3 stars
A warning: this isn’t your grandmother’s kind of Fringe show.
Bella Green, or ‘Peaches’, as she’s known in more intimate circles, is nothing but upfront about her slightly left-of-field lifestyle in this revealing and important show.
Opening strong with an overview of her formative years, Green’s introduction to the audience refers to her career-making peep show appearances, and then diverts into some hilarious tales of Centrelink fraud, tedious call centre gigs, and soul-crushing promo work for an unnamed juice company.
Image courtesy of fringeworld.com.au
Stories about Green’s experiences in various brothels, dungeons, and gentleman’s clubs are quite remarkable—and surely very eye-opening for many of her audiences. Let’s just say Green has seen and been through a lot since debuting in her first peep show aged 18.
Green’s utilises a great deal of observational humour to navigate the somewhat taboo-topic of the sex work industry within our society. It is by no means an easy task, but Green succeeds in subverting dominant narratives and evokes some chuckles along the way.
Though Green’s stories are all highly captivating and intriguing, the show’s consistent mini-intervals, guest appearances, and sketch pieces tended to disrupt the flow of the piece’s narrative. A more polished delivery of these sequences would be more engaging and, perhaps, better suited to the performance style.
While some unfortunate technical issues and delays at this night’s show were clearly unavoidable, the mini-slide show of crude and often, hilarious text messages that ran during each interval, was very difficult to view due to the small print on screen.
Overall, the strengths of Bella Green Is Charging For It lie in the performer’s storytelling. Green clearly has a wealth of stories to draw from, and whilst the show's structure could be improved, she clearly has a promising future ahead within the performing arts industry.
Tickets available from the FRINGE WORLD website.
TATUM STAFFORD