Backstage at Fringe with Matthew J. Young | How to Stay Married Without Exploding!
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
Defrost your fringe passes! We're back with Backstage at Fringe for 2026! First up to bat, we spoke to Matthew J. Young about How to Stay Married Without Exploding!, which will play at Explosives Factory September 29 - October 3 as a part of our Fringe Festival Lineup.
What if your whole life was built on not moving an inch? Stranded on a WWII landmine, Francis Molloy built a life, family, and reality TV show without ever moving. Now, his 1950s studio set has landed in Perth for a darkly comic live taping. How to Stay Married Without Exploding! is a solo show about performativity, nostalgia, and what happens when the bubble that you're living in bursts. Part stand-up show, part live theatre, How to Stay Married Without Exploding! transports this year's Melbourne Fringe Festival audience into the live studio audience of Francis' home (BYO sandbags). Sneak a glimpse into Francis Molloy's grounded lifestyle, how he and his wife tiptoe around the more loaded parts of their relationship, and what things that make him tick, tick, tick...
Q: Welcome to Theatre Works! How are preparations going so far?
MATTHEW: Good! We've made some adjustments to our previous script to make it stronger than ever. And with that done, now we can get into the meat and potatoes of taking the words off the page and making the story come alive.
Q: You're sitting in a bar on a warm October night. Eyes drifting across the room, softly swirling your drink in your hands, and bam. There they are. Your exact target audience member. Can you describe them?
MATTHEW: Sure! They're sat at their TV in 1955 looking for their weekly entertainment with their favourite still standing showman... At least, that's Francis Molloy's target audience member. Matthew's target audience member? They're someone looking for something a bit different, even if they don't know it. Maybe they got their whole outfit ready for tonight a week early and right before they walked out the door said "Actually, let's switch things up a bit!" They thought about sitting at home and watching TV (a good use of an October night), but were craving something a bit more alive. That's who we're looking for. And they could be absolutely anyone.
Q: What will audiences find in your show that they can't find anywhere else at Fringe?
MATTHEW: A level of immersion that is quite unique but still lets you be a spectator if you don't want to directly involve yourself. The minute you walk through the door, you the audeince are in Francis' living room studio. There will be TV crew running around and working on the show. Francis will pull from the audience for responses, but if you just want to sit back and watch, all the power to you. You're in a live studio audience for a TV talk show like The Tonight Show, but your host is a bit more charged and we've got a carefully crafted narrative which we think you're going to love.
Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?
MATTHEW: I think audiences will be surprised with how much they can see themselves in Francis Molloy. He's a very particular man with a very particular situation he's found himself in, but he's trying to make the most of things. It's been a real joy to flesh him out over this show's lifespan and keep adding depth to him and his story.
Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process so far?
MATTHEW: We got onto a tangent in one of our meetings about Francis Molloy having a Cameo page for marketing purposes and calling it OnlyFrancis (nothing scandalous, just good old fashioned promotional material). We all were riffing and brainstorming about how ridiculous we could make it. It never came to be, but it was one of those wildly fun madcap moments where everyone is building an unhinged idea together and laughing the whole time.
How to Stay Married Without Exploding! plays at Explosives Factory 29 September - 3 October as a part of our Melbourne Fringe Southside Hub.
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