Long ago, established comedian Lawrence Mooney came to the realisation that in order for a man to feel comfortable about laughing at something, he first has to look at the woman that he’s with in order to get permission. It’s a subconscious thing, perhaps left over from more chivalrous days, something we don’t even realise that we’re doing. It was at this point that I looked over to my fiance … and she was laughing. I rightly assumed that I had permission to laugh, and I perhaps overused it!
Lawrence Mooney …

Like fashion’s foray into flannel, one of this festival’s stronger trends has been 1990s nostalgia. A natural progression from the comic book/cartoon fascination generated by blockbusters and internet download trends, celebrating our youth ironically has been a favourite of thirty-year-old male comics. But on this closing weekend with a final Festival Club headliner, MICF organisers have hooked their rose-tinted Oakleys onto their No Fear T-shirt and instead plucked from overseas a boy born in 1990.
Freshly graduated from school, Bo Burnham is an internet celebrity with a Comedy Channel special already …

If people browse the Comedy Festival guide like they surf the internet, the first thing they’ll hit is Sexual Perversity. So it was the first thing The Pun hit.
Audience members entered this four-hander play wearing badges boasting ‘Sexy’ or ‘Perv’ and were greeted at lights up by Muddy Waters’ ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and tight brown lounge suits bulging at the crotch. It’s a bar scene and Bernie (David Bramble) sweats sexual animalism as he regales his mate Danny (Ben Griffiths) with last night’s conquest. It could almost be a scene …

A show that opens with an uninspired writer trying to write at their desk, but instead miserably eating chocolate, is a bad sign. You can’t help feeling the author’s imagination has gone out the window (which is incidentally the only other prop in this ingeniously stripped-back set design) and that they are just writing exactly what they were doing a few months before the festival.
Luckily, you know not to stop at this potentially bad sign, and for that you’ll be rewarded. This light-hearted caper is enriched with fun, clever writing …

This is definitely a comedy show. Writer Keiran King warns “these scripts are made purely to entertain, that’s it – no meanings, no thinking too hard”. There are no themes, narrative threads or messages to learn, just silly antics committed to wholeheartedly by a boisterous cast of five. The sprawling nature of the four main sketches cook up images of inner-urban sharehouse life; renting inspiration from hard rubbish days, television shows and begging drunks.
This is a confident production that entertains you during set changes with quick, funny skits or medleys …

Dark thunderclouds meant the transition from day to night started about eight hours earlier than expected last Friday, so it was appropriate to celebrate with Evening: A Cabaret.
Perched in peach-coloured shirts, the band played keyboard and varnished string instruments as they welcomed in the audience. Location is a defining factor of cabaret (smoky nightclubs or themed restaurants being the norm) so the restrained surrounds of the Old Chamber Rooms at Trades Hall gave the Duskbuskers an uphill battle. But hills aren’t so important in modern warfare, and they quickly won …

I came to the conclusion after Pablo Francisco’s show that his style either really appeals or it doesn’t. For me, it doesn’t. That’s not to say the room wasn’t filled with uproarious laughter and there was a long queue for his DVD signing after the show. The Chilean American seems to have a cult following but he can hardly be mistaken for funny. In fact, I felt dismayed throughout. His seventy minutes were far too frenetic and exhausting for someone like me who prefers more intelligent, less rumbustious comedy.
There’s no …

I was asked by my terminally un-PC younger brother if this show was actually good, or just good because they is blackfellas. Well, it’s a bit of both, I guess. It was actually good, and it was good because they are blackfella’s.
Although unpolished and with generous lashings of cheese, there were some gold moments in the show. With two actors and two stand-up comics, various strengths came to the fore in the mixed bag of stand up, skits, and just plain random moments.
Commencing with a traditional aboriginal dance, with what …

British comedian Jeff Green met and fell in love with a Melbourne girl at the Comedy Festival ten years ago, so his new show Living the Dream goes well beyond the shallow observational humour about Australia that many UK and US comics employ in their festival acts.
Instead, Green waxes cynical about suburban life in Heidelberg, about visiting Northland Shopping Centre on ‘Ugly Day’ (although I think it’s always Ugly Day at Northland to be honest), and he jokes about his wife and kids in a way that is simultaneously old …

Sitting on a crate in front of a makeshift map of the world, nursing his fiddle and bow and bursting out with wild music, wild stories, and wild hair, Aindrias de Staic received a standing ovation from his capacity crowd on Tuesday night. He began the night by tapping one foot, which he kept up for most of the performance – and I defy you not to be tapping yours as well by the end.
Despite the unprepossessing setting and set-up, this was a highly entertaining and witty show. Aindrias’ one-man …

Comicide are a hardworking comedy troupe. Every second weekend they meet to write sketches, and on the alternate weekends they perform them at the Roxbury Hotel in Sydney. The constant turn around and feedback gave Comicide mountains of material to choose from when forming their one-hour MICF show. The four comics – including the director, who had to shift on stage when one member of the group pulled out shortly before the festival – pull off the show with technical aplomb.
Patrick Magee is the star of this show, frequently stealing …

First things first - this is not your typical stand-up show. Don’t be upset - that’s a good thing. Alexis Dubus is here to give you all an in-depth, well researched lecture on the history of swearing. It’s educational, informative, sometimes unbelievable and overall entertaining.
Strangely enough, given the title, this show is about bad words. Lots of them. There is ample warning if you are somewhat offended by naughtiness, and the audience participation element of yelling out your favourite curse word should be enough to send any meek participants into …

The Butterfly Club, its walls festooned with curious objects and its stage open to upcoming cabaret performers, just turned ten. To celebrate the occasion, a variety show was held – strangely, at the Hi Fi Bar – showcasing some of the acts that the Butterfly Club originally nurtured.
And what a variety of acts they were. The Beautiful Losers veered gloriously from unsettling to the unspeakable, and Sammy J did an amusingly conflict-ridden double act with Randy the puppet. The cast of World War Wonderful impressed by not only being able …

If you’re a Festival punter who’s not interested in performers with juggernautical reputations or FM radio contracts, I highly recommend that you see The List Operators. I enjoyed it so much that I don’t really have any caveats. I do, however, have some worries:
If I tell you that this is comedy offered via the medium of the written list, you might get the impression this performance is formulaic and dull.
If I try to counter this by mentioning that it encompasses a semiotic analysis of an obtuse comedy sketch, the licentious …

Luck was the theme for the evening long before we shuffled into the Allende room at Trades Hall for Sarah Bennetto’s show. Dicing with a homicidal mini on the way meant we were running late, so we missed the first few minutes.
Sarah is not only one of those almost mythical creatures who win competitions; she has also been blessed with good fortune in other areas. It is this lifetime’s experience that provides her with a rich vein of material to mine. From winning a car, meeting her favourite band or …

Kiosk is a new outing for Melbourne boy Wes Snelling, and is an excellent showcase for his ever-developing skills as a performer. Less a cabaret show, more theatre-based, it’s an exploration through song of his childhood; a story about growing up in the Kyneton Caravan Park and the characters who lived there.
If you’re a fan of Snelling’s work, then you’ll definitely enjoy the opportunity to watch him push himself as a performer, relying on his acting skills and a handful of simple props - a handkerchief, a hat, a handbag …