Life’s going great for hugely popular comedian Geraldine Hickey. She scored the Most Outstanding Show Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2021 after narrowly missing out two years earlier.
Even better, she recently got hitched, with fellow comedians Rhys Nicholson and their partner Khyran Wheatley joining Nath Valvo as her flower girls. Celia Pacquola was in attendance. Country and western superstar Becky Cole was their wedding singer, with the magnificence of cabaret queen Geraldine Quinn bringing her all in the band.
Just in case you miss one of the many, many call-backs sprinkled throughout this Comedy Theatre gig, this glorious union also considerably boosted Hickey’s real estate profile. She and her partner now own three houses between them: a Melbourne crash pad, a country home and a beach house (where the wedding took place). While lockdown sparked a love of bird watching for Hickey, her wife went the more unusual route of getting into carriage racing, as driven by Victor, a charismatic member of their menagerie of equine friends, hence the name of the show.
So, as you can imagine, Hickey’s latest gig is a loved-up affair, with plenty of chuckles to be had in an hour of wholesome normcore fun. And there’s absolutely no harm in that in these crazy days in which we live, when flicking on the nightly news is a never-ending mental health hazard.
Certainly, the Comedy Theatre crowd lapped it up. You can feel the love in the room for a seasoned performer who makes it look easy, with folks blissing out to her thoroughly lovely tales of hush-hush red-bellied parrot twitching and pre-wedding rogue lawn moving.
But if you’re hankering after a show that does a little bit more than deliver admittedly hearty pub chat, you may wander off a bit during a lazy set-up in which Hickey outlines the basic premise of reality TV show Say Yes to the Dress.
Granted, it does eventually lead to a glittering pay-off, but most of the gig will float away in the evening’s breeze as you leave. If all you want to do is switch off in good company, then hitch a ride with Hickey and let Victor do all the heavy lifting.
With so many comedians to choose between, check out our ultimate guide to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2023.
