Two Cents: Nun Slut (Sydney Fringe)
Come, sinners, and rub out a rosary to Nun Slut, Claire Robin’s one-dame show that’s become a five-star sensation at Fringe festivals, local and far-flung. A wimpled, semi-defrocked journey of sacrilegious satire – part clowning, part comedy, part confessional – all except the Archbishop of Sydney are welcome. Or maybe he should come, loosen up, eat a grape or two.
It is grimly, smirkingly amusing to mark the popularity of this extended-season show in the shadow of the Divine Playhouse saga – that state-funded queer venue forced to close after opening night when a minority of loud-mouthed conservative Christians decided to militantly snowflake up. In comedy and the arts, nothing should be held sacred – especially ancient, powerful institutions with a torrid history of corruption and abuse. Besides: symbols and rituals need to be mocked to be fully understood. And don’t we best tease the ones we love?
Robin herself is a believer, as she tells us late in the show’s hour. Brought up Anglican, a spare and cerebral post-Reformation denomination, she later became enraptured with Catholicism, its rituals and iconography of sublime art and feeling.
Can the beauty of religion allow for the liberation of the flesh, though? How does JC feel about his flock getting hot and heavy? And why is Catholicism so obsessed with the body, anyway? There are some strange tensions: like the eating of the flesh (that weird spiritual-cannibalism ritual) and the shame-drenched denying of the flesh (until marriage at least).
With James Watson intoning organ chords on keyboard, our Patron Saint of Carnal Affirmation gradually dissolves the audience into a giggling congregation, convulsing out our demons and surrendering to both the sacred and profane. With heavy audience involvement, there is an orgiastic floor-duster sequence, a communion that becomes a tasty cheeseboard that becomes a body horror game of chubby bunny, a too-high-energy youth camp leader, and an appearance from Barnaby Joyce at church on Sunday with his mistress. Mr Bean is mentioned in the show’s official description, and the influence is unmistakable in Robin’s physical comedy: the naive intensity, the id ascendant. Hers is more radical though, in ways feminist and otherwise. There will be scenes you cannnot unsee.
Irreverent and unashamed, Nun Slut triumphs over the evils of hypocrisy, small-mindedness and intolerance. Praise be.
Claire Robin: Nun Slut
Fringe on the Rocks
Until 11 October 2026
