Swamplesque 2 at Regal Theatre
Friday, May 8, 2026
There’s something deeply funny about watching a heritage theatre surrender itself entirely to swamp logic. Beneath the ornate surrounds of Regal Theatre, the final performance of Swamplesque 2—or Far Far Away, as the crowd enthusiastically cheered for during the opening—arrived less like a conventional comedy show and more like a full-scale camp occupation.
After a 17-week run following Fringe World, the audience entered already primed, packed shoulder-to-shoulder for the show, vibing to Hot in Herre before the cast had even appeared. Unlike the original Fringe incarnation—staged through and amongst the crowd with gleeful disregard for personal space—this version was forced into a more traditional theatrical frame at the Regal. Some intimacy was inevitably lost, particularly for those stranded in the back corners, but the production compensated with sheer scale and rolling communal energy.
From the opening sequence of Shrek and Fiona in blissful boudoir drag, bouncing in synchronised tit-jiggling harmony with twirling pasties, the room understood the assignment. The body-positive tone landed immediately without drifting into self-seriousness; the crowd’s shrill cheers rang out like genuine collective lust.
Loosely tethered to Shrek 2, the plot here operated primarily as connective tissue between increasingly unhinged musical numbers, costume reveals and theatrical escalation. The arrival of the horn trio in red sequinned assless chaps instantly whipped the audience into delirium, particularly with Matthew Pope’s breakaway rogue trumpeter lifted directly from the film. Donkey’s largely wordless entrance garnered equally explosive applause before the cast launched headlong into Funky Town.
If anything, Swamplesque 2 leant harder into the deliberately ramshackle nature of cabaret spectacle. Fiona’s mother peeling away layers of gown during Killer Queen to unveil a fuchsia vaudeville-style wings routine felt simultaneously glamorous and gloriously messy, while the Fairy Godmother’s latex beekeeper-cum-jellyfish backup dancers pushed things into outright fever dream territory.
Tash York returned in a different role this time around, transforming the Fairy Godmother into a boozy cabaret tyrant somewhere between lounge singer, drag matriarch and Lady Gaga at her most theatrically unhinged. “Everything I do is for the gays,” she declared to enormous cheers before masticating her way through an anxiety-eating scene involving a Friar Tuck’s Uber Eats bag, berating Harold with her mouth full in a grotesquely funny recreation of the film’s passive-aggressive politics.
Matthew Pope’s Prince Charming emerged as one of the production’s undeniable standouts. Aside from a somewhat limp blonde wig lacking the flowing majesty the role demanded, Pope weaponised hyper-masculine posturing with astonishing comic precision. His transition into Untouched by The Veronicas drew one of the loudest crowd reactions of the night; the quasi-nude acrobatics elevating the sequence beyond parody into something one could only marvel at.
Elsewhere, the production repeatedly found inventive ways to amplify minor film characters into scene-stealers. The Ugly Stepsister’s dramatic tango sequence recast Harold as Roxanne from Moulin Rouge! with flamenco melodrama. Further spirals into absurdity followed, with King Harold’s frog transformation in green bondage lingerie, pissing into the front rows while performing ludicrous choreography. Puss in Boots, notably taller than Harold, performed She Bangs complete with cat-nipple pasties, hairballs and deeply cursed tail choreography, while the show’s nods to The Substance and the immortal “succulent Chinese meal” meme landed perfectly with the audience. One of the night’s biggest moments arrived with Fiona’s powerhouse rendition of Where Is My Husband! by RAYE—already such a gigantic song in itself that the room practically detonated around it.
Not every gag landed equally. The repeated wanking gestures eventually tipped from transgressive into repetitive, and the giant gingerbread man sequence proved slightly disappointing after how gorgeously realised the character was in the original production. Still, by the standing ovation—a literal rolling thunder of foot-stomping applause—the atmosphere inside the Regal had shifted into something genuinely communal.
After explaining that productions like this rarely receive meaningful arts funding, the cast jokingly appealed directly to Gina Rinehart for sponsorship—”Gina, please! You’re fat as well!”—a spectacularly Perth collision of class satire, body politics and unapologetic camp.
As the crowd spilt into the foyer, dancing to Hey Baby, Swamplesque 2 had already achieved its real trick: transforming collective embarrassment into collective liberation.
CAT LANDRO