Melbourne Fringe: Best of part 4

One of the many things I’m loving about this year’s Fringe is the amount of full houses. I saw two shows on Friday night where there wasn’t a spare seat. In other words, don’t take your chances at the door and book.

Everything All The Time is the first play by performance poet Sean M Whelan.

Performed in the Hill of Content bookshop there’s something so cosy and safe about being surrounded by books and a quietness that can’t even be broken by the endless noise of Bourke Street.

It’s about Patience and Tully, who may or may not be dead, depending on what choices the ghosts of their past and present can convince them to make. It’s a ghost story in a bookshop!

The ghosts are in traditional white sheets, which is sweet and funny, but its dagginess distracts from the tone of the text and the performances by reminding us that it can’t possibly be real.

But, sheets aside, it’s a delicate and touching script that’s full of heart and written with a poeticism that charms.

A Chekhov Triptych  is an ideal selection of Anton Chekhov’s short plays: The Dangers of Tobacco, The Bear and Swan Song.

Directed by Brigid Gallacher, each reminds how funny his writing is and how these stories resonate as much today as they did in the late-19th century.

Being set at the approximate time of writing and using existing translations (with some of the actor’s own words to make it feel better), this work is also a terrific book end to Simon Stone’s recent Cherry Orchard at the MTC.

With a wonderful three-peice band playing and singing between the pieces, a consistently strong cast, who turn the quiet naturalism off to share the humour, and a design that appreciates a red-velvet curtain, this triptych honours the writer while sharing the voices and opinions of its creators. It’s great stuff.