Saturday witnessed all manner of mirth and merriment at the penultimate night of this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival club at the HiFi Bar, not the least of which was a pole-dance-off between rapidly-shirtless and Hannah Gadsby. Their performance, an undoubted highlight of the evening, soon segued into the presentation of the festival awards, in a brief ceremony overseen by MC Lehmo.

The winner of the festival’s prestigious Barry Award (named after inaugural patron Barry Humphries) was British comedian Daniel Kitson, for his show It’s the Fireworks Talking. Upon accepting his …

Must. Laugh. At. Funny. Person. Must. Drag. Exhausted. Carcass. To Next Gig. Must. Laugh. HYSTERICALLY. At. Funny. Person…
No, wait a minute, that’s not a funny person, that’s another fucking cashed-up bogan in a pink polo shirt with the fucking collar turned up who’s part of the audience! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE AND WHY THE HELL DO YOU LINE UP TO LAUGH AT SOME OF THE MOST BLAND, MEDIOCRE, MIDDLE OF THE ROAD SHITE IN THE FESTIVAL?
Woah, Richard, get a grip. Elitist, much?
Ahem. As you can tell, the Comedy …

The end is in sight, ladies and gentlemen. Soon I can return to blogging as usual, instead of obsessively documenting every comedy show I’ve seen in the festival this year. I’m sure some people are reading these reviews and using them as guidelines as to what to see or what not to see. I also know that various comedians are coming here to read what I’ve written about them. Whoever you are, can you leave some goddamn comments please? It’s lonely here with just my hitcounter and me!
This next lot …

Alan Brough in Top Town. A one-man show set in Helenville, a small town at risk of being downgraded to a village if anyone else moves away, in which Brough plays every character, from the lady Mayor to the most eccentric of townsfolk. The plot sees Brough roped into making a promotional film for Helenville (which welcomes visitors with a sign reading ‘If you don’t stop, no hard feelings.’), which he ends up releasing on YouTube.
While likeable, and scattered through with some moments of genuinely inventive comedy (such as Brough’s …

Later that night, up the road, down a laneway and upstairs, Mike and I caught Michael Chamberlin’s latest show, a homage to Chamberlin’s lifelong friendships with two mates, Buddha and Bluey. With only about 20-25 people in a venue that could comfortably seat 100, Chamberlin might have struggled. Instead, he proved himself an adroit, engaging and charismatic performer who more than rose to the occasion. While this wasn’t an exceptionally brilliant night of comedy, Chamberlin’s stories of childhood misadventure in the Christmas pagent, inciting a schoolground rebellion over a confiscated …

Gerard McCulloch is Gerard McCulloch sees the affable Melbourne comedian dropping the characters and narrative structures that have informed previous shows such as Uncorked and Gerry of Arabia, returning to the roots of comedy to deliver an hour of somewhat basic stand-up. On Wednesday night, with only seven of us in the audience (not counting the two Auslan interpreters who left after about 15 minutes when it was clear their services weren’t required) the show ran short, and in truth limped across the finish line. Less people means less laughs, …

A difficult night for both the performers Mike and I saw on Wednesday night, I think, performing to small crowds in mostly empty rooms. So, how did they rise to the occasion?

Gerard McCulloch is Gerard McCulloch sees the affable Melbourne comedian dropping the characters and narrative structures that have informed previous shows such as Uncorked and Gerry of Arabia, returning to the roots of comedy to deliver an hour of somewhat basic stand-up. On Wednesday night, with only seven of us in the audience (not counting the two Auslan interpreters …

Having got the paper to bed earlier than expected on Tuesday night, indeed the earliest yet since I took over as editor of MCV , my first of two shows for Tuesday night was Phil Nichol – The Naked Racist.
While Nichol’s intense, provocative, turned-up-to-eleven tirades won’t be to everyone’s taste, if you like your comedy edgy, dark and almost threatening, this is the show for you. When he burst onto the stage I was slightly taken aback, expecting him to build the energy rather than explode straight away, but right …

God, I’ve fallen behind on my reviews a bit, haven’t I? Sorry about that. As penance, let me race through the last few days in brief, in order to bring this here blog up to speed, but never fear; where detail is required, as opposed to brevity, no adjective will be spared!
When last we met, dear reader (why am I channelling a Victorian novelist this morning?), it was Saturday night and I’d just walked out of the last five minutes of Anthony Morgan, as he ended his show by strapping …

Other committments kept me away from the Comedy Festival on Thursday, but by Friday night I was raring to go, making my way to Trades Hall for my first installment of Comedy@Trades, the remarkably successful independent program that, in just its second year, is challenging the official Festival Club as a late-night meeting place, while simultaneously creating a hub for alternatives to traditional stand-up comedy.

In the company of a girlfriend, Cerise, our first show for the night was Alzheimers the Musical: A Night to Remember. This three-woman show, performed by …

Sunday’s comedy fare kicked off with my first non-stand up show (hurrah!) as well as my first show by a Moosehead Award recipient.
Amelia Jane Hunter is Keith Flipp (the Girl from Belkondowns Flat) is a darkly comic show bording on drama or Fringe theatre, and while containing elements of character-based stand-up, was clearly confrontational for some audience members the night I saw it, who didn’t quite seem to know how to handle either the show or Hunter’s larger than life character.
At first glance Keith Flipp is a drag queen, but …

So I’ve thrown myself in the deep end and seen another six shows over the last two days, ranging (as you might expect) from the sublime to the shitful. Let’s start with what I saw on Saturday, accompanied by the luverly Lisa Greenaway, shall we?
First off was Aaron Keeffe’s It’s Not You, It’s Me, upstairs at English theme pub the Elephant & Wheelbarrow. Not somewhere I’ve been often, not being a fan of English beer, although I did once have a lukewarm parma there once. Speaking of lukewarm, let’s talk …

It’s an odd beast, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, with its long queues of punters lining the steps and corridors of the Melbourne Town Hall and snaking out into the streets. Up the road at Trades Hall you can find people puzzling over the lack of stand-up and seduced by strange theatricality, music and magic; or revelling in rogue cabaret at the Buterfly Club across the river, but for most punters, comedy means stand-up, and subsequently that’s how I started my festival this year, with three stand-up shows back to …