The Sandz and Hopper Show is hidden away in a tiny room in Trades Hall, where the endearingly glum Lou Sanz and cheerfully madcap Claire Hooper are given free rein to construct a whole world for their small audience. This comedy show about making a comedy show riffs happily on the contrasting personae of these two accomplished comics – Hooper’s gangling antics marvellously offset by the subtlety of Sanz’ rolled eye or quirk of the lip – but never gets bogged down in theatricality. Instead, the audience is treated to …

Who’s a clever girl, then? Well, Karin Muiznieks for one. Remember the name even if you can’t spell it yet!
Muiznieks’ show is built around a political lecture about the class struggle. She has a boardful of cartoons outlining the problems of the world. It may sound a bit ‘Rod Quantock’ but it certainly isn’t. It’s not even a tirade really – it’s an excuse for the songs which are the strength of the show.
Her band (Roland on piano and Emma the multi-instrumentalist) plays the overture till Karin, in gold lame …

American business guru Tom Peters says that the secret to success is to ‘under promise and over deliver’. Funny Irishman and tiny Yamaha keyboard guru David O’Doherty appears to subscribe to this advice.
His first song for the evening instructs the audience to ‘please lower your expectations’. Then he tells us how bad he is at telling jokes. Then he laments that every review he has ever received has essentially said, ‘It’s good, I suppose. If you’re into that sort of thing.’ And then he over delivers.
O’Doherty’s sense of humour is …

Bang up for some late-night comedy on a Thursday and want bang for your buck? Well, the ladies from Bang Bang Agency: Bang On clearly had you in mind when they named their show.
Another variety night featuring (mainly) the female of the species, it’s coordinated by carny-about-town Anna “Pocket Rocket” Lumb and self-appointed Poet Laureate Telia Neville. Already, that’s a weird marriage of irrepressible acrobatics and deadpan-droll verse, but it works – the strong performers anchor the show with ease.
On opening night, MC Tina del Twist was an entertainingly over-the-top …

The beauty of the Comedy Festival for me is that its greatest delights are often unexpected: you buy tickets for Jason Byrne, Reginald D. Hunter or Nina Conti and largely, you know what you’re going to get; you buy tickets for first-timers and you takes your chances – sometimes you lose, but sometimes you back a winner.
Take Poet Laureate Telia Nevile for example. Nevile, tall and slim, at first glance seems too timid to impress, but she takes the stage, draws a deep breath and plunges into a slide show …

No one can fault Adam Vincent for his dedication – from the moment the audience enters to the start of the show, he sits in the corner of the stage with a sleeping mask over his eyes… in an airline seat, no less.
Occasionally throughout his hour of stand-up he makes references to an experience on a flight that required his newly acquired medical knowledge, even going to the point of having prerecorded messages from flight attendants. Eventually reaching his story, Vincent is both simplistic in his concepts and hilarious in …

Scott Brennan, Adam Richard and Toby Sullivan present what they freely admit is probably the least structured or rehearsed show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, a stand-up panel they’ve dubbed Talking Poofy.
Quaffing champers throughout and making each other laugh pretty much constantly, Brennan, Richard and Sullivan (‘just three VERY fucking lazy drag queens, people!’) manage to simultaneously challenge and reinforce a good deal of stereotypes about gay culture. Ranging from old-fashioned Carry On camp to new century pop culture – ‘Homo …

It is always exciting to see a Moosehead Award recipient in action and thankfully I was largely not disappointed with Clark’s 2010 show.
Clark’s physical comedy and quick punch lines had the audience on the edge of their seats cheering and clapping like a football supporter on grand final. His dance sequence is second to none – even audience members who normally try to resist such ridiculous antics cannot fight the urge to laugh out loud. As a Perth boy who moved to Ireland, Clark has endless sharp tongued observations of …

In a rather hot and cramped boardroom at Three Degrees in the QV building, Caroyln Chillura, Gavin Baskerville and Wendy Little take us on a journey in and out of Generation X – the highs and the lows, the expectations and the embarrassments, the Bradys and the Cobains. The Boomers before us and the Generation Y-ers after us get a serve or two as well, but nothing comes off as malicious or mean-spirited. In fact, all three comedians are genuinely likable and …

Those that read my review of Vigelantelope’s epic production Tale of the Golden Lease from last year’s festival will understand my anticipation at viewing what they had to offer in 2010. Unfortunately, the sheen seems to have fallen from this seemingly up-and-coming comedy group, as Prophecy of the Quantum Child fell rather flat and disjointed.
That may be a tad harsh, as Propechy of the Quantum Child is certainly a very fun show – not necessarily attributable to the comedy, the songs or even the performance of the four protagonists. The …

Emceed by Dave Callan, The Comedy Zone was the focus point for five new and emerging comics to appear at the Festival after being spotted by “talent scouts” – apparently.
First up Shayne Hunter from the Sunshine State (Queensland, that is) who trundled out on stage armed with incisive, cutting observational one liners in a deadpan, apathetic delivery style, which garnered the first belly laughs of the night.
New South Welshwoman Emma Zammit was next, peddling old and tired wog jokes and coupling them with similarly worn Gen Y material; she didn’t …

How complicated can you make a love triangle? Well, if you’re Circus Trick Tease, it requires a lot of standing on heads.
The relentlessly energetic show tells the story of a neurotic strongman, his alcoholic ring-mistress lover, and a dopey international guest star. Between them, they’ve got muscles enough to move mountains – and hormones aren’t in short supply, either.
The story’s straight-forward, but that’s about it. With some of the best over-acting you’ll see under an (imagined) big top, the three performers have comic timing to match their acrobatic equivalent. All …

Lou Sanz’s Please Don’t Use My Flannel For That: A Memoir is the quintessential Melbourne International Comedy Festival show: a promising new act performing in the basement of a club hidden down one of the many lanes of Melbourne.
Sanz reads from her memoir, from a time when she moved to Hollywood as a screen writer to make a film. The show outlines the mishaps and misfortunes of her move overseas, with pauses to include additional background information. Sanz has a vast quantity of material, and her stage presence is what …

Peter Berner should have been at KRudd’s 2020 summit. He told me so. About 50 times throughout the course of his show Binge Thinker. Sure, he might not have provided Our Beloved Leader with quite the photo opportunity that Our Cate delivered. (And in fact, the man is rocking the most horrific bald-and-beard look you’ll see this festival.) But he’s got the ideas.
In truth it is a pity the once-host of ABC TV BackBerner and The Einstein Factor didn’t get a guernsey. It certainly would have livened up proceedings.
In a stripped-back …