The best, the weirdest, and the most unmissable of the comedy festival so far

Jenny Tian | When Life Gives You Oranges
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 19

Why is it always the assholes that help us grow and learn about ourselves as people? Why can’t it be nice people like Jenny Tian? Tian is a performer that one could easily develop a parasocial relationship with. Going to her show felt like hanging out with a friend, and the friend is telling you the story about their ex-boyfriend.

Tian’s perspective on being in a bad relationship is earnest without being naive. The actual experience isn’t funny per se, but there’s plenty of witty asides about being Asian-Australian, living in America, and, unexpectedly, Kim Jong Un’s parenting. She’s got just enough spice in her one-liners, and her impeccable timing and delivery make everything feel light and fun.

Her interactions with the audience are genuine and engaging, and Tian’s unique talent is getting people to laugh without having to make anyone the butt of the joke. It’s a show with a lot of heart, and even more laughs.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Rose Lu

Lara Ricote | Inkling
ACMI – Gandel Lab, until April 14

Three handwritten signs emblazoned with the Delphic maxims “know thyself”, “nothing in excess” and “surety then ruin” are the first indication that Mexican–American comic Lara Ricote has dreamed up yet another multilayered, transgressive show. That she has is a surprise to no one who’s a fan of her surreal, absurdist comedy steeped in deep truths and irrepressible physical comedy.

Brandishing words like they’re a weapon in garbled, breakneck sentences that demand attention, Ricote gambols between three microphones – symbolising the three maxims – as she puzzles over life’s most enduring question: how should a person be? Armed with a torch and aided by dramatic stage lighting, Ricote oscillates between an unfortunate encounter at a certain British museum, her recent relationship breakdown and life as a hard-of-hearing person.

Ricote is such an animated, self-possessed performer that she could simply wiggle her eyebrows, lap messily from a drink bottle and throw her body about – all of which she does – to huge guffaws from the audience. That she does so while in service of an exceedingly well-crafted, poignant narrative about the cosmic mysteries of life, self-discovery and the way we relate to one another is awe-inspiring. Affirming, uproarious and exceptionally moving, Inkling is an unmissable show from a comic at the height of their game.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

Cassie Workman | You Are Here
Melbourne Town Hall – Backstage Room, until April 19

Consummate storyteller Cassie Workman has lived in the US for the last two years – and it shows. A “best of” montage, featuring the ills of capitalism, fascism and the military industrial complex, introduces the show on a makeshift television, a prop that’s bettered only by Workman’s mic – a stand-in for consumerism that’s utilised throughout the show to great effect.

Turning her astute powers of observation and trademark literary lyricism outward to interrogate the state of the world we live in, Workman transforms her stage into the fictional world of New Jersey’s West Valley Mall. We’re plunged into a reanimated corpse of 1980s American excess, a living and breathing edifice that finds a source of prey in a young boy trying to find his way home.

In three progressive acts, Workman narrates this fantastical story replete with rap verses, synth-pop tunes, catchy commercial jingles, jingoistic addresses, pithy one-liners and clever wordplay. It’s an astonishingly elaborate set-up that Workman employs to proselytise about the anaesthetising effects of consumerism and the immorality of corporate superpowers – all while using the very emblems of capitalism to subvert the power they hold over us. Cinematic in scale, theatrical in its exceptional staging, and breathtakingly poetic, You Are Here is a powerful antidote to these extraordinarily dark times.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

Sofie Hagen | I Think Some of This is My Fault
The Greek, until April 19

In 2018, Sofie Hagen was “cancelled”. Their agent told them never to talk about it – but they parted ways with said agent last year.

The Danish comic uses this experience as a springboard for a deft-ye- hilarious interrogation of moral purity and lateral violence within progressive circles, intertwined with memories of growing up in a “cult” town and the strangeness of moving back in with your mother in your 30s.

They also harness the small size of the Sunday night crowd by turning that into a bit, inserting it at surprisingly apt moments. Deadpan and droll, Hagen’s comic style is strategically layered – this thoughtful and thematically serious meditation on contemporary ethics is littered with satisfying callbacks and zippy one-liners. Many shows in this festival are tackling the rise of fascism and what it means to exist now, but for my money this is one of the most thought-provoking so far.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Helen Bauer | Bless Her
The Greek, until April 12

When Helen Bauer requests you “gather, gather” in a huddle to hear what she has to say, you gather. Bless Her is an invitation to an inner circle where the tea is piping and the takes are hot.

Bauer’s style starts off as a brash, adamant swagger equal parts confidence and defiance. She may scold an audience member here or there, but the target is firmly on herself throughout. She’s terrified of what she may do when left to her own devices, and she takes the audience into her confidence while working through this fear of self.

As the show progresses and the confident swagger evolves into the tentative showing of a soft underbelly, there is a transition from bold to vulnerable. Truths are bared and while the laughter keeps flowing, the pathos raises her material to bittersweet pleasure. The balance of light and dark is masterfully done; Bless Her wins us all over.
★★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Zachary Ruane | Comedy
Malthouse Theatre, until April 19

Zachary Ruane (a member of Melbourne comedy group Aunty Donna) makes an outrageously lofty promise in his first ever solo show: he’s confident Comedy will be the most important and definitive comedic work of the 21st century.

Within moments, he’s climbing over seats to high-five a significant chunk of the audience, seemingly relishing the connection and silliness. He nearly topples on one of the few empty seats. As Ruane riffs about all the different types of comedy, his deeply poetic persona is hypnotic. He sings, he dances and explains why he sweats so much. And when he realises a bit didn’t land, he tells the crowd they’re “getting a loose one tonight”.

An ebullient Ruane shares comedy secrets, laced with irony and satire. Buoyed by the room’s enthusiastic response, he then delivers hilarious thoughts on the future of comedy. Compelling content, confidence and a generous serving of kooky charm equals a mighty fine show.
★★★★
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

David O’Doherty | Highway to the David Zone
Melb Town Hall, until April 19

With his dinky little battery-operated keyboard accompanying songs about the ridiculousness of modern life, it’s easy to see why David O’Doherty is a regular guest at MICF. The Irish funny-man returns for another season of musical comedy, or as he puts it, “Blah blah plonky plonk”.

From his casual appearance (unironed, dishevelled) to his everyday musings on matters as big as stars and as small as takeaway coffee lids, this Dubliner knows how to work the crowd by being so very relatable. After recently turning 50, O’Doherty is a little introspective, trying hard to enjoy and not endure, even though there are so many irritating diversions on the highway to the David Zone, a route he’s trying to follow to remain chilled and grateful. His energetic delivery means he half-bellows half-sings his way through the night.

With more than 25 years of experience on the comedy circuit, his low-tech show proves you don’t need gadgets and visuals to garner laughter: just song, anecdotes, confidence and wit.
★★★★
Reviewed by Thuy On

Takashi Wakasugi | Wabi-Sabi Comedy
The Westin and ACMI, until April 19

Eccentric Japanese comic Takashi Wakasugi is an ebullient, inviting presence on stage, so charming that when he tells us to “f--- off” when we don’t get on board with a joke, it only endears him to us even further. The floppy-haired fellow explains the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence and then delivers critiques of Australian things which fit the bill NB: there are a lot.

He leans on the title a tad too much – the repetition takes away some of the power from the title – but then changes tack and instead brings us along for a ride on buses (the inferior public transport option behind trams and trains) and has a full house laughing the whole way through, mining some crowd work for gold.

He slips in a sneaky “always was, always will be” joke and builds the set nicely with scathing critiques of tissues using his oddball observations. A very original hour of Wakasugi’s self-described “big bow” humour.
★★★★
Reviewed by Mikey Cahill

Elf Lyons | Swan
The Malthouse – The Tower, until April 19

Stumbling on to stage in a hilarious approximation of a parrot and babbling nonsensically in Franglais, Elf Lyons sets the room off from the first glimpse of her crest. A reprisal of a show she performed nearly 10 years ago, Swan is a deconstruction of Tchaikovsky’s famed Swan Lake. If you’ve never seen Swan Lake, fret not. Prior knowledge is not required to enjoy this show, for reasons that Lyons joyfully brings to the fore in a chaotic hour terrifically at odds with the rigid conformity of what she’s reimagining.

Lyons turns the world of ballet on its head, taking it apart with irreverence and cheeky impudence. That she does it in butchered French is the cherry on top. Highlighting the improbabilities of Swan Lake’s narrative while lampooning traditional ballet’s repressive gender and body norms, Lyons uses her elfin limbs to great effect – prancing around stage as a possessed avian, pulling all manner of things out of her engorged personhood, and assuming different characters through superbly imagined props and masterful switches in costuming.

Lyons punctuates the grandiosity of Tchaikovsky’s score with hilariously contemporary musical interjections, clowning, puppetry, mime, outrageously silly dance moves and gentle audience participation. A show that has only gained more poignancy as Lyons has aged, Swan is ripe for its re-staging.
★★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

Gillian Cosgriff | Life, Oh Life
Arts Centre Melbourne - The Show Room, until April 19

Every year, musical comedian Gillian Cosgriff arrives at the Comedy Festival armed with a grand piano, a list of deep-cut Millennial references, and a wholesome approach to audience involvement that promptly exorcises the cynicism out of half of Melbourne.

Life, Oh Life is a warm-hearted case-in-point. Two minutes in, and you’re reading advice about how to “stay human” written by an audience member from last night’s show. With her off-the-cuff wit, vox pop audience repartee, and some jazzy odes to faery erotica, Cosgriff leads us seamlessly across generational divides and from Catholicism to childhood humiliation in search of possible answers. It’s not honey-coloured escapism. She’s too self-aware for that. This year her cringe-defying earnestness empowers her audience more than ever until the show becomes more about us than her.

You might end the show wishing she’d pushed the conceit a little further or brought herself into this communal experience with a little more depth. But once again, Cosgriff’s life-affirming talents are this festival’s North Star: year after year, lighting the path before us.
★★★★
Reviewed by Guy Webster

Ian Smith | Foot Spa Half Empty
The Westin, until April 19

Northern Englishman Ian Smith was worried he didn’t have any material for his comedy festival show because he was becoming too posh…then he found out he had problems in the baby making department and BINGO he was back in business.

Smith is a proper raconteur with a low-key mastery of physical comedy, complaining about an uncle “who puts his hands on his hips too high” then taking us into a beer garden with a knife-wielding seagull “doing a figure of eight” as his arm gesticulations bring to life the avian assailant.

A piece on a girl who gets stuck in a basketball ring could do with reworking but it’s when he gets to his sperm check misadventures the show really takes off and gathers gusto right ’til the end with a perfect climactic line.
★★★★
Reviewed by Mikey Cahill

Alexei Toliopoulos | VHS
Melb Town Hall - Flag Room, until April 19

There are many people who wrongly claim to be cinephiles. But Alexei Toliopoulos believes he is more qualified than most. As a kid, he harboured strong ambitions to become a “serious actor”, and today he’s amassed a physical movie collection that boasts more than 4000 titles.

His passion is on full display in VHS, a nostalgia-filled tale that’s fittingly themed around different movie genres. The audience is taken on a spiralling journey of how “Little Lex” fell in love with cinema, and why he’s still obsessed with it all these years later.

You can’t help but love Toliopoulos for his effortless humour and likeable on-stage presence. It feels like you’re talking to a very passionate and very funny friend at the pub (probably after going to see a double feature together). Be prepared to leave with a very specific movie-score adjacent earworm, and with a stack of films to add to your watchlist.
★★★★
Reviewed by Gemma Grant

Abby Wambaugh | The First 3 Minutes of 17 Shows
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 19

If you’re attending a show presented by comedy behemoth Hannah Gadsby, directed by the fast-rising firecracker Lara Ricote, and produced by international powerhouse Jenney Shamash, you’re expecting an excellent hour. That’s exactly what you get.

Abby Wambaugh had one of the more atypical inclinations to pursue comedy. She had a miscarriage and, while still under the influence of anaesthetic drugs, convinced herself to give it a shot. Wambaugh makes good on the title – performing the opening minutes of each idea she had for her debut show. Her various skits range from ludicrous (performing as a vacuum); glorious audience participation (having the crowd cosplay as old men attempting parkour); and lampooning David Sedaris’ book tours (reading pre-written material while rarely offering anything new to his readers).

Some land, some don’t. But the hour takes on a new light as she mines the experience of losing her baby – a thread that is ingeniously woven throughout. It’s a whimsical, high-concept and vulnerable show – one that clearly has caught the attention of the comedy cognoscenti for good reason.
★★★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

Dilruk Jayasinha | Gratitude Guy
The Victoria Hotel – Banquet Room, until April 19

After passing out from his own potent fart, Dilruk Jayasinha knew he needed to get his life together. It was the final wake-up call after a string of bad luck. He suffered a heart attack, his back blew out, he began balding. Things got so bad, he wished for another snap lockdown. But all these things, even the farts, proved to him he was still alive. Therein began his gratitude journey.

You can’t help but smile at Jayasinha’s comedy, which blends brutal self-deprecation with genuine heart. His on-stage experience shows, as he seamlessly guides the crowd through a carefully curated collection of anecdotes, from his first-ever bum flush (aka colonic irrigation) to the time he was out-philosophised by a meth addict.

Granted, he occasionally verges on over-sentimentality, veering on tangents about fruitful marriages. But by the end, he’s earned it – he bares all parts of himself to the crowd, bum flushing and all. After so much bitterness, he deserves a little sugar.
★★★★
Reviewed by Nell Geraets

Tom Ballard | Be Funny Challenge (Impossible)
Trades Hall, until April 19

Tom Ballard may find himself preaching to an audience of the converted at Trades Hall, but both performer and audience enjoy the sermon. Ballard focuses on an incident that dominated his 2025, a comedy routine he performed sparking a controversy that saw him raked through tabloid mud.

Ballard draws parallels between the now-infamous comedy-Nazi-salute incident (where he mockingly performed the salute as part of a wider routine about proposed new legislation to ban the gesture) and the increasingly polarised, absurd world we find ourselves in. He acknowledges this could head into territory nobody cares about – comedians annoyed when people don’t like their jokes – but illustrates the absurdity of a comedy routine about a law making Nazi salutes illegal falling foul of said same law. He expertly makes the case that comedy lives in the contrast between the baggage of a Nazi salute and something as innocuous as a high five.

Ballard isn’t here to change hearts and minds. What he nicely manages, though, is to explore the nuance lacking in media coverage and public discourse in a world that only seems to have appetite for one extreme opinion at a time.
★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Lou Wall | Where are all the tall grandmas?
Malthouse Theatre, until April 19

In this illuminating and endearing search for self, Wall probes history, statistics and even asks Joe Rogan: Where are all the tall grandmas? Such a good question.

Is it down to “shrinkage” – years of Earth’s gravitational pull arresting women’s growth as they age? Are the tall women all meeting unfortunate ends before their time? Or is it because doctors prescribed massive doses of estrogen to young girls in the 1950s to deliberately stunt their growth – lest they became unattractively tall women?

Through cheeky and fast-paced comedy, poetry, storytelling and song, Wall leads us on a compelling journey: from learning to hide in plain sight as a tall child, to ultimately – drawing inspiration from female blue whales and angler fish, who are much bigger than the males – embracing one’s individuality. It reflects growth for Wall as a performer, too, as they venture into more vulnerable territory while appearing more at home in the spotlight than ever.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

Tom Cashman | NPC (Nearly Proficient Comedian)
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 19

“Anxious Cocky” is a great name for an emotionally intelligent Rooster and also the title Tom Cashman gives the brand of confidence that has gotten him in the most trouble over the years. In Nearly Proficient Comedian, the Taskmaster-staple is taking a look at his lifelong journey to self-confidence with the energy of a conspiracy theorist falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole at 3am.

Armed with nothing but a simple PowerPoint, a list of affirmations, and a mile-a-minute delivery style that pushes the limits of human lung capacity, Cashman delivers a tight and darkly humorous hour of standout standup. He is both a comedic anthropologist and a true crime podcaster.

One minute he’s stretching the logic of our most common everyday bird-related idioms and airport signs. The next minute he’s recounting a harrowing teenage experience with the careful suspense of an HBO crime drama mixed with the absurd realism of a John Wilson series. It’s a bit too long, but if Cashman needs the ego boost, he can have it: this is masterful stand-up.
★★★★
Reviewed by Guy Webster

Celia Pacquola | Gift Horse
Comedy Theatre, until April 5

Pacquola may be a self-proclaimed commitmentphobe, but I’ve never seen a comedian commit quite so much to the bit as in this heartwarming, hilarious and clever hour of comedy. She wasn’t planning to do a show this year – but then her partner bought her the unwanted gift that kept on giving.

Per the proverb of the title, Pacquola unpacks contemporary expectations around gratitude, relationships and friendships with real wisdom and consistent laughs. Whether it’s embracing one’s physical imperfections, parenting with anxiety or navigating a misfired gift, the key takeaway is it’s OK to be grateful for something without loving all of it.

Her takes on common material like ageing and parenting feel just as refreshing as the unusual anecdotes (being bitten on the septum by a cat, for example). She mines all of it for gems. This show is down to earth, relatable, even mundane – but also masterful, layered and poetic. The final punchline is perfect.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

Watson | Watson Underground
Underground Comedy, until April 12

Beloved trio Watson have put the sketch-comedy band back together after eight years, and it’s worth the wait. Adam McKenzie, Tegan Higginbotham and Liam Ryan bring an infectious, buoyant vibe to this mix of sketch and banter.

Their on-stage chemistry is palpable. It’s clear the three feed off each other’s energy and playfulness. Low-fi production values give this show a spontaneous feel, but don’t be fooled – the assembly of sketches is well structured for satisfying callbacks and layered laughs.

A standout is the follow-up to their “men and tampons … in a perfect world” sketch released as a video more than eight years ago: “men and menopause … in a perfect world” is *chef’s kiss* and does justice to the original. Given how much fun these performers are having on stage it is impossible for the audience not to feel drawn in and have a good time. Sketch fans will love it.
★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Sashi Perera | Pear Tree
ACMI, until April 19

Sashi Perera can sing. The refugee lawyer turned rising comedy star has proved her chops elsewhere – on stage, on the page with her 2025 memoir Standstill, on TV – but when she opens her mouth to sing, it’s unexpectedly moving.

Gorgeous renditions of Patti Smith and ABBA via Angie McMahon are just one part of Perera’s latest show, which weaves humour (returning to her native Sri Lanka with her husband, “the whitest man alive”) with heartache (navigating childless life after IVF). No matter the subject, Perera is a master of comic timing – one particular bit is drawn out in an almost stream of consciousness style, with a punchline hitting out of the blue to peak satisfaction.

The comedian’s crowd work is always a pleasure to witness, too – her reactions feel genuine and when she laughs, you can’t help but laugh along. This assured hour of comedy is gentle on the surface, with a fiery heart.
★★★★
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Denise Scott | Tickety Boo
Comedy Theatre, until April 5

She might have reached retirement age but Scotty still catches the tram to work, even when said workplace is one of Melbourne’s largest theatres (sold out, of course). Mining that incongruity between the mundane and the extraordinary has always been her forte, and after a three-year absence from the stage, she’s back with a show that’s literally a life or death matter.

The good folks of our healthcare system have been the recipients of her wisecracking crowd-work during her recent experience with cancer, but even at her lowest point she was unable to resist throwing a cheeky little shade.

This hour is a thoughtful and enriching reminder of the brute facts of our mortality, but don’t think she won’t go off-script to poke fun at her front-row fans. A telling-off from Denise Scott still feels like a kindness, though. Whoever she casts on the pyre, we’re all warmed by the roast.
★★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

Diana Nguyen | Pedestal
QT, until April 5

“Welcome to my pussy!” says Diana Nguyen after gyrating her way on stage to Khia’s My Neck, My Back. And yes, there is a lot of raunch in this show – an unsuspecting punter in the front row is propositioned more than once – but also a lot of heart.

Nguyen has recently turned 40, and she’s not where she thought she’d be – no husband, no kids. But the Vietnamese-Australian comedian’s infectious lust for life, and her chaotic, physical delivery, makes it all a deliciously bonkers ride – from sexy massages gone wrong and rules of dating to holidaying with her sister’s young children and the price of banh mi.

She’s still ironing out some of the jokes early in the run, often checking her notes, but the charm is airtight. The show ends on a delirious high, with Nguyen sharing exciting news about what’s next – but you’ll have to see it to find out.
★★★★
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Soft Tread | Fuccbois: Live in Concert
The Showroom - Arts Centre Melbourne, until April 5

Are f---boys beyond reputational repair? The drag kings in this musical comedy suggest yes. Satirising the notion of the all-male pop troupe, Fuccbois: Live in Concert joins Brendan (Vidya Makan), Brandon (Aria Award winner and show creator Bridie Connell), Tyler (Megan Walshe) and Also Brendan (Clara Harrison) on their final ever show. Adorned in ’90s fashion, they thrust their way through cheesy choreography, while performing infectious original bangers.

Within the familiar challenges that befall boy bands – egos, in-fighting and obsessive fandoms – exists the perfect allegory for modern-day dating. From ghosting to gaslighting, the upbeat pop melodies disguise lyrics that call out men’s bad behaviour.

The show immerses you in a concert experience through moments such as pre-recorded band interviews and singling out audience members for song dedications. Vidya Makan’s a cappella performance of Gaslight Shanty in an Irish accent is impeccable, and Megan Walshe convincingly sends up boy band facial expressions, gestures and poses. Take your situationship before you leave them “on read”.
★★★★
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

Christie Whelan-Browne, Emily Taheny & Jess Harris | People You Know
The Westin, until April 19

Is this the feminist sketch troupe we’ve been waiting for? Some readers will be familiar with this trio from stage and screen. Here, we get a glimpse into life backstage.

The first skit sets the course, with Whelan-Browne trying (and failing) to pitch a script about the enduring friendship of two women. Between failed auditions – “How did I not get the role of tired mum when I am tired mum?” – they’ve carved out time to create roles of their own. The show’s very existence is like a middle finger to sexism in the entertainment industry.

Highlights include Harris’ toxic tradie preying on women with low self-esteem; Whelan-Browne’s laid-back mum sneaking ‘witch juice’ into a keep cup; and Taheny’s menopause doctor recommending a bath full of live salmon (or perhaps dolphins?), to curb the uncontrollable rage. Some scenes are more slice of life than side-splitting funny, while others nail it. At its best the writing is subversive, bold and relatable. I hope they do more.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

Lano & Woodley | Lano & Woodley In Space
Comedy & Regent theatres, until April 11

There’s nothing particularly deep about a Lano & Woodley show – and therein lies its appeal. In the third fully-fledged offering since returning to stages almost a decade ago, the veteran double act takes its familiar schtick on a mission to Mars.

Lano’s narcissism reaches new frontiers as Commander Col with his fancy AI spaceships, while his downtrodden co-pilot Frank crafts cute dioramas and hand-painted signs. There’s slapstick physical humour, imaginative stagecraft and funny renditions of pop songs swapping out the word “lover” for “lava”.

Let’s not for a moment conflate silliness with unsophistication. This enduring partnership of 30+ years (on and off) is about as good as it gets. Forgotten lines and technical difficulties couldn’t possibly throw them off course – if anything, the snags only made the show better by creating more space for ad-libbed repartee. Watching them still crack each other up after all this time is pure joy. Maybe that is deep, after all.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

Rob Carlton | Virgin in a Knife Fight
Playbox, The Malthouse, until April 5

As an actor, Rob Carlton is often very funny. As a comedian, he’s rather dramatic. Virgin in a Knife Fight at times feels like an extended shaggy-dog story, full of wild unrelated digressions, but in fact it’s four interlocking real-life stories, densely written and intensely narrated and performed by Carlton on a bare stage with only a black folding chair as a prop.

The chair doubles as a steering wheel, a backpack, occasionally even a chair, as Carlton takes us from his teenage years in the 1990s (when “victimhood was yet to become a way of life”) to his present day, as a father of a teen whom he fears has been led astray by an old friend from uni days with a penchant for pharmacy. Sniff sniff. One minute we’re in the dining hall of a university college, the next at an STD clinic desperately wanting to be cleared (if not exonerated) after a moment of infidelity, the next in a court room in Sydney for the most improbable defence you’ve ever heard.

But it all starts and ends with the knife fight, in Salzburg, “the city where the Von Trapp family sang Edelweiss”, where destiny, character and utter randomness come together in a backstreet showdown with a backpack thief. You may not remember quite how we got here, but you’ll be glad you hitched a ride.
★★★★
Reviewed by Karl Quinn

Abby Howells | The Cave
Melbourne Town Hall - Powder Room, until April 19

Join Abby Howells as she ventures down into the depth of the sea – past some sexy mermaids – to arrive at The Cave: one of the most terrifying, hopeless and morbid places in the world. What is it? A teenage girl’s bedroom, of course. Full of body horror, bad music, and friends who you bully that also bully you back.

Howells’ frenetic energy and unshakable “good girl” image is the driving force of this show. At times she breaks character to have an aside to herself, or to her tech, about the parts of the show that aren’t working. It’s completely unclear whether this is scripted, or an ad lib, but her mad wit in these moments is undeniably charming and hilarious.

It’s a narrative show that is almost confessional in its intimacy, as Howells’ leads us around the room and tells us the backstory behind every poster on the wall. And she’s totally right, we are too judgmental of nice mums who merely wish us to “live love laugh”.
★★★★
Reviewed by Rose Lu

Wankernomics | Show_v4.1_Final_UseThis
Athenaeum, until April 5

The lanyard-wearing lads are back and continuing to lambast the stupidities of office culture. There seems to be no end to the jargon as James Schloeffel and Charles Firth once again regale us with numerous instances of “corporate bullshittery” in their capacity as “thought leaders”.

This latest iteration sets the tone with a video montage bursting with corpspeak that will make many an employee wince in recognition. If you’ve ever been frustrated by tech issues, tried to decipher word salads that involve the terms “optimisation”, “deliverables” and “value-laden”, and suffered in hours-long meetings that should have been resolved via email, Show_V4.1_Final_UseThis will be triggering. Luckily, it’s also very funny as Schloeffel and Firth utilise charts, surveys, ads and graphs to great effect to show how corporate wankery shows no signs of abating.

Warning: they’ll also try to upsell you a new “Premium Pro Plus” version of their show.
★★★★
Reviewed by Thuy On

Zainab Johnson | Toxically Optimistic
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 5

She used to own a Tesla, now she owns a gun. Zainab Johnson’s comedy feels like a Rorschach test for the US psyche right now, leaping all over the spectrum to prove the States isn’t so much politically polarised as it is certifiably crazy.

The New York-raised, LA-based comic knows that what’s funny for whom is a matter of perspective, and punches up her routine on the fly to match the mood of her crowd. For a show that’s unafraid to dwell on the uglier aspects of American culture – from random violence to entrenched racism – it’s a weirdly uplifting hour.

She might seem irrepressibly upbeat, toxically so, as the show’s title maintains, but that’s a smokescreen for the deep craft at work here. There’s even a last-minute reveal that will have you reevaluating much of what’s come before to realise that yes, there is a point to all this insanity.
★★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

Greg Larsen | Unrelenting Ultra-Violence
Coopers Inn, until April 5

Larsen’s on a political bent this year, but fear not – there’s still more than enough gross-out humour for the entire festival crammed into this hour. We start with a horrific triptych of AI TikToks raging to a death metal soundtrack – disturbing images of war, propaganda and shirtless obese men.

Larsen’s convinced he’s in a Truman Show-style fake universe, and he’s been gathering evidence in a journal for several years to prove it. He reads random entries and riffs on the global military industrial complex, the soul-sucking violence of late capitalism and the nascent AI nightmare we’re sleepwalking into. Highlight are his short stories – ‘The Future’, parts one and two – about next-gen technology spectacularly failing to improve on things that already work just fine.

There’s a certain poetry in Larsen’s profuse descriptions of bodily fluids (and solids). Delivered between wicked one-liners on war and politics, these puerile fixations symbolise just how little humans have progressed since Neanderthal times. Definitely R rated, definitely recommended.
★★★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

Harriet Dyer | Easily Distra…
Trades Hall, until April 5

It takes under a minute for the title of the show to prove true as Harriet Dyer distracts herself and the audience immediately. Almost as quickly, she’s utterly charmed the room with her elastic, expressive face and sunny countenance. The room buzzes with her energy.

Watching Dyer perform is like having your intense interior monologue spring to life. Every tangent, every unlikely link a hyped-up brain makes, every intrusive interrupting thought. Think Tassie Devil energy with a Cornish accent. It’s irresistible.

Dyer’s hapless habit of interrupting one weirdly wonderful anecdote to start telling another results in a non-stop cavalcade of material. Admirable then that she also manages to deliver punch-line payoffs, with no story left unfinished. It’s a mixed bag, material wise, but it all flows freely and lets Dyer exhibit her absurd takes on just about any topic. You won’t find another show like this out there, she’s one of a kind.
★★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Kiran Deol | Assault on Comedy
The Motley Wherehaus, until April 12

Hypothetical situations are fun to talk about until the situation stops being hypothetical. If you’re Kiran Deol, you turn it into a comedy show. Drawing on her actual experience of being assaulted, Deol asks: what would you do if given the power to choose your attacker’s punishment?

Deol shines a light on all the morally ambiguous situations we navigate in our lives, like whether it is OK to make fun of other people if they make fun of you. Or is your friend still a good friend if they only stayed because they were mandated by law? And, if an Indian woman is assaulted, does it necessarily mean it’s racially motivated?

Deol’s assuredness as a performer allows her to drop down into gruesome details and come up to air with a joke. She deftly adds lightness, without ever making light of the assault. It’s a show that asks uncomfortable questions, and encourages us to have a laugh at the answers.
★★★★
Reviewed by Rose Lu

Joseph Green | Mushroom Lady & Me
House of Maximon, until April 19

When Erin Patterson’s historic guilty verdict was handed down last July, I can’t say I expected to watch a comedy show about it nine months later. But am I surprised that someone has stepped up to the task? Not particularly.

Few people are more suited to give it a crack than former lawyer Joseph Green, who worked as a judge’s associate and “general shit kicker” during a portion of the infamous murder trial last year (he’s since quit the profession and attended clown school).

You can’t help but laugh at the exaggerated accounts of his handful of mundane interactions with Patterson, which are told with a folklore-like quality. The show also features an array of anecdotes outside of the courtroom, which occasionally lack some narrative direction. Afterwards, I was actually left wanting to hear more about Green’s awkward run-ins with the titular Mushroom Lady – which in this oversaturated market is honestly an accomplishment.
★★★
Reviewed by Gemma Grant

Gen Fricker | Good Time
Storyville, until April 5

Gen Fricker has had a rough trot. Over the course of a frequently funny, often wince-inducing hour, she details her own experience of domestic abuse, stalkers and her most recent trauma, an extreme fringe cut. “We can all agree it’s not working,” she quips to a small, adoring crowd, flicking her hair forward, then blowing it upwards and throwing in a sneaky self-deprecating laugh.

Fricker’s material veers into darker territory with discussions of suicidal ideation and her brushes with death, and so it is no wonder she’s in search of the Good Time her title suggests. The show touches on throwback internet moments such as Kony 2012, then takes us into Fricker’s private-versus-public world, where she reads out a proposal letter word-for-word from a zeitgeisty weight-loss company that wants her to be a brand ambassador. It’s the strongest part of the show.

Most of the set borders on a therapy session, and as a crowd, we are happy to take on that role. Overall though, there needs to be a higher joke count and slightly tighter writing for the ambitious gear to really land.
★★★
Reviewed by Mikey Cahill

Elaine Crombie | Grief, Love and Lead Balloons
Melb Town Hall, until April 5

Grief, Love and Lead Balloons leans more into pathos than swinging for big laughs, creating a heartfelt impression on the audience. Crombie describes the show as meandering, like a journey around garden paths intersecting and diverging at will.

With a photo slideshow anchoring her storytelling, Crombie shows her family members and herself at various points in her life, some of whom have sadly passed away. She shares family stories, celebrating the impact of her parents, grandparents and other key family figures on her and Australia as a whole – some members of her family blazed trails in the arts, others in social justice.

Crombie is a natural storyteller sharing stories close to her heart. The meditative, gentle monologue includes music and allows for the bittersweet impact of love transformed to grief to fill the space. It’s cathartic for audience and performer, and while rough around the edges, is better for this vulnerability.
★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Alex Ward | Literally Anyone
The Westin – Three, until April 19

Alex Ward is a delightful storyteller who pops up on television shows like Have You Been Paying Attention? and Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee. Literally Anyone is cleverly built around a reveal that we won’t spoil, but which comes early in the show. What Ward has done is not illegal, but it kind of feels like it – as she states.

The ensuing hour is the extrapolation of an expressly intimate tale, peppered with numerous amusing digressions and extraneous observations. We hear about cafe reviews, dyslexia, Aldi and Airbnb hosts. There’s plenty to giggle at. A few minutes into the show, there’s a heckle. She’s ready for it. She slaps back. Heckler retreats. The crowd erupts in laughter.

Around halfway through, Ward reveals that she’s aware of a high school group in the audience – a bunch of teens from a country town on an excursion. Ward is nonplussed. She completes her riveting, hilarious insights (including references to bodily functions and personal pleasuring), stating, “I’m not your teacher. I don’t give a f---.”
★★★
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

Josh Thomas | Jiggle Jiggle
Arts Centre Melbourne, until April 19

The latest outing for Josh Thomas shares its name with a viral hip hop track by doco-maker Louis Theroux. I had to Google it and felt old (and hey, I didn’t ask a chatbot, so I guess I am old).

If you’re feeling weatherbeaten and world-weary, too, Jiggle Jiggle is a chance to shrug, soak up the schadenfreude, and distract yourself from overthinking. Sure, the world’s going to hell in a handbasket and we’re all just that little bit closer to death than we used to be, but Thomas himself isn’t getting any younger.

If the creator of Please Like Me and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay has formally devoted this show to silliness, he also confronts the undeniable truth that he’s no longer the stand-up wunderkind who first wowed the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2005.

The show weaves in eccentric flashes of ’90s and noughties pop culture, as well as pointed observations about being on the other side of the general distaste the young can have for “in my day”-type nostalgia from their elders.

Thomas leans into lameness with downbeat, low-effort stage illusions – the magical equivalent of shitposting – and breaks the showbiz injunction never to work with children or animals. Competing with a puppy for audience attention? Tough gig.

Still, Thomas isn’t afraid to find joy in failure or misery, and his anecdotes and revelations include an addiction to a mindless mobile game, and the story of how his house got broken into four times.

A yarn in which Thomas goes into detail about a Grindr hook-up in Paris is more uncomfortable – and a het male comedian probably wouldn’t get away with it – but asking the audience to try not to visualise it? In a show called Jiggle Jiggle? That’s funny.

Signature oddball humour and left-field antics animate this one, and Thomas remains a celebrated comic whose brain seems always to be dancing, however awkwardly, one step ahead of his melancholy.
★★★
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

Bronwyn Kuss | Bronwyn & Sons
ACMI – Gandel Lab, until April 19

If a room erupting in laughter to the proclamation that a baby is dead wasn’t in your festival bingo card, you haven’t been to a Bronwyn Kuss show. Not that Kuss was calling for infanticide; more so mocking the odious person at the centre of an expertly narrated scenario – one of the many everyday yet hyper-specific slice-of-life reenactments delivered in Kuss’s signature laconic cadence.

Kuss keeps a running count of the number of abortion jokes in her routine, a darkly hilarious counterpoint to her consideration of whether to have children. There are 18, to be exact, peppered in among recollections of life as a 38-year-old lesbian who’s perennially tired, still renting and has poor executive functioning – catnip to this Melbourne audience.

At times, Kuss’ intentionally spaced-out delivery gives audiences too much time to pre-empt what she’ll say, but she nevertheless can, and does, pull the rug out from under us. Other times, there are crucial gaps in the scaffolding of Kuss’ jokes; a punchline revolving around Münchhausen syndrome is particularly clever once you join the dots, but you have to work for it. Droll, unhurried, meandering yet focused, Kuss is back with another self-assured set.
★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

Nat Harris | Amuse-Bouche
The Victoria Hotel - Acacia Room, until April 5

Nat Harris’s alter ego, Pussy Willow, returns from the dead in this silly hour of alternative, experimental comedy. Amuse-Bouche’s format gradually reveals itself as the show goes on. New personas emerge with quick costume changes and Harris expertly performs them, adjusting her demeanour to distinguish each character. Pussy Willow is the most iconic, with her thick American accent, black veil, red ringlet wig and animal print top.

Harris is a confident performer. She leans into physical comedy and is unafraid to walk off stage and engage with the crowd or call on volunteers for audience participation. It feels improvised in parts, and she often breaks the fourth wall by suppressing a smile or making candid admissions in-character.

However, the looseness of the plot means that the climax doesn’t quite pay off. More crossover between the characters would’ve also added intrigue and dynamism. Harris even requests that we manage our expectations on how the show will conclude. Will Pussy Willow survive? You’ll have to find out.
★★★
Reviewed by Vyshnavee Wijekumar

Christopher Hall | Pizazz
The Greek, until April 5

Christopher Hall is in his “central-mid thirties” and life is changing. His best friend and former party accomplice is now a mother and fondly reminisces about “back in the day”, but Hall is insistent that the day is still going.

The British comedian, who shot to fame on TikTok alongside his sister with their Background Singers series, is just as funny and flamboyant IRL. Pizazz is a breakneck journey that takes in Hall’s fear of talking to strangers, erotic escape rooms and Magic Mike Live. Hall is highly physical, using the entire stage as a catwalk, writhing on the floor between aisles and getting up and personal with the crowd. The overall effect is hilarious and overstimulating – Hall talks a mile a minute, often repeating phrases.

It’s all great, relatable fun, especially for Millennials who are still hanging on to their youthful glory days – but there’s not much new ground broken here.
★★★
Reviewed by Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen

Isabelle Carney, Hipster Slop
The Motley Wherehaus, until April 5

Mix the extremely online oddness of a Lou Wall with the droll delivery of a Judith Lucy and you might get a sense of Isabelle Carney’s winning style of stand-up. While she self-identifies as Australia’s youngest public intellectual, she’s got the bona fides to back that up (who else drops phrases “spine unfurled like a corpse flower” in passing?)

You don’t need to be au fait with the Nintendo Wii or the origin of “chungus” to get Carney’s gags, but there’s a distinct generational wit here that feels very digital-native. Perhaps it’s the tonal handbrake turns that never settle into a familiar rhythm; there’s also the accomplished video interruptions that pop up without warning.

But where many emerging comics adopt detachment or irony as a guardrail against vulnerability, Carney is happy to let it all hang out. After all, as she makes clear, much of what we carry around in our emotional toolbox can be repurposed as weapons.
★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

Gabbi Bolt | Small Poppy
The Playbox, until April 19

Gabbi Bolt wants to be the right kind of B-grade famous. The musical polymath has been turning in must-see cabaret shows nationwide for years now. She’s gone viral, starred in main stage musicals, and become a household name at her old high school. So why does she still feel like a “Sim left in a pool without a ladder”?

Small Poppy is an existential reflection for the perpetually “emerging” Millennial artist approaching 30 and wanting more – more success, more fame, or maybe just enough for a down payment on a house. Bolt is charismatic as ever as she switches from accordion-led odes to donning speed racers for a Charli XCX-style rumination on jealousy. But the show is unfocused and prone to a political earnestness that borders on Millennial cringe.

Thematically, it casts the net too wide, trying to tackle every idea from every angle. Bolt’s endearing self-awareness becomes a crutch to smooth over clunky segues; her laugh-a-minute lyrical word play a way to give her ideas the illusion of depth. You’ll be singing along and dancing to the thought-provoking questions she raises. But you won’t have much time to really think them through.
★★★
Reviewed by Guy Webster

Rhiannon McCall | Nosferatu Looking for Love
The Motley Wherehaus, until April 19

This vampyr is single and ready to mingle. Actor Max Schreck’s iconic performance in the silent film Nosferatu offered up perhaps the least sexy figure in cinema history, so there’s innate humour baked into a solo show about the blood-sucker’s adventures on the dating scene.

Most of the laughs spring from how NZ comic Rhiannon McCall takes her character as seriously as he takes himself. This isn’t cheap silliness – it’s a truly monstrous figure genuinely attempting to reinvent himself as a golden bachelor. There’s no predicting where the show will go next, and its chaotic edge only increases as the lovelorn tragic gradually earns his audience’s trust.

The finale enlists the whole crowd in his quest for romance, and we’re there for him dead or
alive. If your comedy sweet spot is not knowing exactly why you’re in stitches, sink your teeth into this unhinged slice of weirdness.
★★★
Reviewed by John Bailey

Steph Tisdell | Fat
The Victoria Hotel, until April 5

All her life, Steph Tisdell has wanted to be “good”. Growing up in a fatphobic world, Tisdell’s conflation of morality with thinness led her down a rabbit warren of diets and weight loss camps. But several years ago, a watershed moment led Tisdell down a very different path – one that explains her return to comedy after four years.

Unfortunately, Tisdell uses food and weight as punchlines in ways that reinforce stigma and stereotypes around fatness. Weight loss talk is couched from the uncritical lens of individual failure rather than the sinister levers of diet culture. Personal weight loss figures are cited in ways that could be deemed unsafe. Baseless generalisations around fat people’s dislike of running, among other things, are made, when the simple matter is: no one except runners, big or small but united by their shared madness, enjoy pounding the pavement.

The second half of the show is altogether more interesting. Tisdell chronicles a reawakening on multiple fronts, and charts the solace found in running with mob and discovering movement as a trauma recovery practice. Tisdell is a naturally warm and infectious performer, but as she shifts gears into more vulnerable territory, it’s incredibly moving. That this reclamation of self is framed through weight loss metrics at the end is disappointing. Tisdell passionately rails against the straitjacket of being a “good” queer black woman in a patriarchal, white supremacist world – but one gets the feeling the idea of virtue hasn’t quite been uncoupled from weight loss.
★★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

Angella Dravid | I’m Happy for You
The Motley Wherehaus, until April 5

There’s dark, and then there’s what Angella Dravid is bringing to the stage in I’m Happy for You. This is black humour with a side of black. It is the second MICF solo show from this New-Zealand based, Indian-Samoan comedian. Dravid’s chaotic life is rich fodder, as she jokes when telling the audience trauma makes for great material.

There’s truth to this, especially when paired with her willingness to be vulnerable and honest. Exorcising demons live on stage can be dangerous, though: is it therapy or comedy? In this show, comedy is the winner. Dark depths are mined and dark laughter results. At times Dravid is almost apologetic as she follows the absurdity of her experiences to a morbid punchline.

What the show lacks in flow it makes up for in finding comedic value in every taboo. The discomfort felt in the audience is relieved with consistent laughs as the unpalatable unfolds into absurd truths.
★★★
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton

Will Gibb | Confidence is Key
Melbourne Town Hall – Portrait Room, until April 19

If the “Shower Thoughts” subreddit were a person, it would be Will Gibb. His stand-up is best described as a series of observations and questions, like where broccolini – the “hot, Italian version” of broccoli – came from, or how we’d react if he turned into a werewolf and climbed the walls.

It’s the kind of material you’d expect from a comedian best known for their TikToks. It’ll make you laugh, especially if you’re Gen Z and partial to words like “slay”, “tea” and “low-key”. But it lacks a certain narrative cohesion – a theme or throughline that connects each of the jokes. It’s as if you’re swiping through videos in-app – they make you laugh, but with no satisfying punchline, you eventually tire of scrolling.

Where Gibb shines is his crowd work. Whether freestyle rapping about a random guy named Gabriel or flirting with a rich plumber, he always has something unexpected up his sleeve. You can find similar observational humour all over TikTok, but Gibb’s level of crowd interaction? That’s stand-up gold.
★★★
Reviewed by Nell Geraets

Luke McQueen | Comedian’s Comedian
ACMI, until April 19

There’s no bigger brat in comedy than the UK’s Luke McQueen, or as he dubs himself, an “avant-garde prankster”. This is someone who once tricked punters into going to his Edinburgh show by advertising that Frankie Boyle would be performing. As I’m sure you can guess: he wasn’t, and most walked out. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of the stunts he’s pulled.

The crux of his debut Australian show is his chagrin that he’s never been invited onto Stuart Goldsmith’s podcast, The Comedian’s Comedian, after it has produced well over 500 episodes with more established acts. He sets up a mannequin and uses AI to voice Goldsmith for a faux interview. It’s an artistically dubious decision to say the least.

McQueen commits to the bit exhaustively. There’s a brilliant piece of “long-range crowd work” and improvising with the audience – but too little lands for scant reward.
★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

Tape Face | 20
fortyfivedownstairs, until April 19

Would I have found an emo mime funny 20 years ago? Hard to say, as Tape Face – formerly known as “The boy with tape on his face” – has somehow completely passed me by.

This is billed as the return of the “show that started it all” for an act which is now a fixture in Vegas. Just so we’re clear on this being a mime show, our protagonist has gaffer tape over his mouth so he can’t speak, and there’s lots of accordion music. The act relies almost entirely on three things: cheap props, the sound technician, and audience participation – and not in a Garry Starr kind of way that manages to win over even the most reluctant audience member.

His heavily gelled side-sweep haircut, black canvas shoulder bag and panda-eye make-up are not the only things that feel dated. Today, it’s standard fodder for comedians to incorporate audio-visual elements into their shows with far more finesse than what we see here. Many of the song references have not endured, there’s no narrative through-line, and the over-reliance on props means the jokes take too long to set up. I didn’t find it funny in 2026, but judging by the post-show photo opps, enough of the audience was on board.
★★
Reviewed by Hannah Francis

The Age is a Melbourne International Comedy Festival partner.

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