The Bunker at the 2021 Adelaide Fringe
Well, this should be interesting…
Congratulations on making it through the last year. I remember walking out of Gluttony on the last Sunday of the Adelaide Fringe, with a really eerie feeling descending on the town. We were about to go into lockdown, and then …who knows?
A lot’s happened since then, all of our experiences have been both shared and unique to each of us. It’s been… wild.
We were still in lockdown when Fringe started nudging artists to register their 2021 shows. WHAT? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? IS THERE EVEN GOING TO BE A FRINGE? I suspect Fringe didn’t know, but they were making plans regardless.
Personally I had HEAPS of questions. How will venue capacity be affected? What if Fringe is cancelled? Will it be safe? Can I take the financial risk? I knew this Fringe would be WIERD.
And I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
I wanted to be able to say I did the weird Fringe.
Then Fringe offered local artists a COVID support grant, where they’d cover a lot of the cost of putting on a show, so there wasn’t a massive amount of money on the line, being gambled by artists who have had a year of no income. It’s a great thing, and has helped a lot of people, including me, put on a show in 2021. Cheers Fringe!
And I knew I had the perfect show for the weird Fringe. I first though of it during the 2016 US Presidential election. Back then it was called “Trump’s Bunker” and I chickened out because I thought “there’s no way he’s going to get in, so the show won’t make sense.”
But he did, and I didn’t. Now he’s on the way out, and I’m one of the people who has serious Trump fatigue, so we’re now calling it “The Bunker”.
This isn’t a stand up show. This isn’t a game show. It’s an interactive experience where the audience IS the show. It’s more escape room than theatre. It’s whatever the opposite of a team building exercise is.
You’ll need to participate or you’ll miss out. And some will miss out anyway.
I really don’t want to tell you too much about it and spoil it. But everyone I HAVE told it to thinks it’s going to be great. And I don’t disagree wth them.
The shows will be small – a maximum, of 30 people each night. I’m doing a week of shows in the city at Ayers House and then taking it to the suburbs for a 1 week tour. I’m finding cool quirky places to do it – air raid shelters in Prospect and Glenelg, a creepy basement in the hills, with more to be added soon.
And if you come to “The Bunker” and survive, the show will continue on. The show has real stakes, and I’m VERY excited about that. But again, I don’t want to say too much.
If the Adelaide Fringe was back to normal, I couldn’t do this show. It wouldn’t make sense. It’s small, it’s not stand up, and it’s not a smart use of my time or money. But this isn’t going to be a normal Adelaide Fringe.
And I’ve got a great little weird show for the great little weird Fringe.
by Jas
