Fringe Wives Club - Interview

Fringe Wives Club - Interview

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Posted 2019-02-05 by Temafollow

Fri 15 Feb 2019 - Sun 03 Mar 2019

The human versions of a shiny disco ball that brings a sense of sparkle, joy, and glam to a room, the electric team Fringe Wives Club will be returning to this year's Adelaide Fringe with 2 very exciting shows - Glittergrass and Glittery Clittery.

Bringing together the art of cabaret, comedy, and sheer charisma into the mix, audience members can expect to have nothing short of a good evening out with the ladies who'll be making up these two shows.

Glittergrass will take you on a journey from the 1920s to the almost 2020s with fierce lyrics and a strive for feminism to reach its peak, while Glittery Clittery will ensure that the audience members are saturated in sequin-laced dance moves that will leave you breathless and wanting more.

I was fortunate enough to score an e-interview with Victoria Falconer, who is a team member of the colourful Fringe Wives Club squad - have a read of our exchange below:

Tema: Who are the faces behind Glittery Clittery?
Victoria: The three wives of Glittery Clittery are Tessa Waters, Rowena Hutson and Victoria Falconer - although there are many other fringe wives that help us behind-the-scenes that are not in the press pictures! Tessa is our resident queen of clown - a Gaulier-trained, multi-award-winning comedian with over ten years of sold-out festival shows under her belt. She is also a producer, writer and actor, and (with all that spare time) runs her own mentorship programme, nurturing an incredible array of new talent on the comedy and cabaret scene. Victoria is our musical director, a writer and cabaret powerhouse. Based part-time in the UK, she was named one of Time Out London's Top 10 Cabaret Superstars, plays a ridiculous number of obscure instruments (her theremin playing is a particular speciality) and has recently been seen on The Courtney Act TV Christmas Special as her MD and pianist. Rowena is an award-winning storyteller, writer, actor and comedian - she has toured her one-woman shows internationally to great acclaim, and is also our chief maker of large DIY costumes and props, including Laguna, our plush-velvet larger-than-life anatomically-correct vulva!



Tema: What inspired you to come up with the concept of your show?
Initially, we wanted to make a show that was as educational as it was entertaining, addressing and discussing issues of intersectional feminism and gender equality. This was two years ago this January when we received the Moosehead Award to support the development of the new show. Since then, the conversation has leapt forward in a global sense, and it is this constant and collective journey that inspires the show. It's an hour of thought-provoking joy, creating conversation between us and the audience, as well as encouraging the audience to keep those conversations going with people in their own lives - plus bucketloads of humour, loads of original songs AND exquisite (!!) dance moves.

Tema: What can people expect from attending your show?
Victoria: Our show is high-glamour meets activism. It's like a TED talk in sequins. The sassy sex-ed class you wish you had ten years ago. An accessible, inclusive cosmic disco where EVERYONE is invited - and you CAN have a dick (just don't be one)!

Tema: How would you explain your performance to someone who has never been to your show before?
Victoria: Leave your preconceptions at the door. And if you don't, we will certainly challenge them. It's comedy, it's cabaret, it's political, it's raunchy, it's a whole bunch of good time fun for anybody from the ages of 16 to 106. And audience participation does indeed occur, but we're not ones for forcing people into anything - after all, this is very much a conSENSUAL party!

Tema: How many years have you been involved with the Adelaide Fringe? How have found the experience(s) of being involved with the AF?
Victoria: We have all been making the annual pilgrimage to Adelaide for about a decade, presenting lots of other shows prior to Fringe Wives Club's debut in 2017 (including WOMANz, Fully Sik, How To Be A Rockstar for kiddies, Strong Female Character, EastEnd Cabaret and Yeti's Demon Dive Bar). Adelaide Fringe is very special to us - it's a spiritual home for the Fringe Wife Massive and the place where our friendship was firmly cemented, fueled by the killer espresso martinis in the Garden (oh god they better be there again this year!). It's a place to be inspired by the world-class artists around you, and a world in which we feel truly supported by our audiences, as well as the absolutely wonderful crew of people who run the Fringe Festival itself, all of whom are always willing to get on board and support new work.



Tema: How do you feel about performing in the venue The Garden of Unearthly Delights?
Victoria: We're back in La Casacadeur, which is the tent in which we debuted our show last year. By the end of the sell out season, we were turning people away, so we're bringing it back by popular demand!

Tema: What are you anticipating from the Adelaide Fringe this year?
Victoria: So many fabulous acts that we're hoping to catch! Super keen to see the brilliant duo Sweaty Pits who are bringing their sketch comedy show Pity Party , as well as our boyfriends and all-round legends Dazza & Keif (who are one click away from going viral, so they tell us). Also VERY excited that Pussy Riot are going to be in town - we missed them at Edinburgh Fringe, so we're hoping we get to see them this time around.



Tema: Have you taken your performance interstate / overseas? If so, where have you performed and what has that experience been like?
Victoria: We have taken this show around Australia, including our debut at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, at which we were nominated for Best Newcomer, and last year, we debuted the show at Soho Theatre in London, as well as the Edinburgh Fringe (picking up a Spirit of the Fringe Award as well)! This year we are widening our touring in both Australia and the UK, and we have the US in our sights as well. The joy of festivals is that the audience can be quite mixed - people are willing to take a chance on something they may not otherwise have seen - and so we've had people of all genders (in both Adelaide and Edinburgh) swear that prior to coming to the show, they thought that feminism was "not for them" - but our show had changed their minds. One of the main drivers of the show is that we ground the overarching (and often vague) concepts of feminism in personal experience, and communicate this in an identifiable, entertaining and understandable way. This is also why I'm excited about taking the show out to more regional areas, where it feels less like we are preaching to a converted set of woke folks and more that we are giving people a space to think about these issues, and consider how to make positive change in their day-to-day lives.

Tema: Are you doing any other shows during the Adelaide Fringe? If so, what show(s) would that be and what are they about, in a nutshell?
Victoria: We are splooshing-in-our-sequins excited about the new Fringe Wives Club show: Glittergrass ! Our limited Adelaide season (weekends only, midnight in the Spiegeltent at Gluttony) is a development season, before we debut it at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and it's gonna be a late-night, loose and loud bluegrassy feminist hootenanny, inspired by the bad girls and dangerous women of our past, present and future. We are presenting a bunch of new songs with live music, a kickass backing band, and two new wives!



Tema: Is there anything else that you'd like your audience / our readers to know about you and your show(s)?
Victoria: Small, personal actions provoke larger and lasting changes - this much we have already learned from the past two years - but there is still so much that can be done. Keeping ourselves informed, interested and continuing those conversations - this is what keeps the movement rolling forward. But we also need to let loose and have some good, honest, stupid fun. Our show is an unashamed, champagne-fuelled, sequin-drenched, dancefloor banger of a catalyst for all of this. So let's dance.

**Book tickets to the Fringe Wives Club's shows here:

Glittery Clittery || The Garden of Unearthly Delights || Stirling Fringe || Feb 15 - Mar 3

Glittergrass || Gluttony || Feb 15 - Mar 2**

#adelaide_city
#comedy
#greater_adelaide
#interviews
#music
#shows
#february
!date 15/02/2019 -- 03/03/2019
%wnadelaide
202064 - 2023-06-16 05:13:03

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