
Moulin Beige, comic and accordion player Liz Skitch’s monthly vaudeville show at the Wesley Ann in Northcote, is a delightfully entertaining taster of live comic performance, and a good way to find out what’s coming up in the Fringe or Comedy festivals.

Melchior, a suicidal young son whose family runs Klutz Books, crawls out the window each night and sits on the roof, planning his demise. One night he meets Hendrick, a neighbour, whose flyaway badminton equipment has brought her to this suicidal young man.

Performed entirely on treadmills, the show hurtles through an exploration of gender identity and performance, created on a base of champagne, sweat and tears.

Andy Bull and his band mesmerised the crowd who were straining to get closer, awaiting what they knew he would surely deliver.

Urthboy enters the Telstra Spiegeltent and asks his audience to close the gap, come in tight, promising not to spit on the audience from a distance. He tells us there will be some “hootin’, hollerin’ and hecklin” asking us to not be afraid to heckle.

From the outset the musicians seemed to be livelier than the audience, getting right into the swing of things with appreciative hoots and exclamations. The cabaret room was packed and the crowd were listening attentively, but rowdy they were not.

The Sublime, the play is a topical piece of theatre that delves into the wildly controversial world of football players and the “hero-status” they are allowed.