Around Melbourne

Ready to laugh until you cry? The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is back from March 25 to April 19, serving up nearly a month of punchlines and pure joy in venues across the city. Since its inception in 1987, the festival has grown to become Australia's largest cultural ticketed event – and the third-largest comedy festival in the world, behind Montreal’s Just for Laughs and the Edinburgh Fringe, luring the funniest peeps from around Australia and across the globe. The 2026 program opens on March 25 with the Comedy Allstars Supershow at the Palais Theatre. Get ready to LOL with homegrown faves like Celia Pacquola, Dilruk Jayasinha, Jenny Tian, Josie Long, Nazeem Hussain as well as international talent like Sam Jay (USA), Phil Wang (UK/Malaysia) and David O’Doherty (Ireland). From stand-up and sketch to improv, musical comedy and even film, this year’s line-up is stacked with hilarious heavyweights – think Josh Thomas, Gillian Cosgriff, Lizzy Hoo, Nat Harris, Wil Anderson, Lano & Woodley, Hannah Gadsby, Denise Scott, Urzila Carlson, Matt Okine and Sammy J, plus plenty more international acts. Championing First Nations storytelling remains front and centre, with a shows featuring Leon Filewood, Elaine Crombie, Steph Tisdell, Dale Woodbridge-Brown, Dane Simpson, Kevin Kropinyeri and Tarsh Jago. Beloved annual events also return like The 36th Annual Great Debate featuring six comedy superstars and one fearless moderator; Upfront featuring a line-up of the...

Calling all bookworms, literature lovers and BookTok obsessives: the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) line-up has just been unveiled. 2026's program reads like a list of the crème de la crème of the 2026 literary world, featuring New York Times best-selling authors, Booker Prize standouts, first-timers and MWF exclusives, with a stellar cast coming together to celebrate the iconic festival's 40th anniversary.  The festival will spread big bookish energy across the city and surrounds via four days of workshops, talks, events and panels, running from May 7-10. This time around, the central theme of the program is 'Visions and Revisions' – which will explore the ideas that matter, futures we imagine, the strange stories we all carry, and the particular revisions, both personal and collective, that work to define us. International highlights include former NZ prime minister and all-round fan favourite, Jacinda Ardern, international bestseller R.F Kuang (Yellowface and Babel), recent Booker prize winner David Szalay (Flesh) and acclaimed Booker winner Yann Martel, whose known worldwide for his beloved book, The Life of Pi.  On the local front, expect to see journalist and human rights advocate Antoniette Latouff present 'Women who Win', alongside activist and former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame. We'll also see Stephanie Alexander (aka, the queen of Australian homestyle cooking) in conversation with beloved author and philanthropist Alice Zaslavsky, in a Mother's Day convo...

Melbourne Design Week will be back to celebrate its 10th birthday from May 14-24. Across 11 days of exhibitions, talks and workshops – yes, that's more than 400 events – Australia’s largest annual design event will showcase the future of food, fitness, furniture and more. With a call to action to 'design the world you want’, the 2026 program spans everything from experimental furniture and architecture to food design, sportswear and robotics. Events will take place in some of Melbourne’s most iconic cultural spaces, including the National Communication Museum, Melbourne School of Design, Abbotsford Convent and, of course, NGV International. A stellar line-up will take to the stage throughout the festival. Japanese industrial designer Shunji Yamanaka will deliver a lecture exploring his boundary-pushing work with robotics and prosthetics, while renowned architect, while Tom Kundig will discuss designing homes that forge deeper connections with nature. Australian design icon Mary Featherston will also appear in conversation with Grand Designs Australia presenter Anthony Burke, reflecting on the mid-century interiors she created with her late husband Grant. Food and design meet in a series of delicious events. One highlight pairs celebrated chef Hugh Allen with architect John Wardle to explore the craft behind Melbourne’s new fine-dining restaurant Yiaga. Elsewhere, exhibitions delve into the artistry of tableware, chocolate inspired by architecture and the design that...