Who is Kurt Murray?
Bubble artist extraordinaire and co-creator of The Big Bubble Show… In Space! as well as many other spectacular Bubble Shows that have toured all around the world since 2014.
I studied as an actor in Australia at Flinders Drama Centre (2008) and created many different projects in London in 2011 before realising that my weekend street performance, with soap bubbles next to the London Eye in Southbank, attracted masses of fans and could be turned into something bigger and more exciting by being brought to stages and taken on the road.
I teamed up with my now wife, Iulia Benze, and together, through trial and error we created a unique soap Bubble experience utilising high technical Bubble skills and combined it with puppetry, clowning and story, starring the loveable Milkshake the Bubble Clown and the ever serious Dr Bubble, the Bubble expert.
What would you do differently from what you do now?
If I wasn’t performing with soap bubbles, I would be performing in some other fashion. If I wasn’t performing at all I would continue doing what I love most, aside from creating bubbles, illustrating stories and comics for children.
Who inspires you and why?
Another long-term Bubble artist named Pep Bou who’s been performing for over 40 years. He is the only other artist that like us has successfully melded bubble artistry and theatre to maximise the entertainment experience for audiences.
About four years into our career, we had the pleasure to meet him in person. Pep being Catalonian spoke no English but both he and Iulia spoke French and translated for me. It was a fantastic experience to meet someone we had so much respect for, although a surprise when the first question he asked us was “how do you make the bubbles last longer?”. Although surprised at the time, now having done this for 15 years I now realise this is a question that never leaves a Bubble artist.
What would you do to make a difference in the world?
When speaking with the audience members after the show, particularly parents, this is the thing that they highlight the most: while they watched our show they forgot about anything happening in any other place in the world in their lives that might have been bothering them, that they just got to sit and experience an unadulterated joy for an hour.
The beauty of bubbles is it doesn’t matter what culture, political belief or background you come from. There is something inherently beautiful within them that taps into something within each and every one of us and brings us together if but for a brief moment.
Favourite holiday destination and why?
Once a year, sometimes twice, we get the opportunity to tour our show in China, only performing on weekends with the weekdays to ourselves. For us it’s the best of both worlds, we get to perform the shows that we love and then take the time to see sites, sounds and experience different cities and wonderful people of a completely different culture throughout the week. Also, we love the food.
When friends come to town, what attraction would you take them to, and why?
We have two homes: one in Carei, Romania, and the other in Adelaide, South Australia. In both places our homes are rural. Our Romanian home is in a vineyard surrounded by fruit of all varieties, walnuts and close to a local market. In Adelaide, we live close to the mangroves with a beautiful world of views and extraordinary birdlife.
We chose these places as for us with our hectic and constant bubble show touring having a quiet slice of serenity is what we need when we are not performing and seeing friends means bringing them to experience that peace and quiet that we treasured so much when we get it.
What are you currently reading?
With erratic wars and political events raging around the world, my main reading material is The Guardian and The Australian newspapers. Staying on top of current events has become strangely important to managing a constant touring schedule.
The last book I read was The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson, the true story of an investment banker coming to the realisation that wealth, inequality and re-distribution of that wealth would be the only way to save the economy as a whole. Very relevant to those of us in the arts – I have to work incredibly hard to make ends meet as all the goal posts move further away.
What are you currently listening to?
Podcasts – anything by the podcaster Simon Whistler, I love staying on top of history and current events. Also, a lot of podcasts on health and fitness. Iulia and I spend a lot of time at the gym outside of our shows, as performing anywhere up to 200 shows a year requires you’re in peak physical condition.
We learnt early on that the hardest part of performing Bubble shows was not the shows themselves but loading in and out the immense amount of equipment that’s required to create the bubbles themselves without getting inured before walking on stage. Not a year goes by where we don’t perform in a festival and other artists are shocked at the amount of bubble gear that’s required to do what we do.
Happiness is?
Creativity for me as the key to happiness creating art through bubbles and performance. The process of ideas, developing them, presenting them, reworking them, presenting them again has created more joy and fulfilment in my life than I can possibly express. Even when I’m not creating Bubble work in my downtime, I find other creative expressions going to life drawing classes creating stories and comics that always lead back into developing new concepts for Bubble shows.
What does the future hold for you?
The future for me and Iulia is just more of the same, but bigger better and more exciting. Most performers will experience a level of dissatisfaction that drives a pursuit of creating the perfect performance and almost unachievable goal but within that we can create extraordinary works, new ideas, new beautiful Bubble creations and present them. From here on out is the need to do better than what we’ve done last time and present it to as many people as possible.
Kurt stars in The Big Bubble Show… In Space! – which will be presented for two shows (10.30am | 1.00pm) at the Coliseum Theatre, Western Sydney on Wednesday 15 July 2026.
Image: Kurt Murray (supplied)