presence. Armed with incisive wit and poetic candour, he charts a life shaped by upheaval, queerness, grief, and the strange poetry of growing up in places that never quite fit.
The move from Geelong to the fringes of Byron Bay – where his family famously bought a pirate ship and were promptly crowned the ‘town pirates’ – becomes more than a quirky anecdote. It’s a perfect metaphor for beautiful dysfunction: a crew of misfits trying to navigate choppy emotional waters.
What makes this work shine is Moyes’ tonal agility. He playfully, and with real affection, skewers the contradictions of Byron’s ‘laid-back’ mythology – the sea of stoners and wave-chasers, the spiritual gloss, and the quiet class divides humming underneath.
Yet the humour never undercuts the truth. Instead, laughter becomes the life raft that carries us through darker terrain: a father navigating mental illness, a violent stepfather, the devastating loss of a beloved brother. Moyes handles these revelations with care and clarity.
These revelations never feel sensationalised; instead, they illuminate the central question of the piece – how does someone grow into themselves when the foundations are unstable? Moyes’ answer is neither neat nor sentimental, but it is hopeful.
The coming-out narrative threads through the piece as a subplot rather than a headline, which feels exactly right. Queerness here is lived-in, textured, inseparable from family memory and identity. Moyes embodies the ‘rainbow rebel’ energy he describes, tender, self-aware, and just irreverent enough to keep sentimentality at bay.
Lachlan Plain’s dramaturgy keeps the storytelling relatively tight without sanding off its rough, lived edges, while Tim Wild’s musical support adds emotional undercurrents that never overwhelm the words.
A brief, real-life medical emergency during the performance, handled with calm compassion, only underscored the generosity at the heart of Moyes’ presence. This is a performer deeply attuned to the room, holding space as much as taking it.
As a lively prelude, Lucy Best warmed the audience with a brief comic set touching on topics such as sex toys, bisexuality and hereditary titles – a cheeky tonal doorway into a night that would balance irreverence with intimacy.
Bold, funny and fiercely human, Finding Glitter in the Storm finds unexpected beauty in growing up different, reminding us, if you look hard enough, even during the hard times, there’s always some glitter to be found.
Finding Glitter in the Storm
Club Voltaire, Level 1 – 14 Raglan Street, North Melbourne
Performance: Friday 23 January 2026
Season continues to 25 January 2026
Information and Bookings: www.midsumma.org.au
Image: Josh Moyes stars in Finding Glitter in the Storm (sourced)
Review: Rohan Shearn