With seats packed, slideshow primed and Confederate flag draped upon the lectern at Noodle Palace’s Soba Stadium (a.k.a. Central Tafe’s lecture theatre), Murder in Mississippi feels every part a deep-South true-crime detective’s briefing. Australian documentarian, comedian and writer John Safran, with his trademark style of prank-journalism, tells the tale of his Capote-esque travels to Mississippi solve a baffling murder case – or at least try to.

Not unlike his previous television broadcasts in which he explores the sensitive topics of religion and race with tongue-in-cheek sincerity, Murder in Mississippi is a look behind the scenes of the immaculate conception and execution of Safran’s debut non-fiction journey of the same name.

The show itself, while entertaining on merit of Safran’s presentation style alone, seemed slightly cramped in the format of live comedy. Featuring clips from his previous documentaries such as Race Relations and John Safran vs. God, save for a segment originally banned from airplay on the ABC, many diehard Saf-fans will find themselves re-watching clips they’ve already seen on mid-to-late evening television programming. Safran’s on-stage narration in between clips provides an interesting and often gripping insight in to how he even ended up there in the first place.

Indeed, many audience members would have hoped the Q&A session at the end of the show was allocated it’s own hour, with raised-hands left unanswered due to lack of time. Touching on topics spanning Safran’s entire career and, of course, unashamedly tell-all, this insight in to the art of surpassing the Point of No Return added much appreciated humanisation to Safran’s ultimately personal tale.

It’s a tease, of course, and he won’t reveal the ending to the tale he explores in his book, but you won’t really care. If you’re a fan you’ll no doubt enjoy the live audiobook experience from one of Australia’s most notorious government-funded comedy figures.

Grab your tickets to the last 9pm showing of Murder in Mississippi on Sunday the 8^th of Feb before it’s sold out completely. Check it out in the Fringe Guide here.

Maybe I walked in to the Soba Stadium with higher hopes than I should’ve. Sami Shah, a Pakistani comedian profiled in the New York Times and Australian Story, with past performances at TEDx Melbourne and BBC’s Asian Network, was something to look forward to. Presenting a new hour of comedy following a sold-out 2014 run at Fringe World and the Perth Comedy Festival, Separation Anxiety quickly became performance anxiety as many jokes failed to hit their mark.

It’s not true that he was completely unfunny – Shah has a unique perspective on issues ranging from immigration and asylum seekers to serial killers and the ‘joys’ of parenting. But after backing out of a three minute monologue on ISIS and the Sydney siege, before leading in to an atheistic justification of why “Muslims should apologise for being Muslim, Christians should apologise for being Christian and Jews should apologise for being Jews” because the audience went decidedly quiet – well, it’s probably worth reconsidering if you should try to justify that at all.

It’s not that we’re uptight here in Perth. We like to think we’re progressive, and we certainly don’t have a problem with ‘edgy’ humour. But if you want us to laugh, it has to actually be funny. A death threat received from grammatically-correct white supremacists sounds hilarious on paper – but when you actually print the paper, and read it off on stage, a snappy one-liner becomes a 3-minute show-and-tell that quickly becomes tiring.

In fact, two audience members fell asleep – that was a highlight. To Shah’s credit he handled it superbly, admitting it was arguably a better response than being booed off stage by 150 drunken university students at an end of semester bash.

With no real cohesion between stories and jokes, often stumbling from one line to another before stopping himself to backtrack or try to remember what he was talking about in the first place, Shah delivers an unmemorable, unremarkable and at times cringe-laden series of lectures in a disguised Central Tafe lecture theatre at Fringe World’s Noodle Palace.

The sound tech throws a thumbs-up after the classic ‘how are we doing for time?’ and the audience hears Shah’s lengthy stream-of-consciousness opinion on the Abbott government before wrapping up. The audience claps and he takes a bow, before sharing one final story of how he’d just written a book. It’s usually $30 but he’s brought a few along and he’s happy to sign them at the back and give them away for $30. Now that was funny – but for all the wrong reasons.

Sami Shah: Separation Anxiety runs until the 12th of February at multiple venues. Check it out in the Fringe Guide here.

Umit Bali is a Sydney comedian from Fiji with a Persian name and Indian parents – if you think living with that mish-mash of multiculturalism in this day and age would provide a comedian with a tale or two, you’re not wrong.

From chutney-handed Customs inspectors and his father’s machete-wielding kidnappers, to snorting cocaine in a bathroom stall with South Africa’s Most Photographed Transsexual, Bali cruises from joke to story to heartfelt confession with a constant smile and carefree attitude that leaves the audience with nothing but respect and appreciation for the humour found in situations anyone else would probably take a little more seriously.

Packed with fast-paced humor and slices of life that are often just plain tragic, Bali’s high-energy stage presence is as entertaining as it is inspiring, an hour-long exploration of his own life as a fugitive, a son, a brother and former housemate-of-a-goth.

Far from your average punchline-driven stack of jokes, Flight Plan is interspersed with captivating and endearing recollections of some of the defining moments in this charismatic Blacktown comedian’s life that if you don’t laugh at, you might just cry, and that’s just the way he wants it to be.

It’s clear that with Flight Plan Bali is hoping to start a dialogue between people about the type of issues that many of us shy away from discussion – at times, it’s a very humanising exploration of problems that are commonplace among immigrants, legal or otherwise.

Ever the optimist, Bali laughs at each and every ridiculous obstacle life has thrown at him, and you can’t help but laugh with him. Equal parts funny and stupidly resilient, this is a man you can’t help but wish the best for. But even if you didn’t, I doubt it would bother him at all

Umit Bali: Flight Plan runs from the 29th of January until the 5th of February at Rosie O’Grady’s Broderick Room, with a final show on the 7th of February at Mojos Bar.

Check it out in the Fringe Guide here.

Seeking refuge from the heat of the afternoon pavement, I journeyed inwards to the air-conditioned dusk of the Ellington Jazz Club, where the traffic outside became little more than a silent mural painted on a narrow strip of window, as the unassuming Helen Bower invites the audience to take a moment to leave the day behind – and to step Through the Looping Glass.

Though eager to explore the use of the loop pedal in her performances to paint with layers of sound, she quickly became frustrated with the limitations of the technique. Listening to the same thing over and over – it gets a little boring. But where others might give up, she pressed on, enlisting the help of contemporary composers from across Australia as well as the UK to explore the true potential of this unique approach to violin performance. And I sure am glad she did.

It’s just one woman, a single violin; if you eyes were closed, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought somehow she was cheating.

The work borders on the surreal when you see and hear each piece unfold on stage, with Bower’s clockwork timing and effortless manipulation of her instrument a joy to witness, lending the sublime human element of imperfection to a performance that is anything but.

Four compositions that transport you from the violent serenity of a coastal thunderstorm to the eerie percussion of reunified Berliners slowly chipping away at the Wall, Bower’s technical finesse is more than obvious as she plucks, taps, fiddles, sings – coaxing from her instrument any and all sounds she can to build her sonic papier-mâché.

Through The Looping Glass is worth seeing for the second composition alone, Sydney-born Grace Huie Robbins’ Landscapes I and II, a hauntingly palpable soundscape that sits you down on the shore of the ocean as the storm rolls overhead, before leading you back to the forest where the birds have begun to sing. Echoes of phase-music pioneer Steve Reich and contemporary musicians in the vein of Nils Frahm and Max Richter throughout, it’s a memorable experience to say the least.

And all with a single violin.

Through The Looping Glass has one final show at 6pm Thursday the 29th of January.

Check it out in the Fringe Program here.

 Time and love: two notoriously intangible, immeasurable (don’t fool yourself) and often downright infuriating concepts that we as human beings struggle with on a daily basis. Well, maybe not all of us, but I’m pretty sure my clock is wrong.

But the good news — as the watchmaker will tell you from his shop-front window in Paris — is that time is elastic: it can stretch or contract, can be lost and found. And, as with love, it can cease to exist.

Winner of the 2014 Blue Room Theatre Award following a sold-out season, director Adam Mitchell has combined with Jo Morris (A Streetcar Named Desire), Renée Newman-Storen (Virgie) and Logie Award nominee Ben Mortley to present prolific Tasmanian playwright Finegan Kruckenmeyer’s three-person, eleven-character production Those Who Fall In Love Like Anchors Dropped Upon The Ocean Floor.

While Alain (Ben Mortley) the watchmaker waxes lyrical on the temporal powers of love whilst Brigit (Renee Newman-Storen) stands frozen in his mind, elsewhere in space-time a pair of Appalachian teens with skin (and accents) as thick as the backwoods try their luck at rabbit hunting, but Terri Case (Jo Morris) is as sure a shot as any and certainly isn’t there for Marco’s shooting tips.

Years away, a Cold-War Russian submarine lies in wait beneath the ocean. On board and bored, Alina and Eva inform their cynical Captain that they have no choice but to put their love on hold until their return to the uncertain surface above. Back (well, forward) in Perth, Kirsty faces her own uncertainty regarding her blind date Brian. Is he or isn’t he a complete idiot? Meanwhile, outside her co-worker’s apartment at an unreasonable hour, one woman finds that love can sometimes turn out one-sided.

While each storyline is set months and years, miles and countries apart, they’re bound by the common thread of emotion that humans have shared across the ages. Mitchell and his team of actors deliver outstanding performances that celebrate the beautiful insignificance of it all.

Not everyone finds love, and not everyone finds time. But if you have any of either to spare, don’t miss watching the Anchor’s slow descent towards the sea floor.

Those Who Fall In Love Like Anchors Dropped Upon The Ocean Floor runs from  Tuesday 27 January to Saturday 31 January at PICA in the Cultural Centre.

Check it out in the Fringe Program here.