Reviews

Kitty Flanagan Live

Written & performed by Kitty Flanagan. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Athenaeum Theatre. 29 March – 23 April 2023

Seeing Kitty Flanagan live is a very different experience from seeing her on television. The personas of the much put-upon, slightly bewildered solicitor in Fisk, or the essentially stupid but arrogant bureaucrat of Utopia are absent. 

Stinking Hot Trash

Written, Performed: Isabelle Carney. Directors: Samuel Buckley and Will Hall. AV Director: Gabe Micallef. Lighting/Sound Operator: Lara Gabor. Dramaturg: Ella Godwin. MC Showroom Prahran. March 25 - April 8, 2023

Isabelle Carney has considerable presence and a warm, disciplined physicality which she uses to explore the notion of the trash which we insist on keeping in our lives. There isn’t a narrative, although the words are carefully chosen and for most of the show there are fast paced, funny moments which just hang in the air.

Fences

By August Wilson. Sydney Theatre Company. Wharf 1 Theatre. March 25 – May 6, 2023.

America has always been obsessed with Dads and their sons – dramatic clashes, often heart-tugging reconciliations, it’s such a trope throughout US theatre, screen and media.  

August Wilson’s compelling play takes up the theme in the front yard of a fraught Afro-American family in Pittsburgh in 1957.  It’s not too far from the world of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.

Brown Women Comedy

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Queen Victoria Women's Centre - Wayi Djerring, 210 Lonsdale St, Melbourne and Trades Hall - Common Rooms Bar, 54 Victoria St, Carlton. 6 March – 12 April, 2023

Brown Women Comedy rocking it at this year’s comedy festival

Callum Straford Nails Everything

Written & performed by Callum Straford. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Butterfly Club, Melbourne CBD. 4 – 9 April 2023

Billed as being about a ‘perfectionist ready to transcend his flaws’, Callum Straford’s show is about his attempts at improving himself and achieving success and, sadly, not transcending much at all.  That’s the thread that ties his show together.  The stage persona is doofus guy who wonders, ‘Should I change my sheets?’  He’s trying to make it as a comic and make sense of his life.  He’s a likeable, good looking fellow with a good singing voice, who plays the piano and the ukulele well. 

Alex Ward: Saving for a Jetpack

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Comedy Republic, 231 Bourke St, Melbourne. 30 March - 23 April 2023.

Alex Ward has great stage presence which is built on a very down to earth approach to her stand-up comedy. Ward shares a great deal of her personal experiences, her perspectives, and her life events and this creates a great sense of intimacy with the audience. This is also a factor that makes her humour and her performance style very relatable and endearing.

Julia

By Joanna Murray-Smith. Sydney Theatre Company. Director Sarah Goodes. Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House. 4 April – 13 May, 2023

Joanna Murray-Smith took on some heavy responsibilities when agreeing to write this play – responsibilities to the subject, the theme, the nation – and to herself as a writer. It is never easy to create a piece of theatre about someone who is living, especially when that

‘someone’ is now so well-known on the ‘world stage’, someone whose words have resounded internationally. Someone like Australia’s first, and, unfortunately, only, female Prime Minister. Someone like Julia Gillard.

Funny Money

By Ray Cooney. Castle Hill Players. The Pavilion Theatre. Mar 31 – Apr 2, 2023

If you are looking for some belly laughs between now and the 22nd of April, look no further.  Funny Money by Ray Cooney is being presented at The Pavilion Theatre by the talented folks from Castle Hill Players.  The money is funny, the play is funny and this production has the audience laughing out loud quite a lot.  There is something for everyone in this:  a hectic pace, comedic timing, sight gags, too many briefcases and eight distinctly different characters.

High Pony

Written & performed by Mel & Sam (Melanie O’Brien & Samantha Andrew). Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Toff in Town, Curtin House, Swanston Street, CBD. 30 March – 12 April 2023

High Pony has nothing to do with brumbies in the Alps. It’s a ponytail, worn high, the preferred hairstyle of your under-25s netball player. Thus Mel and Sam’s opening number in their show this year is, ‘Net-f*cking-ball’ – aggressive, defiant, in your face – and a sharply observed nasty, witty take on the immensely popular game and its sometimes strangely motivated players.  A contemporary phenomenon no less and therefore ripe for Mel and Sam to take the piss.

Alice Tovey: Not Like The Other Ghouls

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Tower, Malthouse Theatre. March 30 to April 9, 2023.

Alice Tovey: Not Like The Other Ghouls - the rock star goddess punches out her eclectic exorcisms of what it means to love the horror genre. A ghoulish show, residing in the Palace of Frankenstein where sketchy bits and pieces are stitched together into a full hour of comedy-cabaret.

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