> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://melbournestagereview.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Act your age: Prime Time - URL: https://melbournestagereview.com/act-your-age-prime-time/ - Published: 2026-10-16T05:12:16.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T05:12:16.000Z - Description: Age is no excuse for behaving yourself. With ridiculous costumes, unruly dancing and a few uncomfortable truths about growing older, Prime Time takes a playful swipe at the generation gap. Beneath the silliness, there's a surprisingly tender provocation: what if we stop counting? - Author: Ellen M. Scott - Tags: Reviews At 93, Carl has discovered a perk of old age: people give him their seats on public transport. At 31, Corey has reluctantly accepted that his chances of becoming a teenage heartthrob are now vanishingly slim. Zya, meanwhile, is 51 and rather enjoying herself, despite having reached an age at which women are apparently supposed to become invisible. Ageing, it turns out, is a fairly unreliable business. Created and directed by Penny Baron for [Born in a Taxi](https://www.borninataxi.com.au/?ref=melbournestagereview.com), with dramaturgy by Fiona Roake, [*Prime Time*](https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/prime-time?ref=melbournestagereview.com) assembles a cast ranging from small children to nonagenarians at The Substation as part of Melbourne Fringe. Together, they explore the peculiar experience of being whatever age they happen to be. There are questions, confessions, dancing, party games and a surprising quantity of paper chains. Occasionally, it resembles the sort of gathering where somebody's enthusiastic aunt has decided that everyone should get up and participate. By the end, I was rather glad she had. The audience gets interrogated first. How old are you? How old do you feel? Why? Some people are keen to answer; others are presumably hoping the microphone will pass them by. Recorded interviews follow, with people recalling the years they were born while the performers move forwards and backwards across the stage. Their neat formation becomes increasingly muddled, until they find themselves in two facing lines, pairing off to begin the tango. It's an appealingly peculiar way to introduce a subject that usually comes accompanied by statistics and gloomy predictions about the health system. Soon everyone is perched on little stools, interviewing one another. Carl's cheerful account of being offered seats gives way to a history of terrible losses: his first wife to cancer, his second wife to an aneurysm, and his son to suicide. A 26-year-old proudly announces that she's bought her first property, having saved since she was 14\. She's the first in her family to own a home. She also speaks about growing up without close relationships with her parents, and the loneliness of learning to manage adulthood alone. An eight-year-old, asked about the best thing in their life, says their dad reads to them every night. ![Three performers in Prime Time: one holds a microphone towards a woman speaking animatedly, while an older man sits beside her against a warm yellow backdrop.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/1d/4e1d8918-61fe-47b0-a53e-03b9c2038472/content/images/2026/10/Prime_Time_Born_In_A_Taxi_Image_by_Jacinta_Oaten-4.JPEG) Personal stories take centre stage in Born in a Taxi's Prime Time. Photo: Jacinta Oaten. The conversations are uneven, as conversations tend to be. Some stories have the satisfying shape of anecdotes that have been told before; others wander a little before finding their point. The transitions can have a slightly school-assembly quality. Yet there's an appealing lack of self-consciousness about the whole enterprise. A teenager speaks about bullying and suicidal thoughts with the same freedom afforded to a 91-year-old who is fed up with being patronised and still loves to dance. Refreshingly, nobody seems to have been told what they're supposed to say to make a particular point about ageing. The production looks considerably slicker than its conversational format might suggest. Jenny Hector's design encloses the stage in enormous yellow fabric walls, their colour and faintly scratchy texture recalling the handiwork of someone armed with a crayon the size of a cricket bat. The floor is yellow too. Overhead hangs a modern chandelier-like contraption, which eventually descends for a dance sequence. Hector's lighting is terrific. Green washes turn the space almost otherworldly; blues and reds alter its proportions and atmosphere. With relatively little scenery to move around, she makes the room feel entirely different in an instant. And then there are the paper chains. While people talk, the rest of the cast have been quietly stapling strips of paper together, accumulating an impressive amount of festive decoration. An 80-year-old woman begins discussing what it means to be an elder, and how little dignity that title necessarily confers in a society governed by economic preoccupations. As she speaks about being dismissed and cancelled, the other performers walk away and turn their backs. Two younger cast members return with the chains and begin winding them around her chair. They keep going until her body, including her face, is entirely obscured. When she finally rises and shuffles off, trailing her paper prison, the image is horribly effective. Elsewhere, the company appears determined to have as much fun as possible. They play statues and pass the parcel, sending the latter into the audience. They dance in pairs, sometimes gracefully and sometimes with the happy abandon of people who've decided that grace is overrated. A young woman in her twenties is laid across a makeshift platform and covered in flowers, in a scene that resembles a funeral organised by people who have never attended one but are tremendously excited by the possibilities. Somebody puts an apple in her mouth. She then has to answer a question, which proves difficult under the circumstances. ![Performers of different ages gather around a flower-covered platform beneath a large illuminated chandelier, surrounded by the yellow stage design of Prime Time.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/1d/4e1d8918-61fe-47b0-a53e-03b9c2038472/content/images/2026/10/Prime_Time_Born_In_A_Taxi_Image_by_Jacinta_Oaten-13.JPEG) The ensemble gathers beneath Jenny Hector's striking lighting installation in Prime Time. Photo: Jacinta Oaten. A costume parade follows, with performers of vastly different ages strutting down an imaginary catwalk in increasingly ridiculous outfits. There's clapping, cheering and a great deal of delighted silliness. It's difficult to imagine anyone leaving this particular party because they feel too old for it. The last sequence is quieter. Everyone pulls on a dark shirt bearing a large number, although the number has little relationship to their actual age. Each performer describes a moment from the past or imagines a future self. An elderly man remembers being a mischievous seven-year-old. A young woman looks forward to being 60, when she plans to take things a little easier. Then the ensemble gathers in the centre of the stage. They sway gently from side to side, initially in unison, before their movements begin to drift apart. Their arms rise and fall with their breathing, each person gradually finding a slightly different rhythm. A little girl a few rows ahead of me begins lifting her arms with them, caught up in the movement. Nobody has asked her to join in. She's simply moved to do so. At the end, the performers reach for the numbers on their shirts. They're attached with Velcro. One by one, they peel them off and let them fall to the yellow floor. --- [*Prime Time*](https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/prime-time?ref=melbournestagereview.com) plays at [The Substation](https://thesubstation.org.au/?ref=melbournestagereview.com), Newport, until 17 October 2026, as part of [Melbourne Fringe](https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/?ref=melbournestagereview.com). --- Disclosure: A complimentary ticket to *Prime Time* was provided to Melbourne Stage Review for the purpose of review. Melbourne Stage Review retains full editorial independence.