Where To Next?

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is back! One of my favourite times of year. It's just cold enough to bring out the cute scarves and jackets, but not so cold that you refuse to leave the house. The streets are full of happy people, and Melbourne seems a little bit more shiny, reminding us why we love it here. Demi Lardner has fast become one of my favourite comedians. I first saw her on the Gala in 2017 and was like, this is weird and I love it, I need to see more. I went to her show at the Festival last year and instantly decided that she is on my list for comedians I have to see every year. Usually you head into a show not knowing what the comedian will talk about, but with Demi you go in not knowing what the hell is going to happen. Is Demi going to come out on stage, or will it be one of her bizarre and hilarious characters? Will there be costumes? Will she sing? Will there be random video segments? Expect the unexpected. Anything could happen, and th...

Ah, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, one of my favourite times of year. Where the temperature has dropped enough to bring out the jeans and scarves (ok, well, not this year, hello climate change!), the streets are full of happy people, and Melbourne seems a little bit more shiny. For my first show of the season, I went to see Rhys Nicholson. I hadn't seen him live before, but had seen him on TV (by which I mean mostly YouTube), and was really looking forward to it. The show did not disappoint. As someone who is also 30ish and does not feel like a grown up, I found it very relatable. This is not however necessary to enjoy Rhys' comedy, as everybody can relate to the weird shit that parents do, the absolutely bewildering actions of strangers, and the utter state of despair that baby boomers have left the world in for us (ok, maybe not everyone? Sorry parents). My favourite thing about Rhys is his quick-witted, fast-talking manner. Just when his last punchline ...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Today's must-see show belongs to the one and only, Demi Lardner! You know how sometimes you have a dream that, unlike most of your dreams, is exciting and weird, and when you wake up you wish you could go back to sleep and fall back into that dream? Well, that's what Demi Lardner's show is like. It is unpredictable, a bit weird, a bit crazy, and so much fucking fun. You literally have no idea what's going to happen next. Will Demi leave the room? Dance? Request something from the audience? Read a poem? We don't know, but we do know that whatever it is will make us laugh embarrassingly hard. Amongst the madness lies a common understanding, with j...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). And now....*drumroll*.....Joel Creasey! The blonde bombshell himself You must have heard of Joel Creasey. Unless you don't own a TV. Or read the news. Or enjoy comedy at all. In which case, why are you here? Joel, as well as having an amazing stand-up career, has also been gracing our screens for years, both here and overseas. With appearances on everything from Have You Been Paying Attention to I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, the self-confessed fame whore is practically everywhere. Which, for us viewers, is nothing but a good thing. Beginning his career in stand up early, at only fifteen, Joel has had years to hone his craft, although it is incom...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Now, for the loose unit himself, Nick Cody! Nick Cody, possibly laughing at his own joke I saw Nick Cody on Wednesday night. At 9.45pm. That's bedtime. But it was totally worth it. To be fair, I did have Thursday off, but even if I had to work on Thursday, it still would have been worth it. It was that good. My friend and I headed in after the queue of people had already entered, so we thought we would be stuck up the back, but no. No one wanted to sit right in the very front row, so we got convinced to sit there. My friend was terrified, trying to think of an escape plan in case Nick singled her out in his act. Luckily, he did not, instead focusing on the 1...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Now, for the amazing Anne Edmonds! Anne Edmonds is a fucking gem. She has perfected the caricature of your typical Australian, whether it's in her rendition of a creepy ex-boss, or her impersonation of her irritated mother. She paints such an accurate portrait of suburban Australia, you can feel the atmosphere in the caravan park, picture the creepy family at the next table, and hear her mum's incessant questioning. In this show, Anne has not only brought to life her family, but all of our families, as we find familiarity in their idiosyncrasies. You are bound to find a reflection of your own experience in this show, through the pain of dealing with shop as...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Today, the one we have all been waiting for, Wil Anderson! If, like me, you are a big fan of Wil, you have been waiting months for this show, for him to finally tell the story of the day he got arrested in Wagga Wagga. He announced awhile ago that he would be using this experience as the basis for this year's show, and has teased it a bit on his podcast, without giving anything away.  Having seen many of Wil's stand up shows over the years, I have always found them to be balanced observations of the world, whether he's discussing the latest ridiculous statement from one of our ignorant politicians, or why we should change the date of Australia Day. He ...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Now, for some improv, with The Big HOO-HAA! I feel like improv can go one of two ways. There's the awkward nightmare, where you feel embarrassed for the people on stage and die a little inside every time someone freezes or can't think of a line. Then there is the high-energy show, where the actors come up with ridiculous lines and situations, and it's just a lot of fun. The Big HOO-HAA! is the latter. I haven't actually seen a live improv show before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect when entering the tiny, hot room in the bottom of Town Hall. The stage was so small, how would the actors fit on there, let alone put on a show? But put on a sho...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those!). Today, Celia Pacquola! One of the first things I noticed when entering the Comedy Theatre is that there seemed to be a lot of people there that were old enough to be my grandparents. Mentioning this to my husband, he said he had also noticed this, then, looking concerned for the row of older women who had sat beside us, asked 'Does she swear a lot?'. I realised that they must have seen her on one of her TV shows on the ABC and, not having seen any of Celia's stand-up myself, hoped they weren't in for an unpleasant surprise. So Celia isn't a crude comedian by any means, but perhaps laser hair removal and sex tapes aren't topics that Grandm...

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival has kicked off for another year, and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to so many amazing comedians that I wanted to see. So I've decided to review all the shows I see, and to include some general comedy festival tips as well (scroll to the end for those). First up, Matt Okine! Matt Okine, comedian, TV star, radio host, etc etc etc Matt Okine is having an amazing year. Professionally I mean, he may be having a shit time personally, who knows. Seriously though, he seems to be killing it at life. You may know Matt as one half of former Triple J breakfast duo Matt and Alex, which graced our airwaves until 2016. You may know him for his music career, his cooking show on the ABC, his stand-up, or his TV show The Other Guy (which he both wrote and starred in). He even hosted this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala. I know, right? He's one of those annoying people that seems to be good at everything t...

Amy Schumer. Schumes. One of the hottest comedians in the world right now, and my best friend. Ok, that second part is obviously not true, though I wish it was. I have admired Amy Schumer for awhile now, and after reading her book I feel validated in my (definitely not creepy and stalkerish) feelings. Having had a stage, as well as her own TV show, as a platform to talk about many issues, such as body image, sexism and gun control, Amy has now used her book to discuss these serious issues in more depth. Always with her trademark sense of humour. With such sensible views on gun control that are so eloquently expressed, we can only hope that America listens, but let's be honest, these stubborn, close-minded people are probably unlikely to read views that don't align with their own. That's a topic for another day, but damn it, it's just infuriating. Amy also writes candidly about her dad, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, which would be hard to live with yet alon...