The Village Square
The Village Square is a show that combines live music performance and storytelling. Set in an imagined town some years ago (as all good fairy tales are), The Village Square presents narratives of love and loss, misfortune and mirth, the graceful and grotesque.
Featuring renowned cellist Zoe Knighton, award winning guitarist/composer Robbie Melville, and the charismatic and much-loved Richard Piper as The Narrator, the fables sparkle with the magic of traditional mythology.
In The Fruit Mechanic, the engine of an obnoxious tourist’s thunderous motorcycle is transformed into silence by an artful greengrocer. In The Fog, a thick cloud descends upon The Village, sending the entire population into a deep sleep until The Dogs discover a way to rouse them. Kind And Sorrowful tells the story of a young man who is saved from drowning by the River Spirit with unforeseen repercussions.
Piper’s alluring narrations pack an emotional punch in the most unobtrusive way, and the soundtrack quality of the compositions display Melville’s characteristic sense of warmth, quirkiness and romantic melancholy. Though travelling through environments of contemporary classical, folk and jazz, Knighton and Melville weave the disparate elements into a unified world.
The Village Square enjoyed a sold out run at the 2025 Melbourne Fringe Festival, receiving multiple Judge’s nominations for Best Music Show. Evocative, enchanting and above all, human, The Village Square is a captivating combination of music and spoken word.
A beautiful work of storytelling and music working in symbiosis - Music Judge, 2025 Melbourne Fringe Festival
You’ll find no pyrotechnics here, no extraneous notes. Just Melville’s exquisite, unadorned compositions, painting word-pictures in music - Des Cowley, Rhythms Magazine November 2025
Watching this trio doing what they do best was incredibly moving, simple, and held us in a wisdom that was immensely deep yet light as a feather. This show is a gentle lullaby to the world in pain. Re-enchanting the extraordinary within the ordinary - Holly Rowan, Heartline Reviews 2025
"With its stark minimalism, it delivers that rare thing: a work of fragile beauty spun from Melville’s slow-moving, reflective guitar, and Zoe Knighton’s bucolic, resonant cello. From the outset, there is a seamless quality to this music, its tracks segueing dreamily one to another, fabricated from light, feathery notes".
Des Cowley, Rhythms Magazine November 2025
“Watching this trio doing what they do best was incredibly moving, simple, and held us in a wisdom that was immensely deep yet light as a feather. This show is a gentle lullaby to the world in pain. Re-enchanting the extraordinary within the ordinary”.
Holly Rowan, Heartline Reviews (2025)