This wrap of shows across the Melbourne International Comedy Festival includes performances by Jordan Gray, Lara Ricote, Joshua Ladgrove, Lizzy Hoo, Claire Hooper and more.
Jordan Gray | Is it a Bird? ★★★★★
Melbourne Town Hall, until 23 April
This is cutting satire wrapped up in poptastic packaging. The energy is electric as Jordan Gray regales the audience with song and stand-up delivered with sass. Is it a Bird? presents us with a superhero conundrum. Why are we cool with Bruce Wayne identifying as a bat, replete with camp costume, but some people still want to protest trans women?
Jordan Gray presents a superhero conundrum.
Gray might be a fan of superheroes but she’s not afraid to ask the hard questions. Her superpower is highlighting the hypocrisy of transphobes and transphobia which she does with biting lyrics and blazing stand-up. There are shock and awe tactics here, but they work to ask what people are so afraid of. When the truth is laid bare, it’s not trans people who are worthy of ridicule, but the people obsessed with denying their humanity.
Jordan Gray is the hero Melbourne deserves and needs right now, bringing trans joy to the face of a city that has recently had to stare down transphobic Nazis.
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton
Lara Ricote | GRL/LATNX/DEF (MEX) ★★★★½
The Westin Three, until April 23
Lara Ricote is presenting comedy as real as the truths you’re serving up in the all-women group chat of your most trusted friends. From flirty to filthy, it’s as wonderful as it is wicked. Girl, Latinx, Deaf she might be and there’s plenty of material about her experiences as all three, but is it calculating to do a show about your marginalised identities in this era, asks Ricote? No complaints when it results in a show this unique and entertaining.
Lara Ricote knows how to work a room.
Ricote knows how to work a room. Her timing is impeccable, her usage of the long pause admirable, and her read on the audience spot on.
She might appear impish on stage, but after lulling the audience by telling us she feels more girl than woman, Ricote pushes the envelope until by the end of the show you wonder how we ended up here. This is adult humour of the best kind.
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton
Joshua Ladgrove | Baba ★★★★½
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 23
Part comedy show, part history lesson, and fully a homage to the profound love he felt for his 97-year-old grandmother before her passing, Baba is a sensational hour.
Ladgrove, more well known to festival audiences as his madcap character of Neal Portenza, has cast off the shackles of silliness to delve into the very real relationship he had with his grandmother during the pandemic lockdowns, and as she moved closer to shuffling off this mortal coil.
Joshua Ladgrove pays homage to his 97-year-old grandmother.
Laughs are abundant, his historian-like knowledge of Slavic political warfare and international relations is immaculately articulated, as is his deep hatred of communism.
Plus, a few drive-bys at The Project, Frank Walker, Putin, and even his own tech help level out the tension when subject matter borders on slightly too serious.
You’ll leave with a stomach aching of laughs, tears in your eyes and the urge to call your relatives and let them know that you love them. To inspire such a show, you can only imagine what a wonderful woman his Baba must have been.
Reviewed by Tyson Wray
Sam See | Government Approved Sex
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 9 ★★★★
A few years back, Singaporean comic Sam See was invited by his government to host a series of public panels demystifying sex. He’s turned what he learned there into a laugh-packed sex ed lesson that’s genuinely full of the unexpected.
The sex education you missed: Sam See was asked by the government of Singapore to run a series of educational panels about love and sex.
It’s no surprise he scored the gig – he boasts Jimmy Carr swagger and Jiminy Crickett warmth (plus the sartorial panache of both). You trust him, which is essential for a show roaming from romance to kink, the cultural differences in dirty talk, and the worrying reason Durex killed off its global sex survey.
See never aims to shock, though, and the occasional moments of interaction only serve to galvanise the crowd. The stats he reveals – and the way the audience responds – hint at the diversity of experience and desire in any given room. It’s a reminder that there’s no normal, but you’re far more average than you might think.
Reviewed by John Bailey
DeAnne Smith | Nipless ★★★★
Chinese Museum – Silk Room, until April 23
DeAnne Smith is easily distracted they confirm, gently chastising an apparent super fan who snaps a photo, mid gag.
Once the ‘lovely energy’ in the room has been noted, their set brims with meandering anecdotes – mostly about love and loss. They roll-out relationship catastrophes – dissecting heartbreak and heart-mending.
DeAnne Smith invites heckling, then handles it with grace and wit.Credit:Suplied
The comic veteran canvasses the trials of a Vegas wedding, staying friends with exes, and pondering if therapy is worth it. Amidst hordes of relatable tales, the elucidation of the show’s title and a random moment of “brain crashing”, there’s a fair whack of heckling.
But is it heckling if the comedian urges the audience to ‘get involved’ from the outset, encouraging ‘fun contributions?’ As loads of interjections are flung, Smith embraces some and bats away others – maintaining a light-hearted grace, a nimble wit, and deft kindness.
Sharp and funny. Is this show better than therapy? Yep.
Reviewed by Donna Demaio
Mark Watson | Search ★★★★
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 23
With a faux beginning, Mark Watson delivers the audience four lies and a single truth to detect. Dressing up as a gigantic dildo, speaking multiple languages, sleeping with an Australian A-lister, et al – he leaves the stage and returns two minutes later and leaps into his show and slowly dissects the fiction.
Mark Watson
With motormouth delivery and a voice that breaks more often than a 15-year-old, Watson details the repercussions of his failed marriage, the bewilderment of his teenage son’s first Google searches since acquiring a smartphone, and Zoom meetings with teachers gone awry.
Generally fatherly material sinks terribly among most audiences. They, to put it bluntly to most comedians, don’t care about your kids. In Watson’s hands, it’s affable and deftly delivered – as you would expect from a veteran performing at his 11th comedy festival.
A side-note: this is not a show you want to be a latecomer for. Watson prepared the audience with a bombardment after his weekend shows were thwarted by traffic issues due to the Grand Prix. It didn’t eventuate tonight, but I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end when it does.
Nothing groundbreaking, but thoroughly enjoyable.
Reviewed by Tyson Wray
Claire Hooper | Sweet Charity ★★★½
Mantra on Russell until April 9
When soft plastic recycling systems collapsed, how many folks breathed a sigh of relief? Former co-host of The Great Australian Bake Off Claire Hooper suspects it’s a lot.
A card-carrying leftie (you’ll get your money’s worth trolling her if you’re right-wing, she suggests) who wants to do the right thing, she also hates being stuck on a green-fingered retreat with her kids. Or having to listen to the mournful dirges of Greens candidates who’ll never get cushy gigs in mining or big pharma.
Card-carrying leftie Claire Hooper keeps the laughs coming.
Picking at the scabs of parental and existential anxiety, she asks if it’s really going to make you feel better if you graciously pay for $45 of someone else’s chicken nuggets while stuck in a drive-through queue when all you want is a coffee? Is generosity to humanity and our future foolish? Sounds like a slog, but the chuckles keep coming and Hooper leaves us with hope.
Reviewed by Stephen A Russell
Lizzy Hoo |Woo Hoo! ★★★
Melbourne Town Hall, until April 26
Lizzy Hoo is on the cusp of turning 40, and she’s feeling fine. Her set is decorated with bright flowers, her outlook is sunny, and she likes who she is. This sets the tone for a show with relatable laughs in the biggest room Lizzy Hoo has performed in for the festival.
Lizzy Hoo
Hoo talks through the surprising turns life took for her to end up on stage as a comedian. Wanting to improve her presentation skills somehow led to comedy stages and television shows with some interesting diversions. Like the time she decided she needed to figure out her future by taking a year to work in Mongolia. As you do.
Whether talking about office jobs she loathed or bringing Australian culture to Mongolia, Hoo is in the flow. There’s no dark to offset the light, no life lesson to take home, and not a single lull. It’s peppy, positive, and a damn good time.
Reviewed by Lefa Singleton Norton
Bea Barbeau-Scurla | House ★★★
Storyville, until April 9
With the kind of content warnings that would make a cigarette pack wince, this isn’t the feel-good show of the fest. Right out of the gate, Bea Barbeau-Scurla lets us know she’ll be dragging us laughing and/or screaming into the deep end of the comedy pool. Thankfully she has the chops to keep us afloat.
For the last decade or so, stand-up has been the go-to artform through which to explore mental health, with big names from Maria Bamford to Patton Oswald to Hannah Gadsby reckoning with their inner demons in public.
Barbeau-Scurla’s hour puts her family in the crosshairs, teasing out the ways in which intergenerational trauma and denial led to angst-ridden teen years and serious adult therapy. Somehow she squeezes big laughs from all this – getting negged by your mum, growing up in a ‘yelling household’, the harrowing ordeal of reading your old diaries. It’s heavy stuff, but served up with a winningly light touch.
Reviewed by John Bailey
Larry Dean | Fudnut ★★★
Swiss Club/Melbourne Town Hall until April 23
Glaswegian comedian Larry Dean may not have the nasal whine of a certain type of street-fighting guy stereotypically associated with his hometown, but he acknowledges his startling eyes make him appear as if he’s always wearing a tracksuit.
Larry Dean might do well to heed the advice of his therapist.
It’s one of several subtle nods to class commentary – like this of his posh boyfriend: “I’m from Glasgow, he’s from money” –tantalisingly hinting at something more behind an often-rambling, take the low road show. Skirting sheepishly around mental health; “Feel your feelings,” implores his therapist, and you can’t help wishing he’d follow their advice instead of always distracting with something silly.
Hung on an overlong and not very interesting airport search drama, at least the constant interjections allow a breather. But when Dean finally coalesces on an emotional tribute to those who lift us up when we need it most, you can feel a much stronger show waiting in the wings.
Reviewed by Stephen A Russell
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is on now until April 23. The Age is a festival media partner.
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