I’ve been involved in the Adelaide Fringe since 1988, many times as a performer, but most often as a reviewer. Not a paid reviewer, by the way, simply as someone passionate about the arts who wanted to shine a light on emerging and “fringe” artists who weren’t getting attention from mainstream, paid reviewers.
My early days on stage at La Mama Theatre, where we did everything from washing floors and dishes, serving in the bar, front of house, bump in and out, acting, lights, sound, etc, certainly left a soft spot in my heart for thespians who are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.
To me, this is the epitome of “the fringe”. The Adelaide Fringe began in 1960 as an unofficial collection of local artists’ events, sparked by their exclusion from the curated Adelaide Festival of Arts. It featured visual arts, crafts, performing arts, and amateur theatre over two weeks, emphasising grassroots creativity outside the mainstream. This is in stark contrast to today. The Adelaide Fringe is now a corporate giant, with sponsors and economic development signficance, ticket sales milestones like cracking one million sales, and carrying the responsibility of driving Mad March economic drivers for South Australia. Even though it is an open event that anybody can register to be part of, there is a certain look at feel aimed for in communications to hit the right notes to keep government and sponsors content.
Going back to those early, haphazard days, by 1975, it initially incorporated as an independent body named Focus Inc., later rebranding to the Adelaide Festival Fringe in 1976 and, finally, to Adelaide Fringe in 1992. It became an annual event in 2007 and since then the regular drumbeat, year after year, has enabled commercial entities to latch onto the event, and given locals a reliable time of year for planning get togethers and late nights in summer warmth.
There is a lot of good work and much good intent to keep the Fringe “artist focussed” but having 1500 entries in 2026 means many performers will struggle to get attention and cover costs. I recall established artists in the mid tier complaining last year about stalled or minimal ticket sales. There are only so many bums to go around!
It hasn’t helped that bigger media outlets have had brouhahas over providing reviews with an understanding of advertising spend in their journals, or via direct promotion arrangements. It has left a vacuum, currently being filled by lots of very lightweight online journals who either have inexperienced “reviewers” who are just ga ga about getting free tickets and then swooning over the acts they saw, or others with, how do I say this delicately, pay-to-play models of review plus editorial coverage.
And this is why this song bubbled up from my subconscious. I am taking a long break from reviewing the Fringe. In the last few years, the change in attitude towards reviewers by the Fringe has become striking. Whereas once you need an editor or chief of staff to vouch for you and your work was held as rare and valuable, now it is easy to pile on and the Fringe wording is very patronising, stating that review tickets are a privilege, implying we are just in it for fun, have no idea about the significance of the role of the critic, and that we should be jolly well grateful that we are allowed the honour of spending 8-10 hours of our own time getting to and from a show, then reflecting and writing a review.
At my peak, I was reviewing two to three shows every night of the month-long event, and if you look through the archives you will see Steve Davis or The Adelaide Show oft quoted in posters by artists upon return visits. Sadly, the number of 5-star reviews bandied about now has devalued them like dollar bills during bouts of hyperinflation.
As much as the general and popular centralisation of “the Fringe” in the east parklands has become a social fixture, I believe it has changed the fabric of fringe going. Instead of shows being the focus and, in particular, unknown, rare, experimental shows, now for many South Aussies the Fringe is somewhere you go to for a drink and a bite and catch up with friends. There is nothing terribly wrong with that, it’s just that it sucks a lot of oxygen from the event and this audience-rule means cheeky, near-naked circus and TV “celebrities” become the cash cows keeping this garden pub scene afloat.
I reference Annie Sprinkle in the song because her post-porn act was not the cutesie, faux-daring, fetishised teasing that passes off as adult circus, she went extreme. I reviewed her show and it was hard work to watch and write about. But it led to much conversation and thinking. Hers was that authentic, body-on-the-line approach to Fringe but streaming services, sponsors, and the polished acts at the big end of town, have taught audiences to prefer little bite sized mouthfuls of titillation because you can collectively giggle over them and they go well with cocktails. Similarly, I reference an “ordinary lady beard” to register that I (and most of us) have normalised such things but that such looks still play as “out there” for straightlaced media outlets that want to be a bit risqué in their reportage.
Of course, it is not ALL bleak like that but my heart is broken for the genuine, earnest artist, wanting to try something new without being locked into expensive venue arrangements, etc. The modern Fringe needs to keep the media fed with easily digestible nuggets of burlesque costumes and glitter, and it’s just too hard to meticulously find, understand, and explain unique talent that doesn’t fit the flaunting, gaudy stereotype.
There are still some gems in the Fringe Guide, and I trust there always will be. I also know there have been some grants to support emerging artists. These are all good.
This song, really is a love song. It’s written by someone who loves the idea of the original Fringe and who understands that going commercial and big, big, big, is the way of the world. I’m grateful to have been part of it for its sweaty, frenzied, broken, exciting, incomprehensible decades, where the great improv mantra “yes, and” ruled the day, and there were always splinters there to be dodged on the rough edges.
If I was ruler, my main change would be finding ways to engage the general population in theatre literacy – how to choose it, how to appreciate it, how to think and talk about it. Not everything in this world is a perfect, 6-second piece of heavily curated and filtered TikTok or Insta dross, nor is everything an algorithmically-written piece of Netflix plastic. It’s just that the weather’s warm, there are too many shows to sift through, and I’ve just ordered by gin and tonic on the rocks.
Centre Stage Lyrics
[Verse 1]
I never thought I’d need to say goodbye
You’ve been a part of most years of my life
The makeup and the tears and summer nights
The holy and most unearthly delights
[Refrain 1]
You were never fringe to me
You did not need celebrity
You saw art, as a big part of the whole
But now a household name
Comes and cashes in on fame
And crowds out, smaller shows that have more soul
[Chorus]
‘Cause the public wants spunk
They’re looking for bright
They want to see junk
Deep into the night
And now what satisfies their need for weird
Is just an ordinary lady beard
But back in the day
Your thing was avant garde
But that doesn’t pay
‘Cause thinking’s too hard
It seems the only way to fringe, in this modern age
Is to keep the focus, on the centre stage
[Verse 2]
I’ve spent a thousand hours in the dark
In theatres and on blankets in the park
I’ve perspired on hard wooden seats in tents
And sweltered in church halls with no air vents
[Refrain 2]
But I still wrote my reviews
To help all thinking people choose
Between emerging artists in our town
But now you’ve dropped the bar
And the web is full of stars
Amid the dross the noble artists drown
[Chorus]
‘Cause the public wants spunk
They’re looking for bright
They want to see junk
Deep into the night
And now what satisfies their need for weird
Is just an ordinary lady beard
But back in the day
Your thing was avant garde
But that doesn’t pay
‘Cause thinking’s too hard
It seems the only way to fringe, in this modern age
Is to keep the focus, on the centre stage
[Verse 3]
I think I know when we drifted apart
It’s when you set up gardens in the parks
You became the place where everybody goes
Instead of going out to see some shows
[Refrain 3]
Punters come in by the score
But ask them what they’re coming for
It’s not for art, it’s to just hang with friends
And now you can’t let down
This huge bread and circus crowd
On their money, now everything depends
[Bridge]
This song is my harsh two-star review
I’m writing it heart broken over you
I love you, I don’t want to throw this shade
But I pray that Annie Sprinkle comes, and rains on this parade
And I pray that La Mama Theatre, arises from the grave
And I pray that lone performers find, reward for being brave
But most of all I pray, yes most of all I pray
That Annie Sprinkle rains, on this garden pub charade
[Chorus 2]
We’ll stop looking for spunk
We’ll be happy with grey
Nurture small voices
With something to say
And learn again to celebrate the weird
You’ll teach the audience to be prepared
And the artist bar
Will open up once more
Where all the artists
Can rest and restore
And we can have a healthy fringe, in this modern age
‘Cause we’ll have shifted focus away, from centre stage