Fringe review: Sugar Bits are: FEMINIST TRASH
Sketch comedy trio Sugar Bits draw on familiar stereotypes, characters and folklore to explore the complexities and contradictions of feminism in 2025. ★★★★½
Behind a curtain, sealed off in the main stage area in the Arthur Arthouse, the three performers of Sugar Bits emerge comically into view, each looking like they are floating through space complete with slow-motion movements and heightened expressions. The space is intimate — the audience in the front row are close enough to help with costume changes, and could practically feel the sweat flying off performers.
Sugar Bits — Nicola Pohl, Tessa Luminati and Stephanie Beza — deliver a high-energy, thoroughly entertaining whirlwind of a production, accompanied on stage by three silver trash cans filled with costumes and props.
In the opening sketch, the trio play men standing at a urinal, attempting to be subtle as they make their comparisons over the trough. Complementing their heightened physicality, the performers make the scene’s sound effects themselves — in this case, the sound of urination, to hilarious effect. This sketch then erupts into a choreographed routine that highlights the everyday absurdity of urinal etiquette.
The absurdity of FEMINIST TRASH is a big part of what makes the production so entertaining, but its lean scripting also packs a punch. It would be easy to overwrite a show that hinges on themes as persistent, pervasive, and layered as sexism and gender inequality, but under the creative and sleek direction of Sharnema Nougar and Liv Bell, the performers show rather than tell the audience how these inequities play out day-to-day. The trio also share a brilliant chemistry, and a knack for physical comedy.
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We see astute observations expressed through humour in a musical number about abortion from a quartet made up of a brick with plastic eyes glued onto it, a politician, a preacher’s daughter, and a podcaster. A recurring sketch starts out with a witch being burnt at the stake, but evolves into a women being burnt simply because she is annoying — highlighting how the logic behind the erasure of women might not have progressed as much as we might hope over the years.
In the face of such roadblocks and regressions, this talented trio offers insightful and fresh takes on rhetoric that has inspired activists for decades — important and valuable lessons that reaffirms the need for feminism, but also benefit from new perspectives.
FEMINIST TRASH creatively makes the point that being a feminist is, indeed, messy. It can feel like a chore, a job, and sometimes an unwanted burden that can be hard to find motivation for. Perhaps, being a feminist can sometimes be like taking out the trash — but the alternative is far worse.
Sugar Bits are: FEMINIST TRASH continues at Arthur Arthouse until March 11
Read more 2025 Adelaide Fringe coverage here on InReview