Lawrence Mooney is theatrical, educated and dramatic throughout his entire performance – to the point where you can almost imagine that you’re watching high-class theatre interspersed with knob gags. He makes the lowbrow seem almost highbrow (take note of that ‘almosts’ in there).

He uses stories of his recent past to recount failures, inviting you to laugh at his mistakes with him, and string along the point that through it all his fiance has been laughing with him, no matter how much he stuffs things up. It is clear throughout the show that Mooney loves her for this, and it’s material that he’s comfortable with, and comes from the heart.

In coming up with a show that appeals to women, Mooney has managed to come up with a show that appeals to everyone. And while that is clearly the intention of every comedian, it takes a skilled one to accomplish it.

Freshly graduated from school, Bo Burnham is an internet celebrity with a Comedy Channel special already under his belt. Or to be more accurate, under his tracky dack elastic band, because he shrugged onto stage in similar garb to that which he wears in his bedroom-bound Youtube videos. He either knew exactly what he was doing or was still suffering from being on Massachusetts time. With the crowd roaring with laughter a few minutes later, the answer was clear.

Bo writes songs on his keyboard in a basic Channel Nine Sunday Night Scoreboard sort of way, but then uses the rhythmic structure to wield wordplay, contrive over-the-top offensive puns, and make a T-shirtload of sex, gay and toilet jokes. His topics are exactly what you’d expect from within a classroom – including references to hot-button issues like race, religion and abortion – but he has twisted the ideas and words to take it a whole lot of levels above school yard banter. His recall, especially in the centre of dense, convoluted raps, is dead impressive and he has worked rhythm and alliteration into lyrics which are otherwise only there to rhyme with oncoming punchlines. There are hits-and-misses, but no flat spots.

On a Festival Club night when several women audibly reacted to MC Randy’s use of the C-word, Bo had everyone loving his similarly touch-n-go material. His young, slacker good looks are slightly undermining his underdog, uncool chic, but nothing could deny the talent required to deliver offence so enjoyably.

Audience members entered this four-hander play wearing badges boasting ‘Sexy’ or ‘Perv’ and were greeted at lights up by Muddy Waters’ ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’ and tight brown lounge suits bulging at the crotch. It’s a bar scene and Bernie (David Bramble) sweats sexual animalism as he regales his mate Danny (Ben Griffiths) with last night’s conquest. It could almost be a scene from Underbelly 2, with Bernie spitting lines through his handlebar moustache.

But it’s not. Sexual Perversity in Chicago was written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright David Mamet back in the early seventies – and it feels that way. Women’s liberation was well underway and masculinity in this new shared space was being tested. References to war and immaturity splatter the bawdy script as the two men grate and gyrate against the two women, played by Kellie Tori and Eleanor Jones. However these themes flit in and out of view, overpowered by the standard men-versus-women theme comedy audiences are so familiar with.

The actors and director Ami-Lou Sharpe have worked hard to keep the show pacy – and the spot-lit set is simple, stylish and effective – but the tone is uneven. Drama and subtext sat mostly separate to the comedic potential of gender politics or Bernie’s buffoonery and they undermined each other. Mamet has a reputation for dialogue that veers from sharp and direct to unfinished and indirect, but this preview show left us wondering if something was lost when shortening the original 70-80 minute play to 60 minutes.

If you’re heading along, embrace the characters’ immaturity for the most enjoyment.

Luckily, you know not to stop at this potentially bad sign, and for that you’ll be rewarded. This light-hearted caper is enriched with fun, clever writing which easily wins over the room. Testament to this play’s amusing invention is the fact that this is a murder mystery with only two actors, and yet no clue of the ultimate culprit.

Alex Ellis and Phil Ormsby are mercilessly melodramatic and easily fill La Mama’s small space – unsurprisingly, since they have already toured this show extensively throughout New Zealand. Originally rigging up the sound, set and lighting themselves, they are now joined by director Caitlin Dullard who has brought them and their joyous caper to Melbourne.

This is quite a silly show, but allows for a fantastically physical performance by Ormsby, and the tongue-in-cheek writing elevates it above simple farce. Felicia Fargo (Alex Ellis) and her assistant Dorian (one of Ormsby’s many characters) have the sharpest lines. With a few plot twists and turns, you’ll find yourself really enjoying it. Especially if you’re a New Zealander – apparently chocolate fishes are really big there.

This is a confident production that entertains you during set changes with quick, funny skits or medleys of old TV show themes – reminiscent of Round The Twist, Seinfeld or Ship 2 Shore. The whole cast works well together as they change age, costume, race and even gender in increasingly fidgety, farcical plot lines. In particular, Matt Bolger-Hobson has great comedic presence, like a sober Jason Gann with better hair. Sketches wander up dead end streets and accents wander over oceans, but the high spirits and big characters remain.

The writers clearly had more fun throwing things into the script than throwing anything out, but the opening night crowd of well-wishers got enough laughs to paper over the flat spots. It will be interesting to see how the show develops – such a tight group will no doubt adapt things as their run continues. If you are looking for loud and local, this is one for you.

Perched in peach-coloured shirts, the band played keyboard and varnished string instruments as they welcomed in the audience. Location is a defining factor of cabaret (smoky nightclubs or themed restaurants being the norm) so the restrained surrounds of the Old Chamber Rooms at Trades Hall gave the Duskbuskers an uphill battle. But hills aren’t so important in modern warfare, and they quickly won this battle with Aurora Kurth emerging in diva-esque, shimmering red silk. Her velvety vocals weren’t an immediate match with the bar room banter of Casey Bennetto of Keating! The Musical fame, but they embraced this to build some men-versus-women interplay.

This show isn’t strictly comedy. As their promotion says, it is about the time in-between light and dark – the grey gloaming that turns down the colour and noise, fuzzing and re-focussing the mind as we search out pockets of light where we can meet for a yarn and a yard glass. Evening: A Cabaret’s stereotype-centred jokes and more effective made-for-Melbourne observations are intersected by denser lyricism suggesting the desires and insecurities suffered in night-time pursuits of love. Poetry slips by without punch line, and the feel of the evening changes. Barbecue observations slide into deeper explorations of the hazy mind and by the time the band was singing “the less they know, the more they understand” it felt almost subversive.

Perhaps a second viewing would help (Aurora sings one song twice, enabling the clever wordplay to become much more apparent), but overall the thigh-slapping is reserved for the jaunty music.

There’s no denying Francisco is a talented mimic (he’s an internet viral sensation for his near perfect impressions of Don LaFontaine, the movie trailer voice) and much of his show is sound effects and voice work, but some of his impressions just don’t hit the mark and his jokes all feel haphazard and somewhat incomplete.

He’s relentless with the strip club/porn star/humping topics, makes outrageous actions on stage and apparent habits include ruining people’s karaoke by squawking. The only part of the show I found moderately amusing was his ‘hand jokes’ at the very end – new material he’d scribbled on his palm during the show. The rest of his set, I found juvenile, disjointed, repetitive and tiresome. If I hadn’t needed to review it, I would have walked out.

Although unpolished and with generous lashings of cheese, there were some gold moments in the show. With two actors and two stand-up comics, various strengths came to the fore in the mixed bag of stand up, skits, and just plain random moments.

Commencing with a traditional aboriginal dance, with what I can only guess is some kind of fertility ritual mainly played out on 70’s themed nightclub dance floors, and moving through skits, stand-up and a long running Mundine joke, there appeared to be little continuity or common themes beyond a self deprecating humour and general piss take of Australia in the post-Rudd, post-apology, post-politically correct world.

Highlights included newsreader Anita Blackman, who came into her own after the election of Australia’s first black Prime Minister, with his revolutionary policies for white families to encourage community (“if you don’t have an extended family, one will be allocated to you…. if you don’t have some guilt, this will also be allocated…”) I am certain that the SORRY song and dance routine had some audience members squirming in their smug, white, middle class liberal guilt.

Although I think this show is up there with one of the worst show titles in the whole festival, when the joke actually did rear its head after substantial build-up, it all became clear and worked for me. In the end; the final word goes to the players – “if you liked the show, tell your friends – if you didn’t, you are racist.” Fair enough really.

Instead, Green waxes cynical about suburban life in Heidelberg, about visiting Northland Shopping Centre on ‘Ugly Day’ (although I think it’s always Ugly Day at Northland to be honest), and he jokes about his wife and kids in a way that is simultaneously old fashioned yet dry and endearing. Living the Dream is more of an occasional chuckle sort of show rather than constant hilarity, but is still extremely engaging.

Despite the unprepossessing setting and set-up, this was a highly entertaining and witty show. Aindrias’ one-man cabaret is a blowsy, blustering, bohemian busker’s journey across the world with a fiddle and a with talent for improvising music and life. In fact, there is an artful blend in the show between the well-crafted elements of the script and the strategic points where Aindrias plays his own atmospheric soundtrack, and the spontaneous comedy and physical antics Aindrias often breaks into. The story unfolds as tumbling and rhythmic (and sometimes semi-unintelligible) anecdotes, punctuated with wonderful irish jigs and gypsy ballads and European folk songs, and his style is thus meandering and erratic, but his charm and energy is as infectious as his music.

Both pace and plot fell away by the end on the night I attended, but the unexpected blues number and Aindrias’ adroit dealing with a technical hitch were worth the wait. Around the World on 80 Quid is frantic and funny cabaret, with ultimately just the right blend of very good music and very clever storytelling. Go along and buy this man a green tea.

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.

Strangely enough, given the title, this show is about bad words. Lots of them. There is ample warning if you are somewhat offended by naughtiness, and the audience participation element of yelling out your favourite curse word should be enough to send any meek participants into bright red mode (I was part of a ‘fuck’ audience, which reverberated around Trades Hall as it was bellowed by the full house).

Alexis manages to tread the line between informational overload and casual conversation with grace and ease, all the time swearing like a gutter monkey. It’s magnificent. He educates on the history of the potty mouth from ancient times through to the modern day, interspersed with stories and anecdotes from his own journey, all the while building to a very clear conclusion – that the art of language is fascinating, regardless of the words you use.

This show is actually quite light on the gags, and it’s a refreshing change. The traditional cymbal-roll jokes that Alexis has opted to avoid are instead replaced by his wit, charisma and enthusiasm for the subject. It doesn’t matter that every second line doesn’t have a punchline – he is obviously entertained by the process of teaching you about the magic of swearing, and it certainly rubs off.

I have never before learned so much while laughing out loud.

And what a variety of acts they were. The Beautiful Losers veered gloriously from unsettling to the unspeakable, and Sammy J did an amusingly conflict-ridden double act with Randy the puppet. The cast of World War Wonderful impressed by not only being able to sing their 1940s-style numbers (with hilariously bad taste lyrics), but also being able to dance. Not many musical comedians can pull that off.

Less successful was Yana Alana, who seemed to cross the line from satirical feminist performance poetry to the real thing. Joanne O’Callaghan’s turn as Helene the French Maid’was tediously overlong, and Colin Lane’s fake incompetence schtick disappointed. And the Butterfly Glee Club, usually a weekly singalong to which anyone can join in, was understandably amateur and consequently not the best choice for a finale.

The show was also rather disorganised. The lighting was inconsistent, the sound operators put the wrong track on several times, and the MC kept coming in before the act had finished.

But the general standard of performance was high enough that these problems didn’t intrude greatly on the audience’s enjoyment of the show. Especially remarkable was the genuine emotions some acts managed to evoke. Ali McGregor’s rendition of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ to the accompaniment of a zither was heart-rending and spine-tingling, while Tim Minchin’s sweet, wistful ode to family Christmases left me surreptitiously wiping my eyes. There’s something you don’t get from a comedy show every day.

Happy birthday, Butterfly Club. May many more great cabaret talents emerge from your cocoon in years to come.

If I tell you that this is comedy offered via the medium of the written list, you might get the impression this performance is formulaic and dull.

If I try to counter this by mentioning that it encompasses a semiotic analysis of an obtuse comedy sketch, the licentious touching of a drawing of Margaret Pomeranz and anthropomorphised fruit, you might get the impression that it’s affectedly “zany”.

Off-beat might be a better description of The List Operators’ tenor, and their website blurb describes them as the “darlings of the underground Melbourne comedy scene”. Thankfully this isn’t a euphemism for smut and obscenity; quite the opposite. With its genuine originality, gentle absurdity and underlying intelligence, the show is simply a little bit outside the mainstream.

The duo have created two immensely likeable characters who complement one another well. They take it in turns to address the easel of butcher’s paper which takes centre stage, frantically scribbling lists based on their own and the audience’s suggestions.

It succeeds in no small part because the show is interactive without being unstructured – it’s democratic without being a free-for-all. While audience-members’ list nominations often got the biggest laughs, there was never any suspicion that the performers were diverting too far from the script. To me, it’s this happy medium between control and disorder that makes for the best comedy.

Sarah is not only one of those almost mythical creatures who win competitions; she has also been blessed with good fortune in other areas. It is this lifetime’s experience that provides her with a rich vein of material to mine. From winning a car, meeting her favourite band or having an accident and living to tell the tale, it’s an entertaining exploration of a life lived riding the wave of luck, and the inevitable crash that follows.

But it didn’t quite catch me. It was a surprise to me to learn that Sarah has been a working comedian for as long as she has, because this performance was a little unsteady at times. Don’t get me wrong, there is a good show – maybe a great show – in here trying to get out, but her performance suggested that she either hasn’t quite refined the material or is still short of perfecting the delivery.

As it is, maybe a slightly better lubricated audience in a larger venue would serve her better, but there were a still plenty of laughs in the room. For many Melbournites, the footage of Steve Jacobs’ embarrassment (yes, that Steve Jacobs) would be worth the price of admission alone. For me, her conclusion to the show by sharing some of the spoils of her numerous victories with each and every patron was what tipped the scales in her favour.

If you’re a fan of Snelling’s work, then you’ll definitely enjoy the opportunity to watch him push himself as a performer, relying on his acting skills and a handful of simple props – a handkerchief, a hat, a handbag – rather than full costumes, to convey the progression from character to character: Diane, a grotesque mother, the dim-witted Tony, the shrewish Leonie from Niddrie, and Tina, an aging alcoholic singer…

Live music is provided by a band dressed as workmen on the under-construction bypass road that will sound the death knell for the caravan park; and a scene in which young Wes eavesdrops on their raucous conversation is rich with homoerotic subtext.

Treat yourself at Kiosk – it’s great.

In it, this acutely talented performer brings the journey from Bundoora to Docklands on my local tram route, the #86, to wonderful, three dimensional life through character-based monologue and song. As Steve Bennett writes at Chortle, this is ‘a concept album of a show’; told through the tram driver’s sometimes (appropriately) muffled announcements and by a series of instantly recognisable characters: the talkative but forgetful grandmother, the depressed housewife, the Northcote hipster, the Collingwood junkie, the city suit, and others.

Myself and my mate Martin, who saw the show with me, and the audience as a whole, were in constant fits of laughter throught this show, from go to woah. I implore, nay insist, that you see this quintessentially Melbourne show as soon as you can: it’s as close to perfect a comedy production as I’ve ever seen.

Eddie McGuire, Mel and Kochie, Naomi Robson and all the other major players come under scathing attack in this simply staged but vividly realised production, the season which has now unfortunately ended. A wonderfully funny and merciless show about media excess which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Not one to pull her punches, Hocking turns herself into Miss Right with gusto. Heartily taking to the cause, she spends a fast-paced hour living it up on the side of the morally righteous. The targets are plenty, and her aim is right on. From our nanny state, where even the Bakers Delight staff need a national campaign on how not to slice up their hands in the bread machine, to Rudd’s Labor Party, where nothing can be done without a summit and a round of Kum Ba Yah, it’s all square in her sights.

By taking to the right, Hocking is able to avoid the pitfalls of much left-leaning political comedy. Rather than the safety of preaching to the converted, her unflinching assessment of the current government tackles new ground. She is able to unveil the man behind the curtain in our current left-wing politics, revealing the true state of our nation. Hocking avoids the soft target, a Liberal Party so declined they are almost irrelevant, and instead focuses our attention back towards a government that has shifted from the left-leaning ideals of much of its supporter base to the true middle ground of politics and all the bureaucracy it entails. Her tongue-in-cheek dissection is insightful, biting and brings laughs aplenty. There are less of the usual knowing nods and chuckles of recognition provided by political comedy, and more of the laugh-out-loud surprise provided by a unique comic talent who talks politics.

The only bump in an otherwise smooth performance came from Hocking’s onstage comfort and technique. Admittedly, she had formidable obstacles to overcome on this particular night. One friendly (read: drunk) gentleman insisted on introducing himself to the other audience members before the performance began, then proceeded to interrupt Hocking at the earliest opportunity and treat the show as a conversation, rather than a performance. It’s safe to say that there was little disappointment when the friendly (read: still drunk) gentleman decided to leave. To her credit, Hocking was able to overcome all his disruptions, drawing the audience back into the show with finesse. It was unfortunate, however, that the constant interruptions seemed to throw her, making her refer back to her notes frequently. This lack of confidence resulted in the pace of the show being thrown off, which was unnecessary, as the audience’s sympathy were well and truly with the performer.

Randy is a rough-around-the-edges character, and despite his friendly pink furriness there’s a lot in the show that isn’t child-friendly (including the stripper’s pole up the back of the Portland Hotel room it’s housed in). The humour doesn’t come from seeing a puppet swear, though, but from Randy’s character and the way he looks back over his adventurous life. He’s been to London, he’s been to hippy communes, and he’s been to a lot of kids’ parties. Now he’s trying to make sense of it all so he can head into the future with new insights like ‘how you manage your attraction, makes you a man’. The storytelling is fast and effective, focussing on Randy’s relationships and letting the crowd imagine his world.

McIvor, through Randy, is a gifted storyteller and with only the help of an occasional prop he created a wholly believable world that entertained and got a lot of laughs as well. The show makes my top three for the festival.

Hailing from Adelaide, Ben’s stand-up style is chilled out, friendly and down to earth. His material meanders across numerous topics – finding the funny in doing night fill at the supermarket, and the types of people you meet at the gym. Every now and then he takes a break to show a video. The clips are very DIY – bad sound, fuzzy images – but Ben’s warmth and enthusiasm smooth it all out.

The show ends with Ben calling his seven-year-old self on speakerphone to let him know everything is going to be okay. Ben’s former self sounds less than convinced. ‘Why do you only call me when you’re drunk?’ he asks.

Like the videos, this part of the show is also very low-fi. The sound pops and crackles, and little Ben’s reading-aloud skills need some work. Some might find the ramshackle production values irritating, but I reckon it adds to the charm. Ben has done the best he can with the resources available, and as these resources improve – better equipment, more time away from his day job – so too will the polish on his shows. Keep an eye on this one – he’s made a good fist of it this year and will be back with more.

Vachel Spirason, Joel Tito, Pat Miller, Tim McDonald and Nick Russell from the Monash Law Revue Gold Alumni tell a pan-dimensional story of religion, history and silliness that is truly astonishing. Tale of the Golden Lease shows that regardless of budget, it is pure talent that will entertain, and these boys have it in spades.

This is an incredibly tight performance that overcomes every hurdle thrown at it. With a large number of scene changes, actors playing multiple characters and minimal props, the magical illusion of a continued story is never lost. The audience is continually spellbound by the antics of these rather manic, energetic and overwhelmingly entertaining performers. Lightening-quick scene changes ensure that boredom never sets in, and what they obviously lack in funding for props (the golden lease, holding the deed to earth’s future, is a phonebook badly wrapped in gold foil), they make up for in confidence and ability.

I really stuggle to find anything wrong with this performance – very few scripted jokes fell flat – with the exception of an inevitable law joke that went straight over my non-legal head. Combining very strong acting talents with no shred of shame enables these boys to keep the fourth wall of the theatre incredibly solid.

It is hard to avoid the feeling that, watching this performance, you are witnessing the birth of a new generation of comedic actors. Like the D-Generation or The Chaser, intelligent, informed talent has to start somewhere, and I predict we’ll be seeing much more of this crew in the future. Please, someone give them a TV show! If these five boys can produce a show so entertaining with little more than some devil horns, an oversized latte, black cloth and their awesomely tatty golden lease, just imagine what they could rise to.

The three comedians did a 20-minute set each and then came together at the end, where surprisingly the well-known Deveny came away with a few bruises. Onstage and freed of editorial control, she didn’t have to creatively word her aggression and so resorted more to swearing for impact, losing some of her punch. That’s not to say she was bad, just that the other comedians outshone her at the final bell (okay – no more boxing metaphors).

Nelly Thomas set a political tone with some material about maternity leave, and her closing theatrical re-enactment of giving birth was a winner when it so easily might not have been (Thomas did break her promise that it would be mimed, but it still avoided the disarming displays of distress Hollywood films relish in). The highlight, though, was Christine Basil. Her twenty years on the comedy circuit came to the fore as she slickly and simply ran through her hilarious and heartfelt take on motherhood.

The marketing of this show means it’ll mostly be a ‘mum’ crowd that attends, and there were plenty of happy murmurs of agreement at the references throughout the show. But most people have at least one mum and there’s joy to be had here for a wider crowd.

Deveny may not have lived up to the hype, but her notoriety will get more people discovering Thomas and Basil. So it’s a good result either way.

A variety of different games were played, from a subtitling game in which one person provides the voices for all the other actors in the scene, to four-person improvised poetry.

Celebrity guests such as Neighbours stars Sam Clark (Ringo) and Matthew Werkmeister (Zeke) appeared a little bewildered but performed admirably. Of the experienced improvisers, Rebecca De Unamuno (Comedy Inc.) was the real stand-out – outshining Rusty from the Scared Weird Little Guys in a song-based game is no mean feat.

It’s a bit of a shame that a lot of the segments weren’t traditional Theatresports games; just a prompt and a scene gives the performers almost too much freedom, leaving them floundering where a tiny bit more structure would have allowed them to create a tighter scene.

Still, going to see impro is necessarily an unpredictable experience. Given performers more familiar with the games and with each other, you might just witness unrepeatable brilliance – so it’s probably worth checking out one of Impro Melbourne’s regular nights … minus the celebrities.

The Small Poppies’ promotional material says they are from Canberra, but their show has detail and video that suggests they must know Melbourne pretty well. An opening sketch poking fun at faddish urbanites staking out milk-crates successfully mimics the inner-city scenester scene, and is a preview of the terrific flexibility of the actors. I only registered when they took their bows that there were only three of them. Adam Brodie-McKenzie in particular effectively inhabited many different characters, but Caitlin Croucher and Andrew Nichols also deftly shifted styles.

As the last on a billet of sketch shows, Poppycock! took a more political approach having cracks at George Bush, aggressive atheism and “stupid people”. This directness means it doesn’t feel like a regular sketch show, because there is a central message and the sketches themselves also contain a whole lot of political opinion. This means that even when they weren’t getting many laughs everyone remained interested in seeing what they had to say on the topic.

It’s fantastic to see a young group ploughing into the cultural clashes which dominate the global Op-Ed pages. They’ve clearly gone to an effort to synthesise their material and give the audience a take-away message and the applause at the end showed it was appreciated. It was not a hit laughter-wise on this night but you can check their website (http://thesmallpoppies.com.au/video.html) to see if it’s your thing. Otherwise I’ll be interested in seeing how their ideas and perspectives develop and it would be good to have them back again next year.