Or, ‘There’s no madness like Alice in Adelaide.’

There’s nothing quite so mad as Adelaide Fringe Festival.  Or, to be more specific, diving in to a ‘carnivalesque Wonderland’ with A Mad Tea Party and A F*#king Mad Tea Party at Adelaide Fringe Festival!

I had never visited Adelaide before going to Fringe, and I was completely blown away. As much as I love my hometown of Melbourne, I have to say (in uncomfortable hushed tones) that Melbourne Fringe simply can’t hold a candle to Adelaide Fringe. The venues, the posters along every inch of the city, the gardens, the Fringe Club for artists (!!!), the way that the whole city seemed to be excited about theatre…there is simply nothing like it.

A MAD TEA PARTY — LA PETITE GRAND, GLUTTONY

Our first venue for the tour, La Petite Grand, was a part of the beautiful Gluttony gardens, a collection of amazing venues which meant you can simply walk through and take your pick of fantastic comedy, magic, puppetry, and circus shows (and so much more)!

Our first tech rehearsal!

The front facade of the gardens:

We were lucky enough to have two beautiful audiences for the show, and it was such a lovely experience seeing children getting caught up in the world of Wonderland!  We also received a lovely review from James Rudd at Glam Adelaide:

A psychedelic, lively show that defies genre and all expectations…the script itself is also very creative and colourful, presenting the truly mad view of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that we’ve all been waiting for.

FRINGE FUNHOUSE — RUNDLE MALL

Another fantastic opportunity we had throughout the week was performing at the Fringe Funhouse set up at Rundle Mall. This was a great opportunity to let people know about our show, but also meet some lovely people! We did quick ten minute spots on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and luckily some audience members captured some highlights.

And as far as totally adorable occurrences of the tour go, I think this one takes the cake…a lovely audience member drew caricatures of all of us during one of our performances at the mall! How cute is this?!

A F*#KING MAD TEA PARTY — THE ELEPHANT BRITISH PUB

The adult’s version of the Tea Party took over The Elephant for the week and we had such an amazing time! Thank you to the team for being so accommodating of some completely mad actors who make very strange noises during their vocal warm ups and do physical warm ups to blasting tracks from Hairspray every night!

And did I mention we got some awesome reviews for A F*#king Mad Tea Party as well?

This one came from Trista Coulter at In Daily:

Inspired by Lewis Carroll’s classic tale Alice in Wonderland, A F*#king Mad Tea Party combines elements of burlesque, physical theatre, comedy and circus to explore the issue of mental health in a high-energy show which challenges audiences’ perceptions of “normal”.

Ilana Charnelle…plays Alice, a petite young woman with a surprisingly powerful singing voice, and her haunting opening performance of The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” perfectly sets the mood for the evening.

And here is a sneaky review left on the Fringe website!

I had such an incredible week at Adelaide Fringe, and I wanted to say a special thank you to the directors who put all of this craziness together — the inimitable Marjorie May Fair and Timothy Christopher Ryan. Thank you for choosing to take me on such a marvellous adventure, as curiouser and curiouser as it became! It’s been an amazing journey ever since our first performance.

And thank you to the rest of these crazy creatures…

What a crazy ride it has been!  To everyone who came to see the show, or took a flyer, or took a photo of us wandering around in character in Rundle Mall — thank you so much for being a part of the adventure, we had such a fantastic time sharing this world with you.

Yours & c.,