Joanne Hartstone's Muriel Matters play a symbolic triumph for Adelaide Fringe theatre
Adelaide's Joanne Hartstone playing Adelaide's Muriel Matters in That Daring Australian Girl in the 2018 Adelaide Fringe.
Image by Tom Kitney (show designer, with Nicholas Collett as director)
Adelaide Fringe Festival, second largest in the world in Edinburgh, had one of its significant symbolic theatre high points in 2018 with Adelaide writer-performer Joanne Hartstone’s That Daring Australian Girl – the true story of South Australian actress Muriel Matters who became a leading figure in the UK’s suffragette struggle – winning five-star raves at the Holden Street Theatres.
Hartstone had won inaugural Made in Adelaide Award and The Holden Street Theatres' Award for the 2017 Adelaide Fringe for another solo show: The Girl Who Jumped Off The Hollywood Sign.
Hartstone and Martha Lott’s Holden Street Theatres at Hindmarsh are staying true to the spirit of founder Frank Ford who saw the Fringe as a vehicle for quality small-scale theatre that has had to fend off an overwhelming volume off comedy and novelty acts.
Lott’s theatres have brought from Edinburgh Festival the brilliant plays of Henry Naylor, including his Echoes that won five major awards at the 2016 Adelaide Fringe, followed by the equally impressive Angel the next year.
The first Adelaide Fringe, in 1960 was the response by some local creative artists to start an alternative to the curated Adelaide Festival of Arts. From that wish, Adelaide Fringe became an open access event, allowing anyone with ideas and enthusiasm to register in the program.
With Ford as chairman from 1975 of the incorporate Fringe, it continued to be held biannually until when South Australian premier Mike Rann announced that the Adelaide Fringe would receive an extra $2 million government funding to become an annual event from 2007.
Box office revenue reached $16.6 million from 705,761 tickets sold in 2018 to cement Adelaide Fringe’s position as the highest ticket selling arts festival in Australia and the second-largest Fringe in the world.
