Meg Denman on Georgia Gray-Spencer's playwriting debut NEPOBERRY — a world-premiere camp political satire staged at Qtopia's loading dock theatre for Sydney Fringe 2026. A queer hub full of flowers, mates and even a few straight people laughed hard enough that Denman bought a second ticket before the season sold out.
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Meg Denman on Georgia Gray-Spencer's playwriting debut NEPOBERRY — a world-premiere camp political satire staged at Qtopia's loading dock theatre for Sydney Fringe 2026. A queer hub full of flowers, mates and even a few straight people laughed hard enough that Denman bought a second ticket before the season sold out.
The doors opened to Qtopia's loading dock theatre to welcome a huge audience into the second night of Georgia Gray-Spencer's playwriting debut NEPOBERRY. People with flowers in hand, older people, younger people, queer people — and even some straight people. A world premiere produced by Mitchell Dihm and Mali Lung. As I sit here writing my final edits of this review they are taking home 'Best Emerging Producers' at the Sydney Fringe Awards. An award so well deserved.
Mali ushered us in, guiding us to step over the array of mess sprawled over the floor. Makeup. Heels. Leopard print underwear? Classic. The floor of a teenage girl who's always had someone to clean up after her.
Berry herself (Georgia Gray-Spencer) sat at a desk covered in a green and gold Australian flag, dressed in a matching pink pajama set, preparing to follow in her father's footsteps and take over the world. Or at the very least, Australia. We sat down, squished against each other, and eagerly awaited the show's beginning.
I'll be honest with you, I've been following NEPOBERRY's Instagram account for a while — cleverly marketed by Berry's PAs (Mitchell Dihm and Mali Lung), with content shot by Parisa Bel Mir and Robert Hoang. I went in prepared to watch a political satire revolving around a daring young nepo baby.
And that it was. It was also undeniably funny, sharp tongued and wickedly smart. I don't want to give too much away, as I believe half the excitement comes from the not knowing. But because NEPOBERRY's fringe season has already come to a close I'll tell you now, I can almost guarantee you would've walked out cradling a sore belly, with a few extra laugh lines and more than enough new quotes up your sleeve to throw around with your friends.
As the lights came up, we quickly met Satina, our narrator. Laetitia Opie delivers an otherworldly performance. Her sultry voice rang out over the theatre, drew us in with a long list of content warnings and kept us on the edge of our seats the entire time. She moves with a lethal level of grace that can't be taught. However, if it was taught, it was definitely Adelaide Tustian (choreographer) behind the wheel.
Berry is a politician's daughter, too wealthy for her own good. Not just any politician — the Prime Minister of Australia. We don't really care about his name. This is Berry's story. Not his.
She has a boyfriend she couldn't care less about but keeps around as an asset. A sidekick friend who falls flat on his face the first time we meet him. And a steamy sexual awakening in the middle of a psych ward (you'll just have to hope the show has a second run to see how Berry ends up there). And, pinned to the pink backdrop behind her alongside the faces of Australia's most notorious politicians (some with their faces scratched out), an extensive list on how she is going to dominate the world. Her first port of call — rule her school's debate team.
Somewhere between Scream Queens, Glee and Jamie The Private School Girl, NEPOBERRY pushes the boundaries of what's politically correct (pun intended). As rumors unravel and past backstabs come to light, the show urges us to keep up. Every line is either gasp worthy or piss your pants level funny. With some well timed audience engagement we are reminded constantly that we are right here, experiencing this with them.
JJ (Sean Mudariki) does the most well-done bad singing I've ever witnessed. Teddy (Mitchell Dihm) plays a nervous, revenge fueled best friend perfectly. And Deborah (Louie O'Carroll) is the star of all of our 17 year old wet dreams.
The cast felt like they were having real, true fun. It made us want to have fun with them. I could feel an unwavering support between them all. A sense that if one of them were to fall (god forbid), they would've been caught and the show would've gone on. All without us noticing. That trust and safety spread over the whole theatre.
I went to the show with a couple of friends. One of whom is a straight white man who I've actually never seen laugh that hard, ever. Another requested a copy of the script ASAP. And the other said — and I quote verbatim — "that was the best piece of theatre I've ever seen".
Something about a queer hub loading dock theatre full of flowers and mates, a camp political satire about the daughter of the Prime Minister, and a room laughing that hard together. That's the argument the show is quietly making. And it's the one worth walking out with.
As an actor myself, I'm always amazed when a show goes up quickly, knowing how much work has to be done behind the scenes for it to actually come to life. For fringe shows the average rehearsal time is around four to six weeks. Sometimes people do it in two. That is next to nothing in my opinion.
Watching NEPOBERRY you could tell how hard the team worked. How dedicated they were to bringing us into Berry's world. How committed they were to delivering us a good show. My highest praise goes out to the directors, Antigone Marchbank and Georgia Gray-Spencer. The capable captains of the NEPOBERRY ship. They did the damn thing.
A 60 minute show is the perfect time to be seated and fully engaged before everything starts to hurt and you're pulled out of the show's world, even if you don't want to be. It's not unusual for your reviewer to walk out of a fringe show thinking "thank fuck that's over." This one didn't. NEPOBERRY ends and I was already reaching for one more bottle of moët. So much so that I couldn't resist buying a ticket to see it again before it sold out.
A writing debut that manages to tell a story with expertly timed wit, jokes that aren't afraid to push some boundaries, and one that is so full of fun is something we don't get to witness often — but we witnessed it in NEPOBERRY. The characters felt like people who had not just lived on a page or inside the writer's head but people who were real and multidimensional. They were nuanced and specific, a testament to the actors and the direction.
There was no fear in that room. Only artists who were hungry. Not literally. Hungry in the sense that they were prepared to do whatever it takes to show us just how talented they are. How deserving they are of that stage.
I hope for all of our sakes that NEPOBERRY gets to have a second life. Maybe even a third. It was just that good.
WriterDirectorsProducersChoreographerCastPhotography: Parisa Bel Mir, Robert Hoang
Reviewed by Meg Denman.
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