Hole! continues at Cowbarn at Underbelly, Bristo Square until 30 August 2026 (except 17).
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
They’re sneaky, the writers of Hole! They lure you in with the promise of a lurid tale of “butt plugs or eternal damnation”, then deliver a show so complex, so funny, so engaging, so moving that you’re left questioning your life choices, what you believe and who you love.
The show is billiantly written and performed by Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, who together, are American Sing-Song (A.S.S) See what they did there? They just can’t help themselves!
These are master storytellers at work. There’s not a wasted syllable in the whole show. It’s mostly sung, but there are lots of spoken vignettes where, between them, they play an entire community of quirky characters.
With Brasch on keyboards, the songs are great. The harmonies on pointe. The lyrics ingenious, filthy, funny and touching.
Leonhard-Hooper, a wonderfully inventive foley artist, offers hilarious sound effects to accompany the dialogue. Who knew that’s how you represented the engine noise of a PT Cruiser?
The genius of Hole! is that they set you up for a rough and raucous ride, but before you know it, they’ve sucked you into their eccentric little community of religious zealots navigating catastrophe. There’s total joy in ‘I Just Ate Raccoon With a Jew’ and ‘Boners at Weird Moments’.
At the centre of it, is the sweetest coming of age story. The gentle, poignant, ‘A Mother Always Knows’ struck a chord with this reviewer.
Questions of faith are explored hilariously; there’s a Book of Mormon style irreverent poke at blind faith and believing everything you’re told. “Faith is something you believe that can’t be proved,” they say. Well, I have faith in Hole! as a brilliantly entertaining piece of theatre, but my faith is not blind. Their brilliance can be proved.
Steven Wren
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