9th October, 2026

Randwick Town Hall

Review by: Alan Connor

Randwick Town Hall makes a splash

Randwick Town Hall was already buzzing when we climbed out of our Uber just before seven on Friday night. A lively queue formed outside the Hall, punctuated by familiar faces, enthusiastic greetings and families in tow. I saw someone skip the queue with a shiny costume swinging on a coathanger, like a dry-cleaning delivery running late. I could see a couple of other people dart about making last-minute adjustments. Chatting with a few Bondi Icebergs regulars felt appropriate. If you live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, life tends to revolve around the ocean. Whether it’s an cold morning swim, calamari and a Tooheys overlooking the water in the afternoon, or standing with a coffee while the kids get involved with nippers, the ocean is part of daily life here.

Tonight we were here for Dangerous When Wet. It’s a new vaudeville musical about Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie, two Coogee teenagers who took on the world at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and came home with gold and silver. What a story it is. Stockholm was the first Games to include women’s swimming, and just getting there was an Olympic event on its own. The sporting authorities dug their heels in, so the girls had to raise their own fares through public fundraising. They trained in Sydney’s ocean pools, including Wylie’s Baths. Then they endured a six-week voyage to Europe, keeping fit in a makeshift canvas pool rigged on the ship’s deck. Try telling that to anyone who whinges about the wait time for the 333 bus.

The period detail throws up some wonderful footnotes. Back then, a trip to Coogee took some planning. These days the Irish expats do it in thirty minutes on the express bus on the way to and from work. And the real opposition wasn’t the Olympic competition. It was Sydney’s own ladies’ swimming establishment, who thought women racing in public simply wasn’t ladylike. Who knows what they’d make of Coogee Beach now on a 35-degree Sunday.

This is vaudeville at its best. Everything, all at once, with a wink. Patter sits alongside a good singalong and knee-slapping. There’s clowning, drag and melodrama, and the audience is expected to cheer, boo and sing along. I couldn’t help but get involved.

Leading us through it all is burlesque legend Megan Walshe as narrator Annette Kellerman. She had the room in the palm of her hand within minutes. Cypriana Singh (Fanny Durack) and Grace Trainor (Mina Wylie) are both terrific in the lead roles, and their friendship-meets-rivalry gives the show its backbone. Watching their story unfold, it was impossible not to admire the determination that carried them from Coogee’s ocean baths to an Olympic podium on the other side of the world. I was invested. These women were built different and had a stubborn will to win that’s tailor-made for the stage.

Every good melodrama needs a villain, and Eliane Morel’s Rose Scott is gloriously hissable. The programme calls her a “misunderstood villain”. The Friday-night crowd wasn’t in an understanding mood. It’s not easy to divide a room full of neighbours, but the lines were drawn and we all knew who we were rooting for.

There were genuine laugh-out-loud moments too. Addy Robertson as British champion Jennie Fletcher brought more energy than I could ever muster at the end of the week. Jacinta Gregory’s drag-king turn as journalist Cecil Healy led the male delegation with swagger and song, and Annerose de Jong’s Mrs Mack was a hoot.

The costumes by co-writer Merran Hughes were elaborate and hit the spot. It’s a long show, but the interval brought drinks, a bathroom dash and a chance to mingle. In a lovely touch, some cast members worked the crowd in full costume before herding us back in for the finale.

This is community theatre at its best: top talent, smart writing and a story worth telling. It takes weeks of rehearsals to pull off something like this. It looks easy, but it’s anything but. For generations, community theatre has brought people together, and productions like Dangerous When Wet show exactly why it remains so important. Above all, it’s a lesson in determination from two young women whose names deserve to be as familiar to Sydneysiders as any modern sporting hero. Durack and Wylie wanted something badly enough to challenge convention, cross the world and make history. More than a century later, we’re still talking about them.

As for me, I left with a plan: dig the budgie smugglers out of the back of the wardrobe and attempt a few laps. Although after watching Durack and Wylie at their best though, I suspect I’ll stick to the calamari and a Toohey’s.

Dangerous When Wet plays at Randwick Town Hall until 18 October.

Bookings: dangerouswhenwet.com.au