★★★★★
BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG arrives in Adelaide after a sell-out run at Edinburgh Fringe. It has collected five-star reviews and a Weekly Best of Theatre Award. The premise is deceptively simple.
You walk in and it feels wrong.
The house lights are up. There is no comforting darkness. You are handed a name tag and a texta. You write your name. You stick it to your chest. You are told to talk to the people around you. You are told you will move your chair. You eye your bag, which must be left in a designated pile. It feels less like theatre and more like a corporate bonding day.
And you wonder: how on earth will this generate emotion?
Then Hannah Maxwell begins. And by the end, you are no longer sure where the line between theatre and reality sits.
Maxwell needs her next autobiographical show to be a hit. Preferably a Netflix adaptation. She needs audience research. She needs us to help decide which of her traumas is most marketable.
In an era shaped by Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, oversharing has become currency. Trauma sells. Vulnerability streams. Maxwell interrogates that economy with surgical wit.
She does not just break the fourth wall. She obliterates it.
We become her focus group. After each segment, we scribble feedback on Post-it notes. We discuss in clusters. We vote on which life event might go viral. It sounds gimmicky. It is not. It reveals how brutal the creative process is. It is easy to sit back and critique. It is hard to stand up and create.
Maxwell laments that she does not have a trauma. She offers options. Being the “first pancake” in relationships with bisexual partners. Working in government countering misinformation, which births existential dread. Growing up Fringe adjacent, with a father who once performed a ventriloquist show about telemarketing bears. The absurdity piles up. The show is funny. Properly funny.
But beneath the meta layers sits something sharper. Maxwell can sing. She can play guitar. She can slip into accents, including a flawless Estonian. She can deliver spoken word that bites. She can improvise with frightening agility. She can hold a room with the lights fully up.
And still, at almost 33, she cannot make a living from it.
That is her trauma. She just does not call it that.
At one point, Maxwell compares performing to her former cocaine addiction. This is where she is wrong. Addiction is destruction. It harms everyone around you. Her performing heals. Addiction is compulsion. Her art is creation. If she cannot earn from it, that is not a moral failing. It is systemic.
Every Fringe season, social media posts go viral about the broken economics of the model. Artists shoulder venue costs. Marketing costs. Travel costs. They gamble on audiences. This show should go viral in the same way.
Because Maxwell lays it bare. The labour. The doubt. The hustle. The constant recalibration between authenticity and marketability.
There is no set to hide behind. No blackout to escape into. The lights stay up. We are implicated the whole time. By the end, the focus group feels like a mirror. What do we reward? What do we consume? What stories do we demand?
The brilliance of BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG is that it refuses to beg for a seat at the table. It flips the table. Then asks you to rate the experience out of five.
If there is a risk, it is that some audiences may initially resist participation. It can feel exposed. But that discomfort is the point. Lean in. Maxwell does not need a more dramatic trauma. She needs a fairer system.
This is theatre that thinks. Theatre that laughs at itself. Theatre that dares you to examine why you are there. It deserves to stream everywhere.
Hannah Maxwell: BABYFLEAREINDEERBAG runs to 15 March at the Hetzel Room, Courtyard of Curiosities at the State Library as part of 2026 Adelaide Fringe. North Terrace Adelaide SA 5000.
It then runs 25 – 28 March at Qtopia, Sydney. Get tickets here.
Hannah is also performing in I, AMDRAM at Holden Street Theatres as part of Adelaide Fringe. Get tickets here.
Tickets: https://adelaidefringe.com.au/fringetix/hannah-maxwell-babyfleareindeerbag-af2026
Website: https://hannah-maxwell.com/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/hannahmaxwellhere/
Photo credits: Lucasz Izdebski
Important information:
You will be required to leave bags in a designated area in the performance space. Though this area will be in full view throughout the performance, you may want to avoid bringing valuables with you.
Audience members will be asked to wear name badges and converse with each other in small groups.
The audience will also be required to pick up and move their chairs during the performance. There will be designated static seating for people with access requirements; please arrive early and make yourself known to Front of House staff if you require static seating.
