Review: ADELAIDE FRINGE 2017: UNRAVELLED at Mount Barker Town Hall

Reviewed by Christine Pyman, Saturday 25th February 2017

Ink Pot Arts is an organisation that is passionate about fostering creativity, particularly of residents of the Adelaide Hills. There is a strong youth focus, but there is something for all age groups. Unravelled is their latest public offering, and it's a beauty.

The question was put to a group of teenagers asking about private fears, then the idea to share to understand that these fears are more uniting than dividing developed. The concept was originally the playwright Sally Hardy's, but the performers-to-be quickly took to the idea and made it their own. Ultimately an empowering act, this play leads us through people learning and finding their way in a sometimes seemingly dark and confusing world, and enhances our own understanding of self.

The world that attempts to put people into boxes can frighten, if you think that you don't fit, particularly as a growing young adult, and to bravely stand forth and share a deep fear that possibly no one else in the entire world could have, then finding that it's not even uncommon, is a brilliant thing to achieve. This play has been performed to audiences at schools, where it surely does much good and, even at its public performance, audience interaction to express a commonality of fears was asked for, and received.

The simple set cleverly and subtlety reinforced the idea of the pressure of conforming, as did the choreography by Callen Fleming. This play and its performance is an exciting way forward for teens to learn confidence about themselves and I'm sure the play will have a very long history as an empowerment tool in schools. Congratulations to Abbie Aylett, Mackenzie Barratt, Isla Francis, Emmirrordh Galbraith-Sellar, Georgina Kelman, Celso March, Danny Smith and Enya Tunn for an excellent performance, that succeeded in every way.

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