Having studied at – you guessed it, Ecole Philippe Gaulier’s lauded French school – Venn is as imbecilic and energetic in a 150-seater as he was in the cavernous British theatres where the aforementioned reality competition was filmed. The hi-vis vests, recurring Daft Punk soundtrack and manipulation of Eminem’s My Name Is that made him a television phenom all make an appearance. If you’re wary of audience participation, stay far away from the front rows – you may end up proposing to a stranger.

It’s a frenetic patchwork of an hour. When you feel the wheels may have fallen off, you’re quickly assured that you’re in the hands of a master of chaos. Although, spare a thought for his poor tech – with so many audio/visual cues you can only imagine they’ll have carpal tunnel by the end of the run.

It’s a nonsensically beguiling way to spend an evening.
★★★★
Reviewed by Tyson Wray

Tess Birch | How NOT To Run a Music Festival
Coopers Inn 2, until April 21

Tess Birch is a lawyer by day and comedian/music festival organiser by night. The effortlessly ebullient Melbourne comic got roped into the festival caper seven years ago by her partner and since then, they’ve tried to make Loch Hart Festival a viable (and profitable) escapade.

This is a pacy, crisp hour of Fyre Festival meets Woodstock tales that never lags, contains loads of beautifully written jokes and a PowerPoint presentation packed with callbacks.

Birch paints a vivid picture of shifty characters, including Saffron the flaky vegan, her paranoid colleagues and over-eager coastal police.

She also dishes the dirt on some artists’ rider requests: “They’re called riders because the band are literally taking you for a ride.”

Her permanent smile belies a bait ‘n’ switch approach to punchlines that makes this a very enjoyable and original show. You’ll wince at the hard parts (a story about a non-native American colleague turning up to her shift wearing native American headwear) and rejoice at the unlikely heroes (a friend who cleaned up the portaloos without being asked). Brilliant.
★★★★
Reviewed by Mikey Cahill

Josh Thomas | Let’s Tidy Up
Arts Centre Melbourne, until April 21

The title of Let’s Tidy Up is… aspirational. No one really expects Josh Thomas, creator of Please Like Me and Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, to clean anything in this hour of stand-up, though the stage could use a little sprucing should the mood ever take him.

For most of the show, confetti rains down over an obscurely cluttered set. It looks like a TV quiz show championship being filmed in a student share house, and proves a fair frame for the rambling and tangential web that unfolds (for a visual of the show’s narrative structure, Google “spiders on LSD”).

Thomas’ peculiar brand of offbeat comedy doesn’t take long to raise a hot-button issue: the massive increase in autism diagnoses. The comedian discovered he had ADHD back when that was still interesting (and has been diagnosed with autism since then) and allows himself a few uncharitable remarks about the size of the bandwagon.

He isn’t so loose a cannon he’ll risk improvised offence, though. One latecomer excused her tardiness citing “crip time”, and whatever disability quip leapt into Thomas’ mind stayed there. He wrestled with himself internally, before deciding: “I’m not brave enough.”

Shrewdness is a quality I don’t admire in comedians, but it was a rare moment of circumspection in an otherwise unfiltered take on Thomas’ life. Dinner parties. Animal carnage. Tales of Hollywood quirk and debauchery. A comprehensive romantic update that holds it all together.

Let’s Tidy Up is co-written with playwright Lally Katz, whose wacky humour it sometimes recycles. I’m old enough to have seen Katz’s Stories I Want to Tell You in Person (2013), and if this show’s anything to go by, Katz may have the most artistically virulent strain of herpes the world has ever known.

Still, the lion’s share of the material is pure Josh Thomas, and his fans should relish the opportunity to watch live the eccentric charm that’s made him a celebrated figure in Australian comedy.
★★★
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

Annie and Lena | Have a Talk Show
The Malthouse – Playbox, until April 21

For a few seconds you’d be convinced former child actor Drew Barrymore, in talk-show-host-mode, was on stage at The Malthouse.

Annie Lumsden and Lena Moon, acting as production assistants, prime the crowd for a 50-minute foray into “behind the scenes” of a talk show, complete with an applause sign that lights up sporadically, begging for audience validation.

A video vignette, recorded by a prime selection of comic notables including Celia Pacquola ( in the audience on this night) is peppered with funny quips. Moon’s impressions are brilliant (her southern drawl is golden) and while a bit “yelly”, Lumsden brims with over-the-top ebullience.

Oddly, there’s an apology for being loud – before and after the show, and an exchange with a bloke in the front row goes nowhere.

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Overall, it’s sketch comedy delivered with chaotic exuberance and constant costume changes, and the show builds to a clever climax.
★★★
Reviewed by Donna Demaio

The Ghostlight League | Shakespeare Ghostbusters
St Martins Theatre, until April 13

Shakespeare Ghostbusters does what it says on the box. It’s a re-enactment of the 1984 film rewritten in Shakespearean English, and it’s as much fun as the free-for-alls from those boozehound thesps at Sh!t-faced Shakespeare (whose Macbeth is also showing at this year’s Comedy Festival).

What makes it work? Nerdlove. Camp devotion to Ghostbusters carries the show, and although there are no plot surprises, there’s comic mystery in how the artists will find novel solutions to cinematic problems through costume, puppetry, and lo-fi special effects.

Some of these are unbelievably cute. Wanna see Slimer and Zuul in Elizabethan ruffs? This show’s got you covered.

And the actors embrace physical comedy, Shakespearean silliness, and pinpoint impersonations of performances (not to mention iconic scenes) from the original movie.

Lone reservation: Winston Zeddemore, the Black ghostbuster, is played by a white actor. That’s… awkward.

Still, after the furore the 2016 all-women Ghostbusters remake caused online, a cross-gendered Egon should keep the incels away, and Ghostbusters fans will get a kick out of this improbable and entertaining comic mashup.
★★★
Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead

Sonny Yang | Tales from My Immigrant Father: A Serious & Poignant Show About Culture for a Pretentious Audience
Trades Hall – Archive Room, until April 21

Sonny Yang’s sketch comedy begins on a sombre note: with a black-and-white slideshow chronicling his father’s life in Burma and a familiar soliloquy, expanding on themes of fractured cultural identity, a disconnect with the homeland and a desire to rediscover his father, and in the process, himself. It seems as though Yang is laying the groundwork for the classic migrant story so he can dismantle it, speak against it.

Cue an absurdist turn in the show when Yang receives news that his father has died. A pre-recorded, prolonged Zoom call with his father’s blended white and Burmese family plays out – Yang trying to get a word in while the most aggravating caricatures of middle Australia take centre stage. Further strange things happen.

The show is less about skewering the migrant stereotype than it is about lambasting the many faces of white Australia: the fetishising Bali-loving uncle, the wine enthusiast, the boastful mum. The problem is: even if the depictions ring true, none of it is particularly funny. A talking goldfish elicits the most laughs.

There are seeds of interesting explorations of model minorities and the ridiculousness of the arts, but these ideas never fully come together convincingly.
★★
Reviewed by Sonia Nair

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