As the young dweeb Fox is drawn into Gatto’s lair, the audience witnesses the brutality and the psychological highs and lows Fox experiences at the hands of his master. Or is it the other way around? Or, chillingly, are they both just products of a greedy, soulless industry?

An excellent two-man play, featuring outstanding performances from Ged Cogley (Gordon Gatto) and Jamie McCarney (Fox Michaels), Collins Street has enough laughs and brazenly over-the-top, physical descriptions of oral sex to cement a place in the comedy festival. But some of the scenes were so intense that I imagine the show could easily be performed outside the sometimes limiting framework of a comedy festival (including a pub venue that’s hardly set up to stage a serious play). A great little show with better acting than you’ll see in most festival shows.

But Maeve, you need to lose the props. And perform to smaller rooms. Kitten Brides, while not as prop-riddled as last year’s Ha Ha Yum (where cakes were baked on stage – tasty but ultra distracting), still had its fair share of unnecessary items. Porcelain animals that have no real purpose apart from sitting there looking kitschy and silly belong on the mantelpiece of a sharehouse lounge room, not on the stage of a standup gig.

And the size of the room? Well, a large room and a comedian with a tendency to criticise themselves just a little bit too much simply doesn’t seem to work. OK, so it was a preview, but the three-quarters-full room could smell your nervousness, Maeve, and didn’t respond well to you telling them you don’t think you’re a very good comedian. Please don’t tell us that! It’s simply not true.

I hope next year you still come to Melbourne, Maeve, and you get a smaller room, ditch those props (you really really can do without them), and suck the punters into your zany, funny world – full of poker-faced cats, squeaking rhubarbs and evil ex-boyfriends that deserve to die.

After last year’s well-received The Ghosts of Ricketts Hill, moustachioed local trio the Suitcase Royale are back with another mindbogglingly insane, high-energy performance. Three men in spacesuits are trying to find the cure to ‘mannequinism’, a rare disease that turns humans into wooden mannequins. But instead of finding the cure, they find The Cure, and discover that boys don’t cry…

So what if setting the show in space is just an excuse to spend lots of cash on every cliched low-budget ‘space’ prop imaginable? Yes, the stage is awash with aluminium foil, flashing lights and hilarious little Scottish robots made out of cardboard boxes, but it’s even better for it. Carefully styled low-budgetry teamed with clever jokes is what this show is all about.

There is almost so much going on in the Space Show, you’d be forgiven for walking out and wondering what hit you. But with their constant stream of pop-cultural references and a few fart jokes thrown in for good measure, these extroverted skivvy-wearing astronauts manage to keep the audience entertained, if a little blinded by all that aluminium foil.

It’s a show based around true events – the ridiculous situation Bloustien found himself in a few years ago when he was forced to defend his comedy and its ultimate funniness in court. It sounds almost unbelievable, but Bloustien expertly and genuinely works his account of events in to what ends up being an exploration of the tough existence of a professional comedian just trying to scrape by.

Even when covering a few topics that might come across as unoriginal or overdone in the hands of lesser performers, such as Facebook, or the current global economic crisis, Bloustien manages to put a personal and intelligent spin on things and all is forgiven.

This is tight, professional comedy, and the intimate setting of the Gold Room at the Portland Hotel only serves to confirm this – if you can ignore the sounds of the cover band eminating from the downstairs bar. A deserving recipient of a Moosehead Award (which gave Bloustien the directorial services of Alan Brough, a man that can do no wrong), The Social Contract is a finely honed and spot-on show that provides real insights into the life of a stand-up comic.

Cue The Delusionists in Bunker 5, a well-crafted show following the shenanigans of three boys and two girls hiding out in a vast bunker – complete with squash court! There’s Ben the superdork self-styled dictator; Alex, Ben’s fresh-faced innocent sidekick and the girl of his dreams; Simon, a jokey bloke with a secret passion for a plant; Steen the gangly wallflower with a sock friend; and Susie, a lonely soul who just wants some space and a little bit of love.

The script is tight and the jokes fast-flowing. For a five-person one-hour show, the characters are incredibly well-drawn ­– I was quickly sucked into the minutiae of everyday life down in the expansive bunker. In fact, the characters felt so real and familiar that a lot of audience members (including this reviewer) had a bit of a tear in their eyes as the show built up to what was a truly memorable ending.

A mix of physical comedy, music and traditional laughs, The Delusionists have pulled off what many acts have tried and failed to do ­– a rollicking narrative-based perfomance with a friendly, fun feel about it.