Expect a wild theatrical ride this November when Bladderwrack premieres at the Explosives Factory in St Kilda – a science fiction pirate horror comedy described as “unserious, but for grownups.”
Created by actor and director David Tredinnick and writer Adam Browne, Bladderwrack blends opera, monsters, pantomime, and chaos in a story about two ancient pirates, Saucy Jack and Bagfoot.
Trapped for decades aboard a sunken galleon, the pair survive on the eerie ecosystem that’s grown in the ship’s bilge – phosphorescent bladderwrack for air and eyeless sea creatures for food. But beneath the muck lies a darker truth: the memory of why they’re down there at all.
“As one of the writers, I was recalling the pirate stories of Lord Dunsany and Mervyn Peake,” says Browne.
“They’re storybook pirates raised to literature. It’s dark but with a lot of classical nonsense and bristling ideas. If this play was a marine invertebrate, it would be an ornate nudibranch… it’s mad and alienly beautiful.”
Inspired by James Mason, Spike Milligan and The Goon Show, the show promises snuff-puppet style creations, original dance sequences, and even “the longest fart ever heard on the Antipodean stage.”
“Bladderwrack is a love machine built out of two drowned pirates, an opera-singing figurehead, a stage manager, two shell-shocked 1940s radio stars, and some terrible-tasting fish,” adds Tredinnick.
“The play is also just a thinly-disguised advertisement for the book of the play, which will be on sale at the candy bar.”
Co-produced by Theatre Works as part of its With Theatre Works program, Bladderwrack runs from 5–15 November at the Explosives Factory. Tickets are available now at theatreworks.org.au/2025/bladderwrack.
