Tag: Melanie Bracewell

Melanie Bracewell – A Little Treat

By Bella Jones

Melanie Bracewell is far from the first comedian to be diagnosed with ADHD and write a comedy show about it – a fact that she is aware of. But one of her biggest skills lies in turning ordinary stories into hilarious anecdotes, finding the funny in common experiences.

Her latest show may be titled ‘A Little Treat’, but for the audience it’s more like a smorgasbord of humour and entertainment. The crowd can immediately tell that they’re in the safe hands of Bracewell’s well-proven comedy skills. From her previous stand up shows to writing and co-hosting The Cheap Seats it seems that Bracewell is exactly where she’s meant to be. Every line is written with the intention of getting the most laughs, with quick quips and delightfully satisfying call-backs it’s clear Bracewell is dedicated to creating the best show possible.

Throughout the hour we follow Bracewell’s retelling of the events that lead to her getting an ADHD diagnosis. From air dry clay, dining in the dark, to car manuals, the show is full of just about everything. Not only is it all treated to Bracewell’s sharp wit, but there’s also some touching moments relating to her and her partner Shaun. She excels at drawing the audience into the scenes she’s describing. Her clever use of repeating lines gathers more and more laughter as well as serving as a great connection back to her ADHD. She always seems completely in control, leaving the audience perfectly positioned to enjoy a fantastic hour of laughs.

Bracewell’s shows are worth recommending to just about anyone, A Little Treat is no exception and might just be her strongest work yet.

Melanie Bracewell performs A Little Treat at Max Watts Until April .20

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/melanie-bracewell-a-little-treat/

Abby Howells – Welcome to My Dream

By Peter Newling

Over recent years Australia’s comedy clubs and television shows have been blessed with an influx of incredibly talented thirty-something New Zealand comedians. Abby Howell’s is an important voice in this mix.

She comes well credentialed. She is a past winner of the prestigious Billy T Award whose past winners include Cal Wilson, Rose Matafeo, Guy Montgomery and Melanie Bracewell. Fans of Taskmaster New Zealand will remember her from season 5 where she finished a solid fifth.

Through Welcome To My Dream, Howells offers us the chance to take a sneak peek into her mind. Much of the material is based on the impact of neurodivergence on her childhood, her family, her aspirations and her career. It’s really personal, really insightful, and really funny.

Often dreams don’t come true, but sometimes they do. Through masterful storytelling, Howells takes us from childhood expectations that she should be more like everyone else, to the growing realisation that difference is powerful. Along the way we learn that she is very good at vendettas – impishly seeking comeuppance on businesses, trolls and improv artists who have tried to thwart her dreams.

We also learn that Howells is a master of the punchy non-sequitur. Seemingly completely random thoughts are delivered with hilarious bluntness, and take us off on a completely new direction. It all makes sense eventually.

All this adds up to an hour that’s insightful, disarming and full of laugh-out-loud surprises. Howells’ style is endearing and engaging, underpinned with just the right amount of menace.

In Welcome To My Dream, Abby invites us to be part of her world. It’s well worth a visit.

Abby Howells – Welcome to My Dream is playing until April 20 at the Melbourne Town Hall Lunchroom, at 7:40pm and 6:40pm on Sundays. Tickets through

//www.comedyfestival.com.au/browse-shows/welcomed-to-my-dream/

** Footnote – the performance I saw was Auslan interpreted. Big shout out to the festival and to the performer for making this happen.

Guy Montgomery: Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee

Review By Lisa Clark

Looking for a bit of Late Night Fun that’s not as exhaustingly late as Festival Club? Are you a bit nerdy, fond of word games, possibly a fan of Celebrity Letters And Numbers or Taskmaster New Zealand (season 2)? Then Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee might just be the show for you.

Guy is one of the best comedians to come out of New Zealand in recent times, why he isn’t hosting a TV Show of his own, is anyone’s guess. He’s charming, super funny, yet laid back and able to improvise goofy quips with his guests who are playing with varying levels of competitiveness.

Tonight’s guests were; Melanie Bracewell from New Zealand who has done one of Guy’s Spelling Bees over there and has her eye on the prize, Rhys Nicholson who made jokes about feeling out of place, but in the end was the people’s champion, Sam Campbell who’s main contribution was coming up with unexpected hilarious interjections and Phil Wang from the UK, Melanie’s serious main competitor. Of course a lot of the fun is the banter between the guests and Guy and also watching Phil Wang’s face drop as he realises this isn’t a traditional Bee, and he’s not the master he expected to be.

Guy has worked out some really funny ways to do a Spelling Bee competition live on stage, because just spelling words might be fun for spelling nerds but won’t make for a very exciting or hilarious comedy festival show. For the main rounds Guy has words on slips of paper kept in three receptacles. Contestants could choose from; the bucket which has the hard 3 point words, a bag holds the 2 point words, and the 1 point easy words are in a cup and if you choose the easy words you will find they are all insults.

The hardest round on our night was a new one made up by Guy where they had to spell the country of the flag he was holding up, so first they had to guess what country the flag belonged to. They were not very familiar flags. This game might not stay on, or maybe he has to make the flags a bit easier for a show that is not for flag enthusiasts. There was also a round of homophones that was hilarious, and reminiscent of the fake game show on 30 Rock called (erroneously) Homonym.

The best round of Spelling Bee was when he made them spell words the same way a 6 year old had spelt them to him. She had also put the words in very cute sentences. It was also hard, but super hilarious. Rhys said ‘I’m finally going to wipe the floor with the lot of you’ and he did! It brought the house down.

Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee sold out one of the biggest rooms in the Town Hall last week. The audience were spelling along with the performers and clapping before Guy announced that they were right. There are a lot of spelling fans out there. I think this show has legs and might make even make a great TV show, so get tickets now before it sells out, becomes a TV show, or possibly even, a cult.

Guy Montgomery performs Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee with different guests each week at The Town Hall in The Supper Room on Friday nights at 10.45pm Throughout the Festival.

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2022/shows/guy-montgomery-s-spelling-bee

The 2021 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Awards

This afternoon the Melbourne International Comedy Festival announced the 2021 Award winners at the Toff In Town, with host Adam Hills. Adam mentioned how incredibly strong the majority of the shows at this year’s festival were and he was right. The duds were rare and everything that was good was Absolutely brilliant! It must have been very difficult for the judges this year.
We could not be happier to announce the winner of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award 2021 for the Most Outstanding Show is Geraldine Hickey! Hickey said in her thank you speech: “I’d kind of like to dedicate this award to anyone who’s in the middle of their career and at the tipping point of, Is this working? Should I keep going? No one notices me. Well keep going ’cause fuck I did and look at me now!” To big cheers.
Now, when is she getting to host a TV show / her own Netflix special? Soon I hope. She has been selling out live shows for years now.

Most Outstanding Show: Geraldine Hickey What a Surprise!
Nominees:
Aaron Chen – Sorry Forever
David Quirk – Astonishing Obscurity
Ivan Aristeguieta – Piñata
Luke Heggie – Lowbreed
Michelle Brasier – Average Bear
Nikki Britton – One Small Step
Reuben Kaye – The Butch is Back

Best Newcomer Award: Charlie Zangel – Cockatiel 
You may know Charlie Zangel who has been performing for years as Charity Werk
Nominees:
Anna Piper Scott – Queer & Present Danger
Chris Ryan – Big Hair, Big Dreams
Scout Boxall – Good Egg

The Golden Gibbo: Nat Harris & Hannah Camilleri! – Pet-Nat + Han ah  Chocolat.
An award given for creativity and bravery.
Nominees:
Claire Sullivan – Toast Rat
Woah, Alyssa! – Woah, Alyssa! 3
Ben Knight – Teacher
Alasdair Tremblay-Birchall and Andy Matthews! – Teleport

Directors’ Choice Award: Melanie Bracewell – The Rumours Are True 
A New Zealander you may know from her regular appearances on Have You Been Paying Attention, she accepted this in her netball uniform.

The People’s Choice Award: Daniel Sloss
This award is for most tickets sold across the 2021 Festival and UK comedian Sloss was very closely followed by Tommy Little.

The Piece of Wood: Greg Larsen – This Might Not Be Hell.
This award is chosen by other comedians in the festival for one of their own.

Funny Tonne: Winner Ben Carruthers
As I publish He’s seen 79 shows, and written 52 reviews, he said the emphasis was put on review quality this year.
The funny Tonners didn’t start their run until after the Festival had begun and were somewhat outshined by comedian Blake Everett, who is up in the 90s and has given nearly every one of them a quick positive review on twitter. And he is performing in his own acclaimed festival show Blake and Oliver Dig Their Own Graves and also did tech for award nominated Toast Rat.

Class Clowns National Champ: Dhruv Rhao (who was the youngest nominee) Runners-up: Jai Uhlmann and Sophia Marosszeky

The Deadly Funny Award:  Jahmarley Dawson   Special mentions were given to Cy Fahey, Ben Moodie and Kasey Johnson