Mommie & The Minister
Sisters Grimm
Big Star Basement, Rundle Street
Until Sun 9 March


Edmund and Harriet Lovely have been locked in the dank and dusty cellar of their family home for over twenty years. Having long outgrown their tattered childhood clothing and shoes, this incestuous pair of blonde haired twins have survived by feasting on rats and amuse themselves by playing an eternal game of hide and seek and look forward to the daily visits from their cruel captor, Mommie.

Standing threateningly tall from toe to the tip of her beehive with garish make up and likewise dress sense, Mommie (Gerard Williams, aka Melbourne drag queen- Missfit) sinisterly plays her children off one another by favouring Harriet (Gillian Perry) and denying Edmund (Ash Flanders) his feed of newspaper mush.

Then there's the unseen man the children only know as Minister. Because of his arrival when they were six years old the children find themselves imprisoned, and other than hearing their mother and him argue from the top of the stairs they don't know who he is. They do know that it's Mommie's happiness that matters most of all. But one night a painting of a cat comes to life and speaks to Edmund, as Kitty (voiced by Matt Hickey) advises him that murder may be their only escape.

'Mommie & The Minister' is a high camp, deeply disturbing yet scarily hilarious production that's guaranteed to schlock your senses and is definitely a must for those who love their theatre histrionic, grotesque and daringly demented. Perfectly placed in the basement, this adds to the claustrophobic, darkly removed world of the Lovely's and certainly helps to acclimatise the audience to the experience.

Steve Jones