My Brilliant Apocalypse: The Return of Barry Brilliant, an original Australian theatre production playing at Bluestone Church Arts Space in Footscray from 7-9 August.
A remarkable 13-member ensemble brings to life a surreal journey through imagination, identity and redemption. When a mad billionaire is forced to confront the author who created him, both must reckon with the worlds they’ve created – and the lives they’ve tried to escape.
The Return of Barry Brilliant is the first chapter in the five-part My Brilliant Apocalypse series. Blending satire, surrealism and heartfelt drama, it explores power, ego, fatherhood, mental health and the search for meaning through a bold theatrical experience that is funny, provocative and deeply human.
Originally performed at Melbourne Fringe in 2024, after two further years in development, creator Adrian D’Aprano returns with a reimagined production and a brand new 13-member ensemble. More than twenty years after first imagining Barry Brilliant, he returns to the stage with the opening chapter of an ambitious theatrical epic that asks what happens when an artist is forced to confront the very creation he abandoned.
And when the rubber meets the road – or in this case Barry’s head – what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. Stripped of the status and identity that once defined him, Barry must navigate an unfamiliar world and confront the possibility of redemption.
