Ich Nibber Dibber

The opening five seconds of Ich Nibber Dibber feature three ethereal women who are literally floating above the stage, draped in sheets (or a toga of sorts), and stare angelically into the light with ecclesiastical music booming.

In my mind, I thought: “here we go, looks like we’re in for a piece of hyper-contemporary theatre where everything is so meta that even the most enthusiastic art-goers have no idea what’s going on, but you have to pretend like it was the most revolutionary thing you’ve ever seen so that people don’t think you’re uncultured swine.”

Suddenly, the music stops, and the women start talking. They’re not angels. They have ocker accents. They talk about poo. About boyfriends. About girlfriends. About hooking up at nightclubs. About how drinking wine is for old ladies. I realise I’ve come to the right show. It’s funny. It’s relatable. It reminds me of me and my girlfriends at one point in time – a thought I’m sure most women in the audience had almost immediately.

For the next 70 minutes, Natalie Rose, Mish Grigor and Zoë Coombs sit casually on their pedestals, still ‘floating’ above the stage in togas, talking about anything and everything, relaying conversations caught on tape over a decade of friendship and collaboration.

Nothing is off limits and the conversation between them is so casual that it’s almost as if they forgot they were in front of an audience. It’s comforting and familiar as a woman to watch, knowing all too well the depths of silliness that chit chat between women can dive into when together. Some interesting topics include: working at the Australian Taxation Office, poo, getting married, having a baby, pooing on the baby and Siamese twins. The conversations hilariously track life from their early twenties to their thirties.

The three women who make up the theatre group POST, have been working together since 2003. Ich Nibber Dibber sits somewhere between theatre and stand-up comedy, packed with clever social commentary, which is weaved subtly among the witty comments, observations and poo.

Candidly and unapologetically, the women of POST provide an insight to the power of conversation between women and how we use conversation to make sense of the world around us.

Ich Nibber Dibber – loosely translated to ‘a woman’s work is never done’ – is clever, funny, relatable and suitable for both cultured and uncultured swines.

Ich Nibber Dibber is currently playing at the Malthouse Theatre until Sunay, 23 September 2018.

Ich Nibber Dibber 
Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank
Till Sunday, 23 September
malthousetheatre.com.au/whats-on/ich-nibber-dibber