There is practically no turf the artist does not trod upon in his tongue-in-cheek delivery. Satire flows freely and the audience laps it up in loud guffaws. No one is spared: ‘museum’ bankers, mobile companies, neglectful parents, illogical traffic codes, even blokes with their ‘cash converted’ engagement rings and the ubiquitous ‘Australian’ barbecue.

However, there are a few crude spots that tend to be bawdy and some comments that border on the offensive. In this multi-hued comedy, some stabs are thought-provoking also.

The setting is drab with gloomy, black curtains as backdrop and dull lighting enhancing the effect. The artist does not lean on any props, relying solely on his comic stream to lighten the mood, and he is more than successful. The use of creative vocabulary is refreshing.

It is an interactive, intelligent, confident show that is seasoned with spicy jabs. If you like your laughs served sharp and unapologetic, this is the show for it.

The first part of my mission late on a Saturday night was to navigate into the bowels of Trades Hall and enter through the doors of The Police Box into a slightly-larger-than-a-broom-closet like room.

After an epic sci-fi type introduction, the title Wellington WHO started to make sense. Craig Wellington declared his geek past and an obsession with the BBC television series ‘Doctor Who’.

This Melbourne International Comedy Festival show is a comedy journey through Wellington’s life and his ‘Doctor Who’ nerd world. I’m not a ‘Doctor Who’ fan in the slightest, and a lot of the material went over my head.

Numerous times, I was that one person you find in every comedy audience who wasn’t laughing while everyone else was in hysterics. I just struggled a little bit because I really dislike ‘Doctor Who’.

What I did laugh at was the comedy skill with which Wellington jumped in and out of different nerd characters during his story.

This is an absolute must see for anyÔø?Ôø? ‘Doctor Who’ fan or sci-fi buff, and judging from everyone else’s laughs on the night, Wellington WHO was a winner.

Combining some great jokes from comedians like Duff, as well as some fun but shocking facts, it was a night of laughs. One of the great attractions of Triple Trouble was the Musical Odyssey’a musical journey of a theme chosen by the comedians and endorsed by the fans. An absolute delight.

The audience was presented with three themes for the Musical Odyssey, with the theme chosen according to how much applause was given. From pop artists taking over the world, to a boyfriend with an unfortunate fondness for his cacti collection, all the topics were great fun.

Triple Trouble is over 18’s only. If you’re in the mood for some laughs, and then some drinks, give it a go.

Starting off with a short film, McCarthy establishes his story and struggle. We meet his fellow 12 steppers and their over zealous facilitator, a man who McCarthy points out is overcoming his own addiction for facilitating groups.

McCarthy uses his caring, sharing, highly therapised tone of voice, which beautifully and quite naturally takes the piss. McCarthy also utilises the 12th step, called ’sharing your story,’ as the show’s launching pad.Ôø?Ôø? He delivers his tales of his foibles with a sense of self-pitying pathos that you couldn’t help but laugh with, and at, which is the whole point.

Ending with a performance from a very lusty song and dance man (I’m not sure what the connection is between a self help seminar and a spot of cabaret.), he was outrageous and the audience loved it.

If there was a down side to this show, it was the laughing hyena at the back of the room. You know the type, the one with the really loud and annoying laugh.Ôø?Ôø? I just hope he wasn’t one of McCarthy’s friends. If that’s the case, Trent, you don’t need him.

Clacker is not the only c-word Tammy Anderson lets loose in this howlingly funny but often cringe-worthy tour of the body’s private places and less popular functions.

Yes, there are fart jokes. And ones about childbirth, sex, anal infections and incontinence.

Just for starters.

Anderson already has a great reputation for honest and confronting writing and performance, particularly through her solo show I Don’t Wanna Play House, which examined her Tasmanian, aboriginal and sexually-abused background.

It’s grand to see her now take the stage and have fun: as loud and as lewd as she wants.

Her Dallas-like detailing of the streets where she grew up in Launceston in all its incestuous and internecine inter-tangling is worth the visit to the show alone.

As Anderson says: It’s not just material’it’s ammunition.

But this is a comically crude outing in which Anderson is tougher on herself’and on her body’s inappropriate burps, blasts, farts, leaks and malfunctions’than she is on the wider world.

There are so many tales that relate to this girl’s ‘moom’ that you almost expect it to be a co-performer but thankfully it kept silent.

The rapturous crowd went wild over Anderson’s fart impressions’based on what you had for dinner the night before.

It’s a powerhouse production from Ilbijerri under Kylie Belling’s assured direction, and Tammy Anderson is a strong, brave, deadly performer.

Jon Williams is superb as the maniacal Brigadier General Ripper who torments Group Captain Mandrake, played by Kip Williams. Think comedic versions of Kurt and Marlow stuck in a small room with a six-barrelled machine gun. The things Ripper gets up to with that gun will have you in stiches.

Oliver Wakelin plays the amorous General Turgidson, whose passion for nuclear warfare is pitted against pacifist President Muffley, played by Toby Truslove. Like Ripper and Mandrake, this pair is also stuck in a room. Instead of a machine gun to play with, they have a sexy Russian ambassador, another trigger-happy general, and the Stephen-Hawking-cross-Jim-Carey figure of Dr Strangelove.

The ticket master warns that the unpaid actors might steal patrons’ alcohol ‘ well, all I can say is there was enough vodka onstage to supply the entire audience.

Stand-up comedy acts are a dime a dozen, but a full cast of talented actors in a really affordable stage production is a rarity. Strangelove the Musical is without doubt one of the better acts at this year’s festival. And you know a comedy show’s going to be a winner when it’s been given the thumbs-up from the cast of The Chaser.

Stephen K Amos has done some brilliant work’brilliant enough that I’ve got tapes of his routines from various comedy festivals, including his set for Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Great Debate in 2005, which I also saw live. The topic was ‘Does God have a sense of humour?’

Unfortunately, this just means I have video proof that Amos’s routine this year was peppered with stale material. His latest set contains a good handful of religion-themed jokes lifted from the 2005 debate.

I know that all comedians recycle stuff’sometimes a joke is too good not to repeat’but this is two years after the fact. I expect a little more effort from an A-list comedian like Amos. He is, after all, a great talent.

Several jokes from this year’s set had me cackin’ me pants, as he wove tales of his childhood with observations about race and culture and ruminations on religion. And, like a true seasoned performer, Amos knows how to interact with an audience.

When he brought up football, a man in the audience shouted out, ‘Eagles!’

Quick as a flash, Amos said, ‘Penguins! What game are we playing?’

Now that’s skill.

I’m an Amos fan. I always have been. I think he’s a clever, snappy fellow. But he ought to avoid those live repeats.

Less shocking and humorous is how a group of middle-aged men wearing women’s clothes recreated The Sound of Music for stage. This drag show wasn’t unfunny, just more wacky funny than ha-ha funny.

I’ve seen The Sound of Music, and its awesomeness casts a shadow over my impressions of this production.

I don’t know much about drag. Before the show, I’d never seen a man mime singing, or mime gouging another man’s butt-hole.

I found the performers playing up their gender-confused appearance made the energy and momentum ‘drag’. I’m not sure if this gender bending is meant to challenge, but it bores.

When the performers forgot about the pink elephant between their legs, so did the audience, and the show became something special.

Miss Jessica James’s subtle portrayal ofÔø?Ôø?Maria made this musical more than a freak show. She’s the only character who’s recognisably human, alienated from a crowd of deformed and menacing creatures.

At the nunnery where she starts out, MariaÔø?Ôø?is scolded by heartless nuns who look something like the Gatekeeper from the video game Nightmare. As she tries to fit into the von Trapp family, Maria is sexually molested by the children and farted at by the Captain.

It’s a definite spectacle. I can’t say I understood it. I liked the shiny costumes and the dance routines. They were pretty.

But Sean Hughes has a very important message: don’t go drunk to a charity auction.

His main prop, seated on the chair at stage right, is sober testimony to his latest life lesson.

The London-born Irish comic has been missing from the stage for some years, gleaning laughs through TV, film and novel-writing.

So it was a decidedly well-fed Hughes who declared it was ‘great to be back in Melbourne’ and riffed on eejit things in print, relationships and himself.

The ‘adult’ Hughes, at 41, still has all the zest and cheek that won him the prestigious Perrier comedy award at 24′the youngest ever recipient’but the tone is darker and probably funnier.

‘I thought I’d be married with kids by now,’ he says. ‘Or at least be divorced with weekend access.’

Much of the material is about being older, no wiser, watching your parents shrink and dating 25-year-olds.

Being a pet-owning singleton is not all joy: ‘I got so pissed off with myself last night, I slept in the spare room.’

He paces the stage, sips from a wine glass and shuffles through his print props. It’s good to have him back and enjoying himself in a smart and amusingly rambling encounter.

Oh yeah. And there was one other message: don’t take ecstasy before a visit to the Holocaust Museum.

Sitting in a room jammed with people, where the person beside you is as a consequence now your new best friend, a lab coat clad Ben McKenzie immediately captures your attention with his surprising use of a matchstick, glass beaker, pinch of salt and an egg.

From there, he launches into a tirade about the conspiracies surrounding TV commercials for meat starring Sam Neil, debunks the forensic methods used in CSI and enlightens his audience to the science babble used in ‘Star Trek’.

Although the hard science Ben uses to set up the punchlines is both informative and intriguing, it can at times become tedious, causing the routine to fall into a lull until the next punchline kicks in.

However, Ben’s satire of science is subtle, intelligent and delightfully unpredictable; his use of PowerPoint is simple and originally funny. To top it off, he has an impeccable sense of timing, a witty self-effacing humor and a presence on stage that commands your attention.

You don’t have to be a science buff to enjoy this show but if you are, you’ll enjoy it a whole lot more, possibly to the point where you’ll cackle like a kookaburra throughout most of the show as one lady did!