This November Melbourne audiences are invited to a science fiction pirate horror comedy like no other, Theatre Works, David Tredinnick and Adam Browne presents the premiere of Bladderwrack at the Explosives Factory, St Kilda.
This new Australian work promises a very big story, in a reasonably small setting. A heady mix of opera, monsters, and pantomime, Bladderwrack is the tale of two ancient pirates: Saucy Jack and Bagfoot. Dwelling in the chilldrippery of a sunken galleon, their lives are sustained by the ecosystem that has overtaken the bilge around them.
Thanks to the bile-green phosphorescent bladderwrack that thrives in the ship’s bowels, their air refuses to run out – and thanks to the eyeless, dark-adapted ghastlies that swim among those weeds, their food also refuses to run out. They have existed there for decades. But there’s something still worse to come: the unveiled memory of why they’re down there at all…
“As one of the writers, I was recalling the pirate stories of Lord Dunsany and Mervyn Peake,” says co writer and actor Adam Browne. “They’re storybook pirates raised to literature.”
“With Bladderwrack we were careful not to let the dialogue get too purple, but there are times when the pirates are transported by their madness to flights of high-style. It’s dark but with a lot of classical nonsense and bristling ideas.
“If this play was a marine invertebrate, it would be an ornate nudibranch. Like a nudibranch, it’s mad and alienly beautiful. And like a nudibranch, it’s on the shiver between grotesque and whimsical… but unlike a nudibranch, it’s funny. It feels like so many plays around these days are incredibly earnest. This is the opposite. Unserious, but for grownups.”
Inspired by the likes of James Mason, Spike Milligan, and The Goon Show, this fantastical foray also lays claim to creating a new genre of dance, has Snuff Puppet-inspired creations for people to eyeball, and features the longest fart ever heard on the Antipodean stage.
“Bladderwrack is a love machine built out of two drowned pirates, an opera-singing figurehead, a over worked assistant stage manager, two shell-shocked 1940s radio stars, and some terrible-tasting fish”, adds co-writer and actor David Tredinnick. “The play is also just a thinly-disguised advertisement for the book of the play, which will be on sale at the candy bar.”
Looking to be a true treat on the Melbourne arts calendar, don’t miss the opportunity to experience this rollicking, barnacle covered new Australian work.
Co-Directors: David Tredinnick, Adam Browne | Featuring: David Tredinnick, Oscar Munroe, Samuel Thomas-Holland, Harriet Turner-Browne | Operatic Vocals: Samuel Thomas-Holland | Puppets: Julian Chappell, Emma Jevons | Set Design: Adam Browne, David Tredinnick | Costume Design: Katerina Petratos | Stage Manager: Ella Thompson | Co-Writers: David Tredinnick, Adam Browne
Bladderwrack
Explosives Factory, Rear Laneway 67 Inkerman Street, St Kilda
Season: 6 – 15 November 2025 (preview: 5 November)
Bookings: www.theatreworks.org.au
For more information, visit: www.bladderwrackplay.com.au for details.
Image: Adam Browne and David Tredinnick to star in Bladderwrack – photo by Steven Mitchell Wright