With hundreds of productions to pick from, Sydney Fringe Artistic Director Patrick Kennedy highlights 11 shows he believes capture the spirit of this year’s festival – from ‘proper experimental anti-theatre’ to ‘tender and moving drama,’ he says.
‘One of my favourite shows will probably be something that doesn’t exist yet,’ he tells ArtsHub, encouraging festivalgoers not to over-plan and to take chances – especially with many of the festival venues staging multiple shows a night and often within walking distance of one another (PACT is a short walk from the New Theatre, for example).Â
‘The real joy of [Sydney] Fringe is taking a chance on something that’s never been done before and may never be done again.’
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Sydney Fringe director’s picks – quick links
Nun Slut
Fresh from an international tour, Claire Robin’s break-out hit of Sydney Fringe 2025 is back at the precise moment that the city is in need of what Kennedy describes as an ‘absurd and very silly journey through religion and the body, with physical comedy, sketch and cabaret’.
‘What I love about the show is that Claire, I believe, is still a person of practicing faith and has enormous support from her pastor … who came and saw the show and loved it!’ says Kennedy.
Nun Slut plays Fringe on The Rocks from 23 September to 4 October.
Landed
The legendary all-female collective Frumpus, the enfant terrible of Australia’s contemporary theatre scene in the 1990s and 2000s, are back with a bold and ballsy new work that pushes the edges of performance and comedy. Join three shifty women and their fanged sock puppets in a performance brimming with ‘lovingly handmade silliness’ as they ‘embody hairy disco yetis, haunted embroiderers, grovelling Medieval maids and Bronte-esque hunters of farts,’ Kennedy says.
Landed plays at PACT, Sydney from 2 to 12 September.
Distillation
On the more quiet and contemplative side, Kennedy describes this show as ‘art you experience through your nose’. In a unique partnership with Museums of History NSW, Sydney Fringe brings this globally acclaimed multi-sensory work from Irish artist Luke Casserly to the historic Vaucluse House. Just 25 audience members at a time are transported to an Irish bog landscape through scent. Created in direct response to the closure of Ireland’s peat harvesting industry, this is an encounter that explores our relationship to place.
Distillation is at Vaucluse House, Sydney from 22 to 25 September.
Cold War 2.0
Fresh off the back of premiering at La Mama Theatre’s maiden Hope Punk Climate Festival, the decidedly divisive theatrical duo Doppelgängster head over from Melbourne with their trademark genre-defying, anti-theatre stylings in this new experimental show – a political satire revolving around ‘two losers in a motel room [who] eat snow cones, watch you via drone, and burn out a karaoke machine,’ Kennedy says. With a reputation for generating record walk-outs and a cult following, Doppelgängster will take over a heritage building in The Rocks as part of the Fringe on the Rocks program.
Cold War 2.0 plays Fringe on the Rocks from 9 to 20 September.
Forget Me, Please
With Kala Gare, star of acclaimed new Australian musical My Brilliant Career, alongside Shannen Alyce Quan, this intimate new drama from up-and-coming playwright Sophie Davis follows two characters who meet unexpectedly in an emergency department while both recovering from brain injury. A contemporary story about love, memory and how trauma reshapes human connection, Forget Me, Please is presented in partnership with the Old Fitz Theatre.
Forget Me, Please plays the Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney from 1 to 11 September.
Return of the Godz
Fresh off a sell-out season in London’s West End, Head First Acrobats return with a larger-than-life circus spectacular combining Greek mythology with death-defying stunts beneath the big top. Featuring a five-strong cast and brand-new acts, Return of the Godz is described as ‘the lovechild ofGladiator and Magic Mike‘.
Return of the Godz is at Sydney’s Entertainment Quarter from 26 August to 11 October.
Overture
This immersive dance work lands at Darlinghurst’s Eternity Playhouse and will quite literally take the audience along for the ride – beginning in the theatre foyer, attendees will be led backstage and through the areas that are usually hidden before taking centrestage. ‘Does art only exist under the lights on stage?’ Kennedy asks. ‘Or does it begin from walking through the doors of a theatre and all of the backstage stuff that nobody gets to see? It’s a really interesting take on the theatrical experience.’
Overture is at Eternity Playhouse, Sydney from 23 to 26 September.
Motion Sickness
This cutting-edge experimental physical theatre show is described as a ‘climate crisis rave’ that’s ‘equal parts dance party and existential reckoning’. Aotearoa-born, Melbourne/Naarm-based company a2 brings this heady blend of pulsing electronic music, immersive AV and breakneck-speed new writing to Sydney Fringe after sweeping up 21 awards and nominations across the Melbourne and New Zealand Fringe Festival circuit.
Motion Sickness is at New Theatre, Sydney from 16 to 19 September.
Freidah Will See You Now
Following a smash-hit run at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, this strikingly original clown show from emerging artist Caitlin Duff lands at Qtopia for Sydney Fringe. A darkly comic reimagining of the myth of the River Styx, it sees Freidah ferrying the dead to the afterlife while passing judgement on the men who cross her path.
Freidah Will See You Now is at Qtopia, Sydney from 22 to 26 September.
My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me on Instagram
Winner of the Adelaide Fringe Tour Ready Award, this auto-biographical solo show from multi-award-winning storyteller Yoz Mensch is a moving account of a road trip with their grandfather drawn from hundreds of real Instagram Stories posted during the trip. Described as ‘intimate, funny and surprisingly moving’, this show also promises queer viewers an ultimately happy ending.
My Grandpa Doesn’t Follow Me on Instagram is at New Theatre, Sydney from 23 to 26 September.
Black Widow
Marking the Sydney debut of Melbourne-based multiple-hat-wearing performer Isabel Knight, Black Widow: Sex, Bugs & A High Death Toll is a musical cabaret praised by ArtsHub as ‘saucy, sexy and salacious’ with ‘refined comic and performance chops’. Get caught up in a web of arachnid facts and songs you already know and love, served with a venomous twist.
Black Widow is at Qtopia, Sydney from 22 to 26 September.
