At first, I did not understand why Randwick Town Hall was staging a musical. Yeah, it has a stage and it is a hall, but it is not a venue built for musical performances—the acoustics simply aren’t there.
Then I attended the show and realised—it is a local story about local figures in Australian history. Having not spent my younger years in Australia, I did not know that until I attended the show.
Dangerous When Wet is a very upbeat musical about Fanny Durack, the first Australian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming, and Mina Wylie, whose family brought us the famous local Wylie’s Baths and who was one of the first women swimmers to compete alongside Fanny Durack. It has an all-women cast akin to SIX: The Musical, but with a lot less death and killing. Touting itself as a vaudeville-style musical, Dangerous When Wet still tells a linear story with songs that fit. When it breaks into dance, it makes sense. What distinguishes it from other musicals is the tremendous amount of fourth-wall breaking and audience participation, which is expected from a musical of this format. And when audience participation is involved, the audience on the night I attended was a great crowd. Sometimes they participated even without being asked, and the atmosphere was fantastic—you really felt you were part of it.
Grace Trainor as Mina was competent and suitably cast. She has a lovely voice, and she carries the aura of a rich girl trapped by her family’s expectations. When she needed to hit the high notes, she hit them precisely. However, I noticed that her voice became quite thin on those notes, like skating on ice. It could be her technique for reaching them, but I prefer those notes to sound thicker and stronger, as they were expressing yearning. Using a glass-like approach diminished that sense of yearning for me, as it sounded more distant, like looking at the whole situation from a third-person point of view. That’s just my personal preference, as the choice belongs to the actor after all. When Mina and Fanny, played by Cypriana Singh, were on stage together and duetting, their voices blended very well, and all the notes were hit wonderfully during the harmonies.
Dangerous When Wet has a strong theme of breaking social expectations and restraints. As such, having a figure like Annette Kellerman, played by the great Megan Walshe, narrate the whole story was a smart and entertaining choice. You could tell that the writer knew this character inside out, because within the small snippets of time she appeared, you learnt everything you needed to know about her story, what she stood for in terms of women’s rights and her social progressiveness. I really loved her swimsuit song—it was hilarious and completely brightened up the show. Megan’s precise diction and pauses during her monologues completely brought this film star and established swimmer to life.
Speaking of songs, I had the mermaid song stuck in my head for a very long time after the show. This was one of the numbers the audience simply sang along to without even being cued. The energy it brought to the show immediately after intermission successfully drew the audience’s attention and energy back into these girls’ world. I think the chemistry between Addy Roberts and Cypriana Singh in this song was a huge contributing factor.
The other cast members also had their time to shine. Jacinta Gregory, Annerose de Jong and Eliane Morel all brought great energy to a number of different roles in the show. And the way they dragged out some parts brought tears to my eyes. I really had to applaud their commitment to those, well, bits.
I understand that it is a local story, and it means a lot to stage it in a local venue such as Randwick Town Hall. However, the acoustics were quite compromised from time to time, not to mention the noise when people walked across the wooden floor outside. I hope they can stage it again one day in a proper theatre, so I can enjoy it again with the acoustics it deserves.
Dangerous When Wet is now on at Randwick Town Hall until 18 October 2026. You can find booking information on their website.
