‘Push your own limits’: 2025 Adelaide Fringe ambassadors issue call to arts
For 2025 ambassadors Rhys Nicholson, Michelle Brasier and Nancy Bates, Adelaide Fringe season is all about finding community, sharing joy and punching up.
“If you don’t like me, blame the Fringe,” comedian Michelle Brasier laughs.
The award-winning singer-songwriter, actor and comedian credits the Adelaide Fringe for “absolutely building her”, and jumped at the chance to be one of the 2025 ambassadors.
“I’ve come here since I was a tiny baby, and this is one of the main ingredients in me and everything that I am,” she says, before adding with a laugh, “I am who I am because of this [festival].”
Brasier’s artistic and personal journey has also been shaped by more sobering experiences; she lost her father and brother in quick succession to cancer in 2006, and has been told by doctors that she has a 97 per cent chance of developing bowel, stomach, pancreatic or ovarian cancer herself.
“It means that I try to live every day as if this was my last — because it very well may be — and Fringe absolutely is the epitome of that,” she says.
When Brasier had her first big cancer scare, doctors advised her to stay at home, saying “it’s not looking good, and we don’t want to give you this news on the phone”.
Michelle Brasier has been an Adelaide Fringe regular since childhood. Photo: Supplied
“I was desperate to do my show and I said, ‘but I’ve got to go to the Adelaide Fringe — look it up, it’s very illustrious’,” she explains.
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“And I came here, and I was with my community, and we sang, and we drank, and we ate, and we laughed, and we made people laugh. [Adelaide] came and laughed with me, and you made me feel good, and made me forget that I might die.
“That is what art is about.”
Fortunately, Brasier was given the ‘all clear’ from breast cancer at the end of that week.
“And you know, that wasn’t even the highlight. The highlight was just the joy of being with my people, seeing art, making art,” she says.
Brasier is joined by fellow comedian Rhys Nicholson, First Nations singer Nancy Bates and Adelaide-born Hollywood star Teresa Palmer as the 2025 ambassadors for the Adelaide Fringe, which officially kicks off on February 21 (Sneak Peek Week starts from February 14).
Just like Brasier, it was a no-brainer for Nicholson to represent Australia’s biggest arts festival, which notches up 64 years in 2025.
Rhys Nicholson encourages audiences to take a chance on smaller shows and fresh talent, Photo: Monika Pronk / Supplied
They credit the Adelaide Fringe with making them feel like they were properly part of the industry. Nicolson recalls their first show at the Crown and Anchor, the almost endless hours each day “flyering” — handing out promotional flyers — and “full mental breakdowns”, combined with the highs of hanging out backstage with established comedians such as Wil Anderson.
“It was the first time I ever felt like a part of this [comedy] community,” Nicholson says.
“It was a very important time.”
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Nicholson loves how the Fringe has continued to support young artists in developing new work — and encourages festival-goers to take a chance on a completely new show.
“Take risks,” they say. “That is what this festival is all about.
“There are absolutely some big, shiny shows here that people should go and see as well.
“Go and sit in a 40-seat hot room and spend an hour with one of the kids as they vomit up their feelings because that’s what it’s about.
“Go and see something you’ve never heard of before and push your own limits of entertainment. If you like art and comedy that’s in the mainstream, that’s on television – chances are the kernel of it started at this very festival.”
For First Nations singer-songwriter Nancy Bates, the fun of the Fringe is balanced by a deep responsibility to remind the whole of Australia of the value of art in the community.
“As artists we hold value in our communities, we are the reflection of our social and political values,” she says.
Nancy Bates says art is about revolution and innovation. Photo: Stefanie Zingsheim / Supplied
“So let me just remind every artist that while this is Fringe and let’s have a fabulous time — we are the revolution.
Bates says that artists today have an important role to play when faced with a social and political landscape that “makes the hair stand up on the back of my head, and not in a good way”.
“We’ve got a lot of fighting to do. So, for me, Adelaide Fringe is also about pushing back on the conservative politics that are looking to punch down on us as artists.
“We are the documenters of our lives. We are the innovators, and we are the solution, and we are to be valued.”
Adelaide Fringe
February 21 – March 23
Nancy Bates and Friends, March 6-7, Arts Theatre
Michelle Brasier: It’s A Shame We Won’t Be Friends Next Year, March 4-9, The Kingfisher, Gluttony
Rhys Nicholson: Huge Big Party Congratulations, March 13-15, Hindley St Music Hall
This story is part of a series of articles being produced by InReview with the support of Adelaide Fringe