#DearDiary is an original cabaret premiering at this year’s Melbourne Fringe Festival. Devised and performed by Andi Snelling, it is based upon entries from the journal she began when she was nine years old. Snelling, now 33, is sharing with the world her childhood wisdom applied to adult conundrums. In this comic, thought-provoking and emotive performance, she wants the audience to see how the power of self-reflection can influence the present and mental health, and ask the question, when does the past actually end?

Sharing her obsessive diary entries in the form of cabaret and satire, Snelling is hyper-aware of the ego, and steps outside her own headspace to entertain and teach the audience something from her experiences by  “taking the piss out of her younger self.”

It was only earlier this year that Snelling decided she was ready to read through and embrace  her journals, and then share them with an audience. She has come from an interesting background, being a three-time national champion in sport aerobics, studying at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, and performing all over Europe for seven years, until issues with her UK visa brought her back home to Australia, and the 2015 Melbourne Fringe Festival.

This unique step back into the life of a young Andi Snelling will explore all of the fun, silly, intimate, heavy and traumatic moments of her life featuring tribulations such as mental health battles, losing her virginity, travelling and the life of a performer, linking it all back to the big question, “what can self-reflection do for our mental health?”

Snelling is also coming up with some pre-show surprises, acts of guerrilla kindness in the form of handmade diaries hidden in The Butterfly Club and surrounding streets. Anyone who finds one of these long-lost diaries will also get a discount to the show. Who knows, maybe you could be the lucky recipient.

#DearDiary will play at The Butterfly Club from 22 – 27 September at 7pm (5pm on Tuesday 22 September). To book tickets visit www.melbournefringe.com.au or call (03)  9660 9600.