Sugar Bits are: Feminist Trash | MICF 2026

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Date Reviewed: 19/04/2026

Truth is, I didn’t expect to like Feminist Trash, but my curiosity was piqued by the theme: women’s issues.

Despite the show picking up an Emerging Artist Award at Adelaide Fringe and a Golden Gibbo nomination at Melbourne International Comedy Festival, I still half expected to be disappointed. After all, The Motley Bauhaus foyer crowd felt a little too self-aware: less intellectually stimulating Germaine Greer feminists, and more Instagram-infographic feminism with a tote bag.

That was my mildly cynical, conventional and judgmental middle-aged mindset going in. But somewhere between the rhythmic clatter and the absurdity, the point of the performance clicked. Not with a neat snap, but with a kind of full immersion.

What Sugar Bits offers isn’t polished cabaret or a tidy sketch show. Think of the industrial percussion of Stomp colliding head-on with the dainty precision and grace of Swan Lake, before spiralling into 1950s musical theatre kitsch. On paper, it’s a mess but on stage, it’s a revelation.

The interactivity is aggressive. You’re squirted with water (seasoned fans opened their mouths in anticipation; I hid under my coat), fanned with a trashcan lid (“4D,” they joke), stared down, interrogated, and occasionally pulled into the action.

Nicola Pohl, Tessa Luminati and Stephanie Beza, known as Nic, Tess and Steph, are “unhinged” in the most controlled sense. There’s a trust they share onstage that lets them lean fully into the madness. And they’re clearly having the time of their lives, and that energy is infectious.

Whether it’s the anti-abortion number performed as a fundamentalist barbershop quartet (with a matching costumed brick making the fourth member), or the hillbilly trio “The Three Genders,” the acting stays razor-sharp. “The feminism left my body when…” song becomes a communal confession, with the audience gleefully adding their own lines of moments when feminism evaporated: opening jars, flat tyres, the cost of mechanics, hauling a flatpack up the stairs, dealing with the plumber, the quiet surrender of calling dad. It lands because it’s painfully familiar.

At one point, the show veers into something unexpectedly visceral. A riff on breastfeeding is equal parts grotesque and hilarious, as Steph physically wrestles her body back into shape, boobs distorted and exaggerated following extreme newborn sucking, daring the audience not to look away. “Don’t look away,” she insists as we wince but comply.

Even when a sketch feels baffling, the trio’s commitment to the weirdness becomes the point. The recurring witch-burning scene starts off almost juvenile, but deepens as it returns, morphing into a woman condemned simply for being “annoying.” As the logic spirals from medieval hysteria to modern-day judgment, the point lands: the erasure of women hasn’t evolved as much as we’d like to think. They don’t mention her, but I remember Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech and that photo of then-opposition leader Tony Abbott next to placards calling her “Juliar”, “Bob Brown’s bitch” and “Ditch the witch”.

The whole production runs on contagious joy. At one point, the audience is pulled into chant mode: “Feminist Trash! Feminist Trash! Feminist Trash!”

The performance turns to protest rally.

There’s a clarity regarding the show’s purpose and theme beneath the hotchpotch of sketches and genres (they fall short of circus acts though these are considered). There’s an understanding that feminism is messy, contradictory, exhausting, and often very funny.

The final note lands harder than expected: a reflection on the cycle of building women up, placing them on impossible pedestals, then tearing them down just as quickly. The joke lingers, but so does the truth, the annoying truth, just as annoying as the “witch” in the show.

I didn’t walk into Feminist Trash as a convert, but I walked out one: slightly damp after being hosed down by the cast, and thoroughly entertained.

Highlights
• Water gun chaos (avoid wearing silk)
• The musical numbers
• Audience interaction that actually works
• The chemistry between the trio
• Sharp, scrappy writing
• The merch, includes plastic garbage bags

Who’s it for
• Tote-bag feminists, sceptical feminists, and any other variety
• Anyone interested in gender debates
• Anyone who’s ever rolled their eyes at feminism and still wants a good night out
• Boyfriends, husbands, and the those resistant to gender rights (arguably, most of all)

Reviewed by Mary Sinanidis