What would Melbourne International Comedy Festival be without the Great Debate’two hours of cerebral musings, comedic posturing and verbal stoushs between some of the festival’s local and international acts?

This year, the topic ‘Ignorance Is Bliss’ remained under wraps until the audience filed into Melbourne Town Hall.

Moderated by Fitzroy’s own Corinne Grant, the affirmative team was Paul McDermott (captain), Fiona O’Loughlin and Jason Byrne, and the negative team was headed by Stephen K Amos with Claire Hooper and Greg Fleet.

Grant only just managed to reel in the speakers and keep them on time, although not on topic. But that’s what the Great Debate is all about’tenuous comedic threads unconvincingly linked to a single subject. It’s just the route used that varies.

McDermott and Amos took the philosophical path to argue that ignorance is bliss; whereas, O’Loughlin and Hooper followed on with the personal. O’Loughlin’s tale of blissful ignorance when flying business class demonstrated her point, while Hooper successfully argued it’s trips to the toilet that are bliss, not ignorance.

The Great Debate is billed as ‘famous funny people grand-standing,’ which is a completely accurate account of the proceedings. From Byrne setting up a flying ironing board, Fleet ending his spiel with two sock puppets belting out The Pogues’s ‘Fairytale in New York’ and McDermott calling members of the audience on stage to join him sing about cocks, the Great Debate is very rarely about the debate topic but always about showing off.