Have you ever eavesdropped on a group of high-schoolers, Uni students, parents, teachers, work colleagues, or any other group of acquainted adults? You might be surprised what you can glean from the act of listening. In the space of 70-minutes, post’s Ich Nibber Dibber gives audiences open access to a unfiltered range of thoughts, be they misguided or not, by three astute comedians. This includes juicy gossip, incriminating opinions about Vanessa Amorosi, and a fair share of ‘blonde’ moments.
The women behind the performance trio post have been friends and collaborators for the entirety of their adulthood. A friendship group with an ecclectic mix age, career trajectory and sexual preference, Zoë Coombs Marr, Natalie Rose and Mish Grigor do have one thing in common: their ability to talk. And over the course of their decade-long collaboration they sure have done a lot of it.
In practicing and perfecting their collective theatre troupe, the post team have kept a catalogue of recordings of rehearsals. In Ich Nibber Dibber the women recreate the irreverent conversations they had in between practicing for the other performances.
Standing up but sitting down on pedestal like stands, the women appear to have been dropped from the heavens as they greet their audience wearing angelic white and waving their arms shapelessly in an homage to contemporary dance. For the remainder of the show Coombs Marr, Rose and Grigor remained perched on the beams retelling their recorded retellings. Only in the midst of one of the many conversations about poo does one of the troupe take leave from her pedestal … to visit the bathroom of course.
Bookended majestically by references to the famed American star of romantic comedy Pretty Woman, Richard Gere, Ich Nibber Dibber is a hotbed of pop culture references. Yet, despite a knack for embedding such fluff alongside more newsworthy topics as recent as the Thai cave boys into their vocal meanderings, the post ladies latest show is, at heart, an ode to the best type of friendship - the kind where nothing is off limits. Giving birth and the subsequent loathing of motherhood, relationships and the impending break-ups, the trio comfortably share life’s biggest moments.
Ich Nibber Dibber doesn’t shy away from subtle social commentary. Phones and a constant connection to Google are ruining the art of the meaningless argument. Mauritius people are mistaken for Indigenous Australians. However, a political piece this is not. From the first to the last off-the-cuff conversation, the audience witnesses the transforming maturity of the performers.
At the front of the stage, the Auslan interpreters work hard to keep up with post’s teenage-esque conversations. The trio’s ability to talk over the top of each other is a familiar and tell-tale sign of the performers’ genuine friendship. While the content of their conversations might have matured, the conclusion of the show proves that nothing has change between the ladies of post. Sharing a beer on stage as the audience file out in front of them, one can only hope that they continue their inability to press pause on the record button.
