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 the spotlight with bold, energetic performance. His colourful embodiment of characters takes a fair chunk of inspiration from UK comedy characters and he comes off as a combination of Jez from Peep Show and The Mighty Boosh’s Dixon Bainbridge, but there is versatility and skill that suggests a promising future in comedy. On several occasions an actor disappears off one side of the stage, only to reappear from the other without any visible presence of the running around which must have taken place.

A lot in the show also takes inspiration from the UK, and sketches often have accents for no particular reason other than meta-reference. The belly-laughs were a little light on and were both helped and hindered by a crowd member who had an improbable laugh that often began before anyone had said anything. There are big ambitions for the team working behind Comicide, and having a member pull out would’ve affected preparations (the poster art had already been printed), but I do think that from a year’s worth of material the show could have been denser with shorter skits. A transformer-related joke proved their worth and better illustrated the talent on offer.