Sweet wet juice sprayed the face of a first-row audience member. He gawped with delight. In front of him, a ripe banana was slapping with urgent fervour the damp scoop of a rockmelon. A condom-wrapped mic hovered near the fruity genitals. Every slop, squelch and smoosh quivered the molecules of Belvoir’s intimate downstairs.

Sheridan Harbridge and Michael Whalley. Photograph © Brett Boardman

This is but one of the cascades of foley effects performed live on stage in David Finnigan’s 44 Sex Acts in One Week – a play written for theatre, adapted due to COVID into a radio play, and now re-adapted again by associate director Kip Chapman, evolving only partially to the stage for voyeuristic visual effect. Finnigan is the mind behind the controversial Kill Climate Deniers that premiered in 2018 thanks to winning a Griffin Award, and was almost shut down in development after a pre-emptive conservative outcry led by Andrew Bolt. Here, he continues his preoccupation with provocation surging from the irreverent left. A play about modern age erotics, the crass exploitations of capitalism and ecological collapse, 44 Sex Acts pitches itself for a wild orgiastic and ideological ride....