Sophie Kelly’s Miriam and The Monkfish, while not setting the standard for the festival, does its thing with confidence and a certain devotion to the task. After all, the audience seemed to laugh in all the right places and clap at the end.

Miriam, an uptight Toorak type in perfect costume, is cooking for some important clients of her husband and wants to impress with her culinary skill. All of the requisite character studies are on display here’a little bit of upper-class racism, a thin facade of happiness, and the language we’ve all come to expect from such a character. Kelly’s portrayal is well-developed, and she managed to throw in a few jokes, which had me laughing a couple of times.

Unfortunately for me, that’s as good as it got. It seem that this character is a bit of a fall back for people trying to establish their caricature credentials’and unfortunately, this one didn’t really bring anything new to the concept. When Prue and Trude from Kath & Kim are so funny and nuanced, it’s hard to see where Miriam differs or improves.

Admittedly, there is some wonderful devotion to physical comedy and good old-fashioned slapstick in the closing throws of the show, but this wasn’t enough to take the show from ‘see’ to ‘Must See!’ for me.