One of the features of Splinters and one of the most tangible reminders of the creative fire of the company was the posters made for productions: many by Stuart Vaskess, with his distinctive grungy, haunting cartoon style that was essentially the company’s trademark. The Cry Stinking Fish poster has made it into the collection at the National Gallery of Australia (albeit with incorrect attribution which is hopefully being corrected) through a gift by its former Director James Mollison way back in 1988.
Cry Stinking Fish (1987) poster by Stuart Vaskess
Flyer for Gumboot Full of Blood, Adelaide Fringe Festival 1988
Lindsay Dunbar also made several posters for major productions including these for the landmark 1992 Cathedral of Flesh and 1994’s Thirst…is a place.
Lindsay Dunbar 1992
Lindsay Dunbar – Thirst.. is a place poster 1994. Screenprint on paper.
This poster by Mikel Simic was for The Scent of the Wind/Seen to be Gone produced at The Performance Space Sydney in July 1992: the only production which included neither David Branson or Patrick Troy.
Poster by Mikel Simic 1992
Poster by Sarah King
Poster by Luhsun Tan 1992
Poster by Clint Hurrell 1995
Poster by Andy Miller
Poster by Calder Hussey 1994
Poster by Clint Hurrell
Poster by Geoff Hinchcliffe
Poster by Andy Miller and Stuart Vaskess
Poster by Sarah Moss and Lindsay Dunbar
Poster by Stuart Vaskess
Poster by Stuart Vaskess
Splinters Theatre Archive 
I always thought Christ Inking Fish was going to be a show about the redeemer as a graphic artist, until I saw the poster and realised I got the name wrong…
Don’t cry stinking fish
Here the verb ‘to cry’ means ‘to offer for sale in the street’. Barrow-boys cry fruit: ‘Fine ripe strawberries!’ Flower-girls cry flowers: ‘Lovely violets!’ Fishmongers cry fish: ‘Fresh-caught mackerel!’ But they and others of their kind would not find many customers if they condemned their own wares – ‘Overripe strawberries!’ and so on.
By extension, to cry stinking fish is to belittle one’s own efforts; to speak unfavourably of what one has to offer to others. For example, a young author sent his first novel to a firm of publishers with a covering letter admitting that the grammar was faulty, the construction weak and the plot unoriginal, but he hoped they would accept it for publications. We wonder if they did! Of course, to go to the opposite extreme can be even worse.
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