The Festival Hub at Trades Hall, home to the Melbourne Fringe Festival, was abuzz with people meeting up with friends, catching a drink at the bar or pouring in and out of the many theatre spaces to take in a Fringe show. A real sense of excitement: the Melbourne arts scene is back and fired up.
2021 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Golden Gibbo winner, Nat Harris, is a talented writer who has handed us her latest character, Sal, in Sal + Friends.
Sal is a 55 year-old retired P.E. teacher with an unhealthy obsession with her son Brendan who is living in London with his partner, Cartier.
In the throes of over-organising the minutiae of her husband’s 60th, Sal is juggling the toxic advice of her best friend, Lynne, while maniacally adhering to her new personal trainer’s regime.
Her cutting remarks cruelly portray her husband as gormless and unable to keep up: she believes he is not in sync with her enthusiasm and outmoded in his dress sense.
When her husband drops a bombshell about their son, Sal falls apart.
Nat’s written script delivers many sides and changes in the two characters as they negotiate transformation and challenges in their long-standing relationship. Clever dialogue leaves plenty more room to develop these characters.
Her use of audience participation was a bit laboured and perhaps didn’t achieve as much as she’d hoped for on the night.
I hope Nat explores more of Sal, her friends and her family dynamics as an ongoing series in the future: it would also be suited to other forms of media.

Review by Sherryn Danaher