Review: George Glass – Dial M for Mushrooms at Studio Underground
George Glass – Dial M for Mushrooms at Studio Underground
Saturday, February 7, 2026
If Fringe 2026 has taught us anything, it’s that nothing says “ethical quandary” quite like a comedy about alleged mushroom murder. In a delicious twist, George Glass opened Dial M for Mushrooms with two journalists debating exactly that: “Is it ethical to monetise it? Absolutely not!” Cue audience laughter. Cue the trio monetising it anyway. Meta? Completely. Hypocritical? Gloriously.
We were allowed to take photos and videos—practically taboo in the Fringe universe—which felt apt for a show skewering our collective obsession with true crime spectacle. The opening scene, two hack journos salivating over the story of a mother accused of poisoning her family (never named, but if you know, you know), set the tone: irreverent, low-tech, and ready to poke at the circus we’ve all been complicit in.
The first big roar landed when an actor’s head suddenly popped out of a plush mushroom that had been sitting on the desk since pre-show. Silly. Dumb. Perfect. It signalled instantly that we were in for lo-fi chaos rather than slick satire—precisely the point. A cheeky, unexpected burlesque moment before the first song nodded to Fringe spectacle and whatever it takes to hold punters’ attention—though honestly, if anyone’s mind wandered during this production, only mushrooms could have been at fault.
The running gag sponsor—the so-called “mushroom lobby”—proved a masterstroke. Mushrooms are safe. Mushrooms are our friends. Mushrooms have a “vitamin friend.” Each interruption escalated until we were practically encouraged to bang a mushroom in solidarity. The absurdity crescendoed so hard it looped back to clever, skewering corporate damage control and PR spin. Mushrooms don’t kill people… women do. Or do they?
The bulk of the show imagined the final hours of a jury deliberating the case. Enter Gavin, a South African priest who insisted he wasn’t a misogynist because he didn’t know what the word meant; Andrew, a bus driver who had applied to Transperth thinking it was a queer safe space; and Cindy, a bearded pregnant woman convinced her unborn prodigy was the only rational voice in the room. The trio-cum-jury gleefully compromised any sanctity of due process, each carrying their own chip on their shoulder while skewering the loudest corners of public opinion and trial-by-media hysteria.
Their starting point was motive—because apparently, we couldn’t know anything unless we climbed inside the accused’s mind. That treacherous premise gave licence to the far-fetched but unsettlingly recognisable speculation that followed. If Buffalo Bill was merely a “skin enthusiast”, who were we to point the finger? (Jokes: no one escaped the ol’ finger jab—not Scott Morrison, not Kanye, not Raygun. Mel Gibson “just likes history.”)
With pastiche musical numbers doing the heavy lifting—and a few blood and vomit gags thrown in for good measure—the show played like Flight of the Conchords by way of Monty Python. Performing as a live band for most numbers kept the bones rough and visible, steering it away from over-polished musical satire. A psych ballad declaring, “Women can be murderers too,” was delivered with such straight-faced prejudice by the priest that the audience howled—the joke landing not in stereotype, but in its exposure. Later, the boppy Shitting in White—a forensic deep dive into the most damning evidence of all: claiming diarrhoea while wearing white pants—proved so infectiously ridiculous it lingered long after.
There were moments of deliberately sloppy exposition, called out in real time. “Oh, it’s going to be sloppy, alright.” But nothing ever read as lazy. It was stoner chic, sure—wigs askew, Mentos as both entrée and main in the climactic dinner reveal—yet the writing remained razor sharp beneath the chaos. Even the unborn baby’s absurdly sophisticated British voice landed as inspired nonsense.
As paranoia peaked and mismatched coffee cups became suspect, everyone in the room felt guilty of something—if not murder, then of having an opinion. We had all devoured this case like popcorn. Or like a log of Mentos.
Dial M for Mushrooms didn’t pretend to offer answers. Instead, it gleefully implicated us in the spectacle, weaponising musical theatre, camp, and chaos to expose how quickly tragedy became content. Indeed, it was fan-fucking-tastic. Ethically? Questionable. Comedically? Absolutely lethal.
CAT LANDRO