The 95-year-old performing the play of her life.
“My life’s not been cushy. But it didn’t do me any harm. It did me good.”
– Elizabeth Hicklin
At 93 years of age, Elizabeth (Liz) Hicklin performed stand-up comedy for the first time. Now, at 95, she is preparing to perform the play of her life.
Sylvia Plath Stole My Boyfriend, debuting at the 2026 Melbourne Fringe Festival, begins with an extraordinary chapter in Liz’s youth – her relationship with then-unknown poet Ted Hughes, and its end when Hughes met and married Sylvia Plath.
But this isn’t really a story about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.
It’s a story about everything that came after that early heartbreak. A near-century of ups, downs, challenges and triumphs. A life that has included both profound loss – the death of two daughters to suicide – and tremendous courage, joy, creativity and reinvention. A life that Liz isn’t done with yet.
Far from reflecting on life through the rearview mirror, Liz is continuing to look forward to what might be next. To push her own boundaries. To discover new parts of herself, and to ask what she might still become.
In a society that so often imagines ageing as a journey of endings – a process of decline to be feared and avoided – we don’t often hear the stories of what ageing might actually make possible. Liz is offering a radically different story. By continuing to embrace life and opportunity, she invites us to wonder not just what ageing might take from us, but what it might open within us along the way.
What might we see at 70 that we couldn’t at 40? What might we finally have the courage to try at 85? What parts of ourselves might only emerge with time?
These aren’t questions our culture gives us many opportunities to ask. But we think asking them more often could lead us somewhere much richer – both as individuals, and as a society.
Through her life – and now her performance – Liz invites people of every age to keep learning, growing and becoming. To consider the gifts that a long life might leave us uniquely ready to share. And to enjoy a whole lot of laughs along the way.
With wit and warmth that will leave your cheeks aching, Liz brings her remarkable story to Melbourne this October. We’ll be eagerly sitting in the front row – and we hope you’ll come along, too!
For tickets, head to:
You can also read more about Liz’s extraordinary story here, or follow her at @lizhicklinofficial.
Inspired Liz’s story? It doesn’t end here.
Liz’s story is just one glimpse of what might become possible as we grow older. And we want to bring more stories, experiences and opportunities into view.
So we’re teaming up with the wonderful Jacinta Parsons – Liz’s collaborator, friend and author of A Question of Age and A Wisdom of Age – to take the conversation beyond the stage. We’ll be asking Australia: what does ageing open within us? And exploring what might change – for each of us and for our society – if we began to imagine ageing as a time of continued growth, possibility and becoming.
For updates, and to join the journey as it unfolds, Join the Flock. We’ll keep you in the loop, and hope to see you on the road!
