Category: Reviews

Mish Wittrup – Off With Her Head!

By Peter Hodgson

You only get one chance to make a first impression. We can’t control what people remember about us. To most of us, Mish Wittrup is a talented comedian, writer and and podcaster who has won the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Best Newcomer Award in 2022 and who brightens up any Aunty Donna project she’s involved in. But to Google, her first notable achievement was …okay, how do I say this without spoiling it? Let’s just say it was something private and sex-adjacent and it happened back at uni.

After reeling from the pure mortification of this discovery, Mish uses it as a springboard to examine her sense of self and to look at the various hats she’s worn in her life. Off With Her Head! takes us on a tour of the different core values Mish has taken on in her journey to find out who she truly is, outside of the context of the person who did that stuff at house parties at uni. Is she a lover? A fighter? Can she lock down a crush who looks like everyone’s favourite early 2000s rock star? Can she cut it as a scholarship student in the horrifying world of private school? This fast-paced show takes us on a Powerpoint-aided exploration of the postmodern psyche, like those memes of Charlie from Always Sunny piecing a mystery together with photos, maps and red string. It’s all there: call centres, Rubik’s Cubes, Chris Pine, the intricacies of corporate procurement, even a big musical number.

This is only Wittrup’s fourth year in comedy but it sure doesn’t feel like it. She has that unique ability to make an entire audience feel like we’re all mates at a party, but the writing, direction and multimedia components keep the show moving forward. It may have taken Wittrup a while to find live comedy but clearly she belongs here.

Mish Wittrup – Off With Her Head! Has added extra shows! It’s playing April 11 and 12 at The Greek.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/mish-wittrup/

Sam Garlepp – Scam Garlepp

By Bella Jones

You might know Sam Garlepp as a writer for The Hundred and The Cheap Seats (as well as appearing on the latter) but if you work at Coles you’ll definitely know him from the internal training videos.

From Facebook Marketplace to divorced parents, in Scam Garlepp Sam covers it all. This show is really tight and the addition of some tech only adds to what is such a delightful and more than laugh minute almost-hour of comedy.

Garlepp quickly comes across as relatable and seemingly effortlessly moves from straight stand up to tech to song parodies – the crowd takes particular joy in a rework of ‘Please Please Please’ to be about the perils of board game nights.

His style is such that he has no trouble balancing quick quips with callbacks and the occasional move into darker jokes – this show isn’t political by any means but an apt comparison of comedy show flyers to political flyers draws a big laugh.

Sam Garlepp is a seriously talented performer and this show could be his best work yet!

Sam Garlepp performs the rest of his run of Scam Garlepp at QT Melbourne from April 16 – 20

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/scam-garlepp/

 

Jin Hao Li – Swimming In A Submarine

By Lisa Clark

There are no bells and whistles. No props, no soundscape, just Jin, his mic and his voice. Having walked around the room gently asking “Are you OK?” to all his seated audience members as more entered (and it was PACKED!) Jin opens with “I was walking through a forest…” and off he goes and doesn’t let up.

Jin is not one to tell long form funny stories or to try to find meaning in his life through comedy, Swimming In A Submarine is all jokes, jokes, jokes. He tells short stories and jokes that seem to be about one thing but turn out to be about something else, it’s all about misdirect and surprise. There’s no political point or message, Jin talks a lot about various kinds of animals and dream sequences and imagining scenarios like joining the yakuza, often seeming to gently meander and then will surprise with a punchy U-turn.

Jin can be quite aggressive with his crowd work, tending to use the crowd work as a sort of sounding board rather than a genuine part of the show. But the jokes keep rolling and the audience loves him. Quite a few of his jokes are broken up and sprinkled throughout the show but there is no overarching theme. Other jokes teeter on the edge of distasteful or rude but he gets away with them with a cheeky grin.

It’s not surprising that Jin was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Festival, Swimming In A Submarine is packed with jokes and his audience is packed to the rafters with laughing punters.

Jin Hao Li performs Swimming In A Submarine at The Chinese Museum until April 18

Jenny Tian – Jenny’s Travels

By Colin Flaherty

Jenny’s Travels follows Jenny Tian as she embarks on a rite of passage for many comedians, leaving the rather limited career opportunities of Australia behind to seek their fortunes overseas. A long held wish to visit the United States was hit with administration issues and a pandemic which eventually led to her moving to London. We travel with her via this collection of amusing stories.

The anecdotes themselves cover familiar topics of people leaving the nest that makes them immensely relatable. We hear of her very protective mother’s disapproval of her heading to such a dangerous place. A story of settling for a peculiar housemate will click with everyone who has cohabited with a weirdo.

The show sometimes drifts off on asides that have a logic to them as they often clarify the main story. Others tales are inserted just for the hell of it, such as her need to explain why she’s freezing her eggs. Similarly an extended routine about intimate encounters feels a little shoehorned into the narrative but wins over the crowd regardless with its titillating shock of such racy material coming from the mouth of this nice young woman.

Audience interaction at the top of the show asks if anyone has moved their lives overseas. This resulted in some fascinating information from a gentleman who’d moved to Australia from North Korea via South Korea on this particular night. She added some witty quips but didn’t go much deeper. This seems as if it will have the same impact if it had just been a rhetorical question. Perhaps modern audiences have been trained to expect some crowd work in every show.

Jenny is a delightful performer who keeps the audience entranced throughout. This is a solid hour of storytelling stand up that has won over many fans as the packed Saturday night show, will attest.

Jenny’s Travels is on at the Melbourne Town Hall until April 20

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/jenny-s-travels/

Noah Szto – Med School

By Peter Newling

Sometime in the past, Noah Szto had to face an important choice: does he (a) continue with his training to become a doctor, or (b) continue with his passion to be a comedian. Thankfully he chose option (c) both.

In Med School, Szto takes us through the trials and tribulations of the trainee medico. He gives us an insider’s insight into what it’s like being a trainee doctor in a busy hospital – and the many “learning opportunities” (shit jobs) that entails. We’re with him as he faces the big question: “Why am I doing this?”

He does this through a combination of spoken word, and neatly crafted songs. He is equally adept at both. His songs display an impressive range of styles and influences, ranging from jazz to James Brown-esque gospel, to R&B and just a hint of Peter Allen.

At the microphone, Szto is confident, genuine and energetic. He exudes warmth and positivity. He’s just a really likeable guy. There are some lovely lower-energy moments in the hour as well – his reflections on family and cultural expectations of young people are quite lovely.

All this is backed up by an impressive tech plot. The visual effects, lighting shifts and prerecorded sound elements reek of professionalism. Big shout out to the tech operator, who managed a complex plot with total precision.

The show builds to an unusual ending. I think this is the first time I’ve attended a show with a warning that reads: “Audience, please note: This show contains a Medical Procedure”. I’m not going to tell you what it is, but take my word for it, it’s absolutely worthwhile. And the final song, done as something of an encore, is vibrant, camp, and sends us out buzzing.

Szto was last year’s winner of the MICF’s Best Newcomer Award. This year’s offering shows no signs of awkward-second-show syndrome. If you like musical theatre, and a show that makes you laugh and wince in equal measure, this could be just the show for you.

Noah Szto – Med School is playing until April 20 in the Gandel Lab at ACMI, at 9:15pm and 8:15pm on Sundays. Tickets through https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/med-school/

Josh Glanc – Family Man

By Nick Bugeja

Josh Glanc has been a staple at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for years, producing frenzied, incoherent (in the best sense of the term), and absurdist shows for those open-minded enough to veer away from traditional stand-up.

Consistent with his past shows, Glanc’s Family Man embraces the ridiculous and the ludicrous, at the expense of conventions and norms, to great effect. Glanc (pronounced ‘Glance’ and not ‘Glank’) mixes together musical theatre, skits, vignettes, callbacks, multiple character transformations (a memorable French photographer and old man stand out), breaking the fourth wall, and audience participation (quite a lot of audience participation) to deliver an engrossing and regularly hilarious performance.

If you tuned into the MICF Gala, you saw a sanitised, diluted version of Glanc’s best bits and performance, clearly in an attempt to appeal to the broadest audience possible. In Family Man, the strangeness and absurdity which defines Glanc’s work is on full display, and optimally realised to leave his audience in stitches. There are times during the show which serve as a kind of interlude or interruption of laughter, including some of the singing parts, though moments of laughter are just around the corner.

Josh Glanc performs Family Man at The Chinese Museum until April 20.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/family-man-2/