Fringe Festival's weirdest venues

WITH more than 500 shows, the Fringe artists have to make use of every nook and cranny. Samela Harris hunts down some of the weirdest venues.

WITH more than 500 shows, the Fringe artists have to make use of every nook and cranny. Samela Harris hunts down some of the weirdest venues.

The Manhole

Beneath our feet lies an underworld. It long has fascinated Lucy Wilson. She has the very odd distinction of having travelled the world doing brass rubbings of the doors to this underworld – those things upon which we walk and which we call "manholes".

The Hobart-based performer quickly amends the word.

The politically correct name these days is "Personal Access Point" – PAP for short.

"I've been addicted to manholes ever since I noticed the old Telecom logos done by my stepfather Pieter Huveneers," she says.

"I found them everywhere: cities, parks, bush. I find them beautiful. They are symbols of what comes into our houses. They are portals to the underworld."

As time and fascination have evolved, Wilson has added to her rare distinction in life by creating a performance work, Underwhere, based on this fascination with manhole covers, manholes and what lies beneath.

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As a Fringe show, it will be presented "out of a manhole pit in the street". Her audiences will have to meet on the steps of Parliament House to discover just which manhole pit she has chosen.

Wilson says she sees these manholes "as a metaphor for ourselves – for what we have under our skins".

She loves the idea of the endless movement happening in that subterranean pipescape, the fact that we, in a house, can make things happen down there simply by turning on a tap or a light or picking up a phone.

"There is a massive infrastructure down there under the pavements," she says. "It is fascinating that we can cause movement in it."

For her Adelaide Fringe season of Underwhere, Lucy has moved into the role of director, with circus performer Jannah Skye Partington bringing to life the tale of the woman who visits the same street corner every night in the quest of a melancholy memory and who discovers that beyond the manhole cover there is a busy world which reveals itself to her, allowing her own inner world to unravel as it "undresses" for her.

The 45-minute show has text by Willow S. Weiland, choreography by Teresa Blake, composition and sound by Matthew Dewey and an impressive list of production credits under the banner of Lucy Who Productions from Tasmania.

When: Underwhere will be presented from February 27-29.

The Train

Forget Peter Brook's full night Mahabharata for the 1988 Festival. Allen Lyne is doing a whole weekend production for this Fringe.

Lyne's Bearly Together Company has gone all out to break Adelaide Fringe Festival records.

Never, at $290, has there been a more expensive Fringe ticket. And never, at two days and one night, has there been a longer show.

"I like doing big things," says writer, director and sleuth Allen Lyne of his weekend interactive murder mystery.

Significant parts of the play take place on a Steamranger train chugging through the landscape on the way to Victor Harbor.

Other parts take place in a winery at Strathalbyn, a boutique brewery at Goolwa, at the Victor Harbor Town Hall and even on Granite Island. Oddly enough, most of these clue-laden places also are bursting with decadent refreshments.

The weekend, says Lyne, is set in 1900 with Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson, a Polish princess Kranski, a Polish count Grbbbblzzklski and an Indian seer.

Although Lyne has given his Conan Doyle exploits a fairly classic approach involving stolen jewellery and murder most foul, he has borrowed a little from the modern fashion of cold case investigations.

This is the case of the whaler, Salter, who disappeared in 1872. It's a true story and the sleuthing audience will glean a strand of juicy coastal history at the same time as they chase clues and probe motives.

They may have to keep an eye on Holmes, too. There is a rumour that his life may be in danger.

When: Sherlock Holmes & the Unsolved Case at Victor Harbor is being performed on weekends February 23 and 24, March 1 and 2, and March 15 and 16.

Bookings: Call [phone].

The Coffin

They're coffin up beer in the floogle foyer.

Adelaide's floogle theatre ensemble has taken over the venue that last Fringe was known as Black Lung, renamed it in chic lowercase anti-minimalism "onefortyfive hindley street" and installed a chilled-out coffin as a beer bar.

This is all part of the artification of improvised Fringe venues. The Hindley St address, formerly known as 145, has been transformed, with chandeliers juxtaposed against bare beams on the ceiling and walls be-muralled by some of the city's top artists – Tim John, Poh Ling Yeow, Nick Thompson.

Another artist, Megan Jones, will exhibit works there as well, amid the romantic lamps and eccentric furniture.

And suddenly an abandoned building is transformed.

"Ah yes," says director Sarah John. "Among the skills that today's actors need is the ability to scrub floors and clean up pigeon poo."

John, 26, is one of the most distinguished young directors in the state – recently awarded the $10,000 Neil Curnow Scholarship to study her craft in Spain.

She and fellow floogle, Duncan Graham, may be ascendant stars in the Adelaide arts, but they are not above a bit of elbow grease in the name of their 2008 Fringe production, Ollie and the Minotaur.

Graham, 33, is the writer – having come to the arts circuitously as a Bachelor of Medical Science. He and John first teamed up when in second year at ACArts.

The floogle ensemble for Ollie and the Minotaur consists of performers Sarah Brokensha, Wendy Bos, Adriana Bonaccurso, producer Veronica Bolzon and assistant director Alan Grace.

When: Seasons run from February 21 to March 14.