To anyone who has ever ‘solved’ a Rubik’s cube by peeling off the stickers and rearranging them, go to Lawrence Leung’s show The Marvellous Misadventures of Puzzle Boy. Lawrence has spent the last 20 years trying to learn the secret behind solving the iconic 80s puzzle toy. “There are hundreds of different methods, but they all require a lot of memory and pattern recognition, and the most important thing is patience,” he says. So has he cracked it?
You’ll have to see the show to find out. Puzzle Boy covers autobiographical …

Question: what if Australia’s pre-eminent political comedian, described by The Age as ‘a living Melbourne treasure’, were charged as a terrorist? It could happen. Last week Rod Quantock hosted The Inaugural Golden Guy Fawkes Award, in which local and international comedians competed for the ‘Comedian Most Likely to Blow-Up Parliament’ Award. Quantock was expecting some very special visitors to the event, held at The Old Melbourne Gaol.
‘I sent invitations to ASIO and the Chief of Police,’ he says. But how would we know if they were in the audience? ‘They’re …

How is your Festival going?
Good. I’m enjoying myself but I’m getting a bit tired, as I’m sure all comedians are, at this point.
I’ve checked out your schedule and it seems like you’re doing pretty much every night?
Yeah. I’m working full-time as well.
Are you a masochist?
Yeah I am actually. So I’m basically trying to do a little bit too much at the moment I think.
You work as a teacher I believe?
Yeah. I do. Pretty much everything I do requires my voice.
Wouldn’t it be easier to write everything up on the board …

Since its inception in 2001, The Crew has performed over two-hundred shows, seen its members proceed to successful performing careers and in the process established itself as the longest running and most successful weekly improv show in Australia.
But this is hardly the time to get lazy.
‘We’ve spent the majority of the last four years doing short-form, which is often described as ‘jumping through hoops for the audience’,’ says Rob Lloyd, The Crew’s Artistic Director. ‘Then late last year we decided to use 2005 to explore new and challenging forms of …

If you’re into musical comedy, you’re gonna love this one. 90 members of the Melbourne Youth Orchestra pack the Melbourne Town Hall to perform alongside comedians including Scared Weird Little Guys, Russell Fletcher as Danny Kaye, Genevieve Clifford and Nicholas Buc. According to Dhari Vij, who plays double bass in the orchestra, it’s an experience they’re unsure how to handle. ‘Our rehearsals are made up of comedians cracking jokes.’
Ranging from Mozart to John Williams, Score Reloaded is basically a war on music, performed live on stage in front of hundreds. …

While you’re watching Andrew McClelland up on stage, you might recognise him from his stints on radio, in the DJ booth or cutting sick on the dance floor. For this fervent comedian, all these passions combine into an inspiring Comedy Festival show.
He loves music. That seems to be the basis for the Comedy Festival show Andrew McClelland’s Mix Tape. No philosophical meaning, no in-depth analysis or long-winded story about a bad experience with a tape deck. It’s a refreshing thought; McClelland is just passionate about his music, and wanted to …

Michael Chamberlin is taking on God with his show Michael Chamberlin and the Ten Commandments for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival this year. Not content with the oldest rules in the religious book, Chamberlin is convinced that they need some updating to make it in the modern world.
While others may do shows for the Festival based on climbing metaphoric or literal mountains, Chamberlin keeps close to his Catholic upbringing ‘I’ve never been trapped in the bush or contracted some exotic disease,’ he explains, ‘this was what I dealt with growing …