An office cubicle, floating in inky black darkness. Two chairs. A computer. Phone. Stacks of paperwork. Pamphlets that hope to explain the process of getting a mortgage through a broker. Ryan - a recently divorced father of one - sits across the desk from Keith – the mortgage broker, who we’ll soon learn is foster father to a young girl. Ryan doesn’t understand the process of applying for a loan ..read more

Exposing flaws and foibles has been a theme this festival. Other stand-up comics need to dig deep and craft a show around observations of political, social or moral issues. Some go with high-concept premises that allow them to spin-off in any direction.Jessi Ryan is telling audiences about their year after emergency surgery, when they had to live with an unexpected guest star - a colostomy bag. A ..read more

After the international success of Nanette, Hannah Gadsby’s world changed. This isn’t Hannah’s first show since then, but it is the first one where they are having an existential crisis about possibly disappearing up their own arsehole. Hannah’s shows can sometimes feel a bit scattergun, even though there is a solid supporting structure underneath. They are not leaping from topic to topic ..read more

I love discovering new comedians at MICF. Admittedly, I wanted to see Headliners because of Joel Kim Booster – his film Fire Island is hilarious and has layers of insight while being very sexy, and his Netflix special Psychosexual is a sharp look at race and gender and sexuality through Joel’s life as an Asian kid adopted by white parents. Paired with Joel, though, is Zainab Johnson, whose work ..read more

Zoë has achieved some amazing things in the past year – including hosting Queerstralia on the ABC and being diagnosed with ADHD. Yeah, she’s not surprised if you didn’t recognise it in a woman who talks at a million miles an hour and has decided to divide her life up into seven-year increments as a way to catalogue her jokes and battle depression. Oh, wait. I’ve seen two great “list shows” this ..read more

Lou Wall’s 2023 was great for their professional life and disastrous for their personal life. And after all the work Lou did coming out as a lesbian, they’ve found themselves swimming at the shallow end of the pool – sleeping with straight dudes. Even more distressingly, Lou became a chuckle fucker. Lou’s brand of opening up a vein of trauma and delivering it like a mutated powerpoint ..read more

In astrology, the “Saturn Return” is when Saturn returns to the same place in the sky as when you were born. While the planet Saturn has an orbit that lasts closer to thirty years, astrologists consider the power of Saturn’s Return to kick in around the age of 27. Performer Jaxson Garni faced a lot at age twenty-seven and his show reckons with everything that changed – and whether or not it’s ..read more

As a performer, Kirsty hates being at parties, because of the age-old small-talk question “What do you do?” If she says comedian, people expect her to be funny. If she says actor, people follow up with “What would I have seen you in?” She’s right – people are more than their profession and Skeletons dives into the things people are, when they aren’t doing the things that are expected of them ..read more

Julian O’Shea is an educator, fascinated with design, has a YouTube channel focusing mostly on “Unknown Melbourne” and he’s a world record holder – but you’ll need to see his Comedy Festival show to learn more about that! But you can’t see his Comedy Festival show, because it’s all sold out. Yes, Julian has rolled his internet fame into a very successful first live show. It’s informative ..read more

Content warning: child loss, stillbirth, grief Early on in Beast in the Room we’re given a list of the five things to never say to a grieving parent. April and Jule, mother and son creators and performers, ease us into the show by warning us what the titular beast in the room is – child loss. And then we’re told the story of Jule’s birth – a charming tale of going back and forth on a bus, a ..read more