M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2025 Experimental platform grapples with displacement

Meanwhile, the festival organiser is looking for a new title donor

- Clement Yong

The shows presented at M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2025 are united by a sense of displacement, an unexpectedly prescient theme for an experimental platform now facing an uncertain future.

Running from Jan 8 to 19, the slate of seven theatre shows runs the gamut of topics of violence and unease. Tickets from $38 went on sale from Nov 5.

From war and migration to climate change and the mental health of freelancers, all the offerings coalesce around "a sense of compelled movement that is not due to factors of one's own doing", said Ms Melissa Lim, general manager of organiser The Necessary Stage (TNS).

The reveal of January's line-up comes as TNS begins looking for a new title donor and crowd-funding $50,000 for its 21-year-old festival, after telco M1's decision to end its $100,000 annual sponsorship.

The festival is one of the few ports in Singapore for productions tackling topics outside the mainstream, and costs $230,000 to put on each year.

Four of the shows curated for 2025 are home-grown works, while a trilogy of monologues is being imported from Australia, India and South Africa.