Playing With Extremes: The Travelling Sisters and Contemporary Sketch Comedy

The Travelling Sisters are an all-female sketch comedy group who combine character- driven clowning, physical comedy and original musical compositions. The group began working together in 2013 and have since performed at various fringe and comedy festivals both within Australia and internationally at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, New Zealand Fringe, Prague Fringe, and Clockenflap Festival Hong Kong. In 2017, they were awarded Best Comedy at Melbourne Fringe and the New Zealand Fringe Tour Ready Award. Based on extensive interviews with the three comediennes who comprise The Travelling Sisters as well as first-hand experience of witnessing their work since 2014 in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, I shall reflect in this article on the group's aesthetic evolution within the context of feminist and theatre practice. In their early musical and animated works, they incorporated personal, lived experience and performed in immersive and domestic spaces. This developed into political commentary through comedic music videos, notably re-writing Britney Spears' 'Toxic' as a tool for environmental activism, and most recently emphasising physical comedy and the female form.