Features: Fringe · Adam Hills · After The End · Arj Barker · Charlie Pickering · Geraldine Quinn · Gorden Southern · Tarnished · There's Something About Fairy · Tom Gleeson WOMADelaide · Akoustic Odyssey · Seckou Keita · Amanda Palmer · Animal Collective · Belles Will Ring · Bob Log III · High Places · Armored Saint · Cry Murder · Pulp Fiction Comics · Silverstein · Vetiver There's Something About Fairy Despite her character, Frehd Aastarr, being perpetually six, Frehd (no surname necessary) the person has actually been donning the wig, nose and clown suit and applying the greasepaint for more than fifteen years now. Dropping out of university to literally live the dream and run away with the circus, her time under the big top was short lived and she subsequently snuck away in the middle of the night a month later. As it was, being a young girl amongst a travelling bunch of horny roustabouts just didn't appeal to her. But given some of her other childhood ambitions which included being a marine biologist, a ghost catcher and a helicopter (not a pilot but the actual aircraft itself, mind you; "I know that was not a smart career choice and one that clearly was never going to work out," she later realised), one thing was for sure, Frehd was never going to be a nine-to-fiver. Becoming an actress was on her vocational hit list too, and it was at acting college in the early 'nineties that Frehd went on to meet her long time clowning partner, Tim Eee Presley. Together as a couple of big kids, their philosophy is simple: while they may often stray into borderline (age appropriate) risquŽ territory, no matter how many adults crash their party, it's always going to be about the kids. "The Wiggles and Hi-5 have got it all going on and the kids love them," acknowledges Frehd, "and you can't deny that, but I think that Tim Eee and I just enjoy what we do and I think we don't necessarily always treat the kids as kids," she states. "Like, our characters are children and we have to have the same enthusiasm. When I'm in my costume and I see another clown I react the same way another child would and have to stop and remember, 'wait a minute, I am a clown'," she laughs. "But because our characters are children, Tim Eee and I react like that and we behave innocently but at the same time we hope we don't speak down to the children and that kind of thing. We're a little bit more raw and rugged which, you know? Isn't for every parent as well," she sniggers. "We like to talk about boogers and scabs, and that's what kids do but every now and then you'll get an adult who goes '[scoffs] well!'. Because we are a bit raw and not so namby-pamby you'll either love us or hate us, Tim Eee and I aren't highly polished and we don't pretend to be," she reiterates, before adding, "and nor do we want to be and that's why we try to keep our ticket prices down. We write our shows as a skeleton script and then most of the show is just ad-libbed and improvised around that. That's why I like the Pixar films, in that they're directed towards the children but there's always that little something for the mums and dads too. "So if we can make the shows fun for mums and dad's so that they'll enjoy it too, then it's bonus but as long as the kids love it then that's our priority." Steve Jones There's Something About Fairy - in the Rhino Room from Sat 28 Feb as part of the Fringe