Articles by Suzannah Marshall Macbeth

Comedians have a rare opportunity that they must use wisely – the chance to air their grievances about the world to a captive audience. Kitty Flanagan makes the most of this, and does so in fine style.

In the rather small Ladies’ Lounge at the Forum Theatre, Geraldine Hickey is definitely in-your-face. Hickey’s Love or a Slab of Fudge is a personal narrative told for comic effect, and it is funny, if you don’t mind some rather crude humour, too-much-information on occasion, and plenty of swearing.

It seems to be a common theme of this year’s festival – comedians talking about growing up, becoming an adult, getting their own place. Hannah Gadsby’s Happiness is a Bedside Table is in this vein – Gadsby delights in having a safe place for her all-important glasses, in being ‘captain of the fridge’, and in [...]

For comedy-goers who are used to stand-up fare of personal anecdote or disconnected one-liners, Anne Edmonds in The Quarter Cabbage will either be a refreshing change or a bit of a shock. The Quarter Cabbage is a mix of theatre and comedy, with Edmonds effectively playing the role of four strangers who each wander into [...]

STOP IT! STOP LAUGHING so I can tell you my next joke! How often do you hear that line from a comedian on stage? Probably not a lot, but the audience jammed into the Pizza Room at the Forum were having such a great time that Karl Chandler really did have to tell us to [...]

Whether or not you were a Good News Week viewer, there’s a sense of familiarity about Claire Hooper. In Plums, she seems instantly at ease in the bright spotlight of the Cloak Room at Melbourne Town Hall.

Dixie Longate is back for this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, but with her luggage gone on to Victoria’s deep south without her there ain’t quite enough Tupperware for a party. So instead of the full-blown Tupperware show complete with catalogues that audiences experienced last year, she’s here to tell us stories of her travels [...]

Hannah Gadsby is excellent in this show that probes gender stereotypes and points out the raw deal that women have had over the centuries when it comes to marriage, sex, equality and pretty much everything else. There is a political message here, but Gadsby handles it with aplomb and with plenty of humour. Hannah Wants [...]

Random, improvised and hilarious: that’s Akmal at this year’s festival. Every show I’ve seen so far at the 2012 Melbourne International Comedy Festival has had, at some level, thematic coherence or a narrative arc. So Akmal’s show came as a bit of a surprise, because coherence of any sort is not the way he rolls [...]

In terms of comedy that’s organised around a theme, Ryan Walker’s Man Up! takes a particularly personal approach. His show is a tale of past woes that have come back to haunt him, thanks to his upcoming ten-year high school reunion and the unpleasant memories this evokes. Ultimately this is a show about bullying, and [...]

If you like the idea of watching radio, then Little Dum Dum Club is clearly the event to get yourself a ticket to, quick smart. Normally a regular podcast, hosts Karl Chandler and Tommy Dassalo are clearly here to have fun, having brought their show to the stage for the first time. The basic theme [...]

David O’Doherty is a man who only knows three jokes – or so he says – quite the claim to fame for Ireland’s 2010 Comedian of the Year. By the time the hour-long show ended, however, I certainly had to question his definition of a joke – O’Doherty is a man with wit and stage [...]

Dixie’s Tupperware Party has come all the way from Alabama to Spiegeltent for this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival, complete with a range of Tupperware on stage, real Tupperware catalogues, and of course Dixie Longate herself all done up in gingham with red ringlets and a proper Southern drawl. Tupperware, you say? That remnant of [...]

Matt Grantham is what I’d call staple fare of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for anyone on a tight budget – a stand-up performer, dressed as casually as possible, eliciting plenty of laughs in a tucked-away Melbourne venue, where the chairs are crammed in tightly and there’s not a prop in sight. Grantham hails from [...]