The Bush - Edinburgh Fringe 2025

The Bush – Edinburgh Fringe 2025

Alice Mary Cooper

Pleasance Courtyard

“The Bush” is an affectionate, informative and funny solo show about the “Battlers of Kelly’s Bush”, a small group of Australian women in the 1970s whose fight to save a patch of bush ground in their Sydney suburb inspired much of the modern environmental movement, including ‘green bans’ where workers refused to work on environmentally unfriendly projects, and the founding of the German Green Party by Peta Kelly. Yeah, and it all started on Sydney! The focus is Kelly’s Bush, an area of land by Sydney’s Parramatta River, that was saved from development by a ‘group of housewives’ (as they were referred to at the time).

Alice Mary Cooper is a skilled clown and performs a multitude of characters – memorably, Margaret Finch a home maker who comes into her own power, Betty James a journalist who inspires her team over cocktails, pineapple hedgehogs, and tennis mornings. In fact, Betty galvanises a dozen or so of her friends into getting the community on side before lobbying politicians, property developers and trades unions.  The social detail is delightful, and we are lovingly transported to an imagined 1970s Australia. The local Battlers are acutely aware that protest is seen as a subversive, left-wing thing done by communists and ‘hairy lesbians’, and for them to be associated with trade unionists is social suicide. What they learn, of course, is that “stronger together” they must join forces with local community no matter what their stripes. The social history is set in the context of the political. In 1970, no one considered heritage or conservation. The idea that things and places had cultural value inside and outside of the country was very new. At first developers threaten the women with unsavoury press, by the end the women threaten the developers.

“The Bush” is gorgeously designed with just enough period elements to support the world of pavlovas, and Tupperware. Cooper’s story telling is all light touch and elegance which underscores her disciplined theatre making.  I particularly liked the transmission of information through jazzercise – humour, facts and an insight into the world of the characters all wrapped up in one smart gesture.

“The Bush” is ultimately a David and Goliath story. These weren’t showy women beating drums but concerned citizens who had a vision for a future and gathered momentum through their passion, strategy and inspiration.  I loved the story, and I loved the integrity of Alice Mary Cooper’s performance.

 Review by Kate Gaul