THE BUNYIP ARISTOCRATS Comes to ADL Fringe 2022

'The Bunyip Aristocrats' is playing at the Bakehouse Theatre for Adelaide Fringe 2022 and is the follow up to last year's 5-star Fringe hit, 'Parlour Games'.

Performances run at The Bakehouse Theatre, Feb 21st-Mar 19th.

Henry Hobbes is an ageing, domineering, and pompous former judge who's fed-up with Australia. He's decided to officially 'secede' his arid farmland and create his own private micro-nation, 'The Kingdom of Hobbes', with himself as the King. But every king must have a successor. His two estranged children Hetty and Hal are suddenly summoned to his court to compete for their father's approval in order to become his one true heir. Both need the money, both have a secret, and what follows is a madcap farce of bogan palace intrigue and dynastic family values.

The Bunyip Aristocrats is based on the remarkable true story of the Principality of Hutt River, a now defunct micro-nation in rural Western Australia set up by wheat-farmer-turned-monarch Prince Leonard I. This story of a singular man exerting his will upon the world (not matter how ridiculous) serves as a vehicle not only for farcical comedy but also for examining certain lingering questions about our own nationhood; after all, do we, with our history of colonisation, really have much more claim to legitimacy than a bunyip aristocrat?