Things to do in Melbourne this week

Why is Des Bishop's show called Egorithm? What's an 'egorithm' anyway? Comedians at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival have to name their shows seven months out, at which point they haven't written any material for their new shows. Bishop figured he would do some things about computer algorithms and data privacy, some bits about ego and everyone's 15 minutes of fame (hence 'egorithm'), some bits about generation gaps (Bishop is now 42, but he has plenty of fans under 20) and then a bit about men's defensiveness around feminism. And then #metoo happened, and all of a sudden maybe the straight, male comedian shouldn't do a set about feminism and men's reaction to it. "It's not my time! It's always been my time, for all of human history it's been my time. I'm a straight, white, good-looking man. But now it's not my time anymore." But Bishop uses a neat bit of apophasis to do a screamingly funny bit about sex, consent, harassment and why the word 'moist' makes people uncomfortable (hint: it's not the 'oi').  Bishop has been a mainstay of the Irish comedy scene for decades – he was 14 when his parents sent him from his native New York to Ireland, and although his accent is pure New York, he does excellent (and frequent) Irish brogues, to the delight of his mostly Irish audience. But even though he's been performing for 21 years, this material is fresh, energetic, very up-to-the-moment and heaps of fun. 

Betty Grumble zips up her pants and says how it’s funny what some people think is indecent. Some people think women’s bodies are indecent, especially women’s naked bodies – and don’t get them started on those bodies shamelessly feeling and giving pleasure. If clowns help us to accept or challenge life’s absurdities, Betty wears neon and gold make up to encourage us to act. Her recent Sex Clown Saves the World was about healing through ecosexual love – thank you, Annie Sprinkle – and trashing ridiculous concepts of beauty. Love and Anger is a more personal call to radical action. Betty and her creator, Emma Maye Gibson, consult a 1968 call for women to join together to fix the world’s problems: Valerie Solanas’s S.C.U.M Manifesto. Fifty years later, it’s still time to be radical. As no one really wants to reinstate the Society for Cutting Up Men, Betty calls on us to embrace a more radical act. Pleasure is a radical act. Who hasn’t criticised themselves for indulging in pleasure? Loving ourselves and the imperfect people in our lives is so radical that it’s sometimes called indecent. Not in Betty’s world. In a physical tour-de-force, she confronts the absurdity that naked is something women need to protect or withhold. #YoniPride is radical. There is nudity – you will see the beautiful skin tag on her vulva – and bodily functions and what is legally defined as a sex act. But there’s not a moment of indecency. Love & Anger is humane, life affirming and important.

Cindy Salmon is determined to change the world. Almost since her immaculate conception, she’s been high kicking glass ceilings, hat stands’ windpipes and anything that stops women from controlling their own lives. Hat stands are men. She’s not one of those women who dislikes hat stands – the hat stands in her audience will shout her name from the rooftops – but, for once, hat stands can deal with being described as something generic. When she and her creator Hayley Tantau received a Moosehead (Melbourne’s Moosehead Awards have supported original and innovative comedians since 1987), she put on one of her favourite hot-pink power blazers and asked to book a sports arena for her Empowerful “salmonar”. However, she’s making do with the smaller Games Room at ACMI, and her audiences know how lucky they are to get some small-school time. She demonstrates how to do daily tasks in an empowering way, how to reject the rejection of the likes of John West and how to face any fear that’s holding you back. Or holding your only friend above a fast-flowing river. Cindy makes everyone feel like they are her favourite people and are ready to overcome anything. With her genuine love and encouragement, audience fears are revealed and… some fears are universal and powerful and hard to high kick in the windpipe. Tantau explores how even our most enthusiastic role models sometimes need a bit of help and how women – and hat stands – can help each other to smash the patriarchy, swim upstream and

Gillian Cosgriff is one of those talents who I can hardly believe isn’t a bigger deal. Since breaking through in 2011 with her first show of comedy and original songs, Waitressing… And Other Things I Do Well, Cosgriff has proven herself to be one of the most original voices in Australian comedy and cabaret. There are few comedians who manage to capture the tiny details and ennui of contemporary life with such joy and skill. Cosgriff has a knack for comedic rhymes to stand alongside Tim Minchin and an ear for a catchy indie pop melody not too dissimilar to Kate Miller-Heidke. For this year’s festival, Cosgriff is taking a look back at her minor legacy, with a greatest hits package of sorts. It’s both an excellent introduction for new audiences and a thrill for existing fans. There’s her ode to procrastination, a more realistic pop number about clubbing than we’ve come to expect from American hitmakers, and a surprisingly touching song composed for her 16-year-old self. But you needn’t worry that a greatest hits show means no new material – each night Cosgriff is choosing an audience member and writing a new song about that person on the spot. She had a particularly tough challenge on the night that I attended: a man called Brad who was a big fan of Shangela from RuPaul’s Drag Race (only a handful of audience members had seen the show) and worked as an environmental scientist. They mightn’t be the most complementary of subjects, but Cosgriff’s mind can draw connections and ly

Every Monday fortnight at 8pm the Brunswick Hotel hosts free comedy and $10 jugs of draught (you’re kidding?). Whilst the beer may be cheap the laughs certainly are not, these are talented comedians performing weekly and bringing you the best gags you can find around Melbourne on a Monday night.  

At some point in our lives, we’ve all met someone like Fleabag. Maybe she was the booze-soaked over-sharer at the party, spouting outrageously filthy anecdotes so wrong they were right. Maybe she’s your mate’s wildly changeable and narcissistic on-again-off-again girlfriend. Maybe she’s your slightly broken friend, who despite her many, many flaws, you can’t help but love. And maybe, when you bring yourself to face some hard truths, she’s a bit like you. The eponymous lead character of this pitch black one-woman comedy (we never learn her real name) is a hyper-sexual 20-something Londoner teetering on the brink of disaster. Her guinea pig-themed café will close unless she can get a bank loan (or cash from her over-achieving sister). She’s mourning the “accidental suicide” of her best friend and café co-owner Boo. Her boyfriend has just dumped her for wanking to a video of Obama while he tried to sleep beside her. She’s struggling to connect with her painfully middle class father after the death of her mother. It’s a lot for anyone to deal with. And yet, when we meet Fleabag (Maddie Rice), she’d have us believe that she’s taking it all in her stride. We meet her in an interview with a bank manager that goes very wrong, very quickly – but then she quickly shakes it off. Fleabag is all wide eyes, cheeky smiles and wry quips. She speaks directly to the audience, her mind working faster than a guinea pig on a wheel as she seamlessly weaves anecdotes with stream-of-consciousnes

Melbourne choreographer Stephanie Lake has been on a hugely successful roll since she established her own company – simply named 'Stephanie Lake Company' – four years ago. She's won awards left, right and centre, and toured her work to some of the world's most prestigious arts festivals. Melbourne audiences will be the first to see her new full-length work, which premieres at Northcote Town Hall as part of Darebin Arts Speakeasy. In Replica, she's bringing together Singaporean dancer Christina Chan and French dancer Aymeric Bichon. She's promising a work that's "defined by whip-smart unison and wild, animalistic choreography", exploring the relationship and dependence between the pair. The piece also sees Lake reunite with composer Robin Fox, who'll create the soundtrack.

It’s somewhat mind-bending for local audiences to get their heads around the work of UK film and theatre director Mike Leigh, mainly because he is famous for a particular style of rehearsal that doesn’t necessarily illuminate the diversity of his output. He’s known for long periods of development, where the actors fully immerse themselves in the roles, often improvising for months on end even before filming begins. His name is synonymous with “Kitchen-sink drama”, but then films like Topsy-Turvey and Mr Turner – about Gilbert and Sullivan and J. M. W. Turner, respectively – have such a lush romantic sensibility, that the attribution often feels limiting.Before he became famous for such bleak, uncompromising material as Naked and Secrets and Lies, he produced plays that pilloried the aspirational middle class in Britain. Abigail’s Party, first performed in 1977 and later televised, is one of his most caustic satires, fully embedded in the mores and pretensions of its time and place. It’s a curious vehicle for the MTC debut of Stephen Nicolazzo, one of Australia’s most thrilling young directors; a case could be made for this work as a mirror to our own social and political myopia, but Nicolazzo doesn’t seem interested in making it. Instead he subverts the work, tilting it towards the surreal. It’s an exciting idea, but the results are strangely unsatisfying.Abigail’s party – the one in the title – is curiously an offstage affair. The party we are witness to belongs entirely to

When you think power couples, you think Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Kim and Kanye. Maybe Rihanna and Drake (well, in Drake’s dreams). Get ready to add Antony and Cleopatra to your list. This was a love for the ages, and Shakespeare turned the dramatic excess of the couple up to 100: in his play their love is passionate, tumultuous, and all-consuming. Ever since Mark Antony fell for Queen Cleo, he’s been neglecting his high-ranking soldierly duties, and it’s not long before he’s torn between love and duty. Expect a lot of fighting, a little comedy, and a healthy share of romance. Plus, Cleopatra is one of the more complex women in the Shakespearean canon – there’s no swooning here – and Bell Shakespeare artistic director Peter Evans, at the helm of this production, has gender-swapped a few of the supporting roles to give more women stage time, which will balance out the abundance of machismo that can overwhelm the play. Stage and screen favourite Catherine McClements (Water Rats, Wentworth, Rake) will take on Cleopatra, and Johnny Carr – who starred with McClements in The Events at Belvoir in 2016 – is playing Mark Antony. The cast also features Ray Chong Nee, Lucy Goleby, Ursula Mills, Zindzi Okenyo, Gareth Reeves, and Jo Turner.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the crowning achievement of Australian commercial musical theatre. When the stage version of Stephan Elliott’s 1994 film premiered back in 2006 it was expected to have broad appeal, but few would have anticipated its ongoing success. Eleven years later, the musical has played every major theatre market around the world, including Broadway and the West End, and continues to tour. This return Australian tour is a victory lap of sorts for this beloved show, capturing all of the joy of that premiere production. A few changes have been made to the song list – ‘It’s Raining Men’ takes the place of former opening number ‘Downtown’ – and the show is a little slicker in its storytelling and execution. If there’s any criticism to be made it’s that the show is maybe now a little too slick for this sprawling and unruly story. Whether you’ve seen the film or not – and if not, what have you even been doing for the last two decades? – the stage version stands on its own two feet as a funny and surprisingly touching jukebox musical, packed with camp disco classics. The plot follows that of the film closely: Sydney drag queens, Tick (David Harris) and Felicia (Euan Doidge), and an older transgender performer, Bernadette (Tony Sheldon), travel in a ramshackle bus to Alice Springs, where they’ve been booked for a show. It’s a typical fish-out-of-water tale as the trio encounter the outback and its inhabitants. But it goes deeper than that – Tick is secretly t

We challenge you to find a bigger tearjerker than this in the opera canon; it's not just the story (based on Alexandre Dumas' popular 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias) about a courtesan who falls for a young admirer, but sacrifices her chance at happiness for the greater good; it's also Verdi's romantic score. These are why we keep going back to Verdi's opera. This 'old faithful' production by director Elijah Moshinsky, with opulent 19th century design, is also something that audiences keep returning to; it's never long out of circulation for Opera Australia. American soprano Corinne Winters makes her Australian debut as Violetta.

Melbourne performer Jodee Mundy grew up as the only hearing member of a Deaf family, and it wasn't until she was five years old that she understood what that meant. Mundy became lost in a shopping centre and when no member of her family came to collect her, she came to the realisation that they could not hear announcements over the loudspeaker. That's what it meant to be Deaf. Using Super 8 footage of family home movies, projection, animation, performance and interview vision with her family, Mundy explores her own position as a hidden minority within a minority: a CODA (child of deaf adult). She says Auslan is her native language, with English her second, and this show finds the space between these two worlds.

Floria Tosca is one of the greatest operatic roles ever written, and Melbourne audiences will get to see powerhouse Latonia Moore in the role as this production returns to the State Theatre. From our interview with Australia's master of Shakespeare, director John Bell: Composed by Puccini after his wildly popular La bohème, Tosca is a titan in the opera canon now, but it was famously divisive when it premiered in 1900, and in the years following. Even in the ’50s, musicologist Joseph Kernan famously called it a “shabby little shocker.”  Director John Bell recounts this anecdote incredulously: “I thought, ‘How can you say that?’ I suppose when it’s done in its original period – with period costumes and all that – it can come across as melodramatic. People associate that kind of costuming and that era with melodrama – and [Tosca] could swing that way.”  With this in mind, Bell wanted his Tosca to be something contemporary and real that audiences could relate to – while at the same time being operatic in scale. He settled on Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, taking the audience on a journey from an imposing cathedral interior to an internment camp that is more like Auschwitz than the original setting of Castel Sant'Angelo. “I was thinking about the German occupation of Rome in 1943 – when the Nazis moved in and formed an alliance with the Fascists – and the story [of Tosca] fits like a glove. Then I saw Rossellini’s film Rome, Open City [1945] – and that story was so close to Tosc

Few pop songwriters have catalogues packed with as many hits as Carole King. From her early years churning out hits for popstars – she even penned 'The Loco-motion' decades before Kylie got her hands on it – through to her record-smashing solo album Tapestry, King's songs have endured. Beautiful takes a look at how King, a precocious young musician, rose to the top of her industry and finally found her voice. The slick Australian production of the Broadway hit is blessed with Helpmann Award winner Esther Hannaford in the leading role. She unleashes her killer voice on all of King's most memorable songs, including 'I Feel the Earth Move' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'. Read Time Out Sydney's four-star review.

We challenge you to find a bigger tearjerker than this in the opera canon; it's not just the story (based on Alexandre Dumas' popular 1848 novel La Dame aux Camélias) about a courtesan who falls for a young admirer, but sacrifices her chance at happiness for the greater good; it's also Verdi's romantic score. These are why we keep going back to Verdi's opera. This 'old faithful' production by director Elijah Moshinsky, with opulent 19th century design, is also something that audiences keep returning to; it's never long out of circulation for Opera Australia. American soprano Corinne Winters makes her Australian debut as Violetta.

Floria Tosca is one of the greatest operatic roles ever written, and Melbourne audiences will get to see powerhouse Latonia Moore in the role as this production returns to the State Theatre. From our interview with Australia's master of Shakespeare, director John Bell: Composed by Puccini after his wildly popular La bohème, Tosca is a titan in the opera canon now, but it was famously divisive when it premiered in 1900, and in the years following. Even in the ’50s, musicologist Joseph Kernan famously called it a “shabby little shocker.”  Director John Bell recounts this anecdote incredulously: “I thought, ‘How can you say that?’ I suppose when it’s done in its original period – with period costumes and all that – it can come across as melodramatic. People associate that kind of costuming and that era with melodrama – and [Tosca] could swing that way.”  With this in mind, Bell wanted his Tosca to be something contemporary and real that audiences could relate to – while at the same time being operatic in scale. He settled on Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, taking the audience on a journey from an imposing cathedral interior to an internment camp that is more like Auschwitz than the original setting of Castel Sant'Angelo. “I was thinking about the German occupation of Rome in 1943 – when the Nazis moved in and formed an alliance with the Fascists – and the story [of Tosca] fits like a glove. Then I saw Rossellini’s film Rome, Open City [1945] – and that story was so close to Tosc

You’re probably going to relate to Frida Deguise or Sallie J Don, but not both. The comedians’ two-woman show is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of Australian suburbia from two very different perspectives. It’s a chalk-and-cheese pairing – Deguise is a Melbourne-born, Australian-Lebanese Muslim, and Don a private school-educated Anglo-Aussie with family in Mosman. Both however are unafraid of poking fun at their own cultural stereotypes – or as we say in Australia, taking the piss. Up first, Deguise is quick to get stuck into jokes about being stereotyped – a word she confesses she did not know when she started stand-up. From leaving backpacks unguarded to getting stopped by security at Paddington town hall, Deguise has found a comedic niche and works it. Pauline Hanson of course gets a mention, with Deguise suggesting a (plausible) unrequited love story as the reason for Hanson’s political stance. But while Deguise's background and faith make up a lot of her material, she’s more than just a one-joke pony, with her material on working in retail and having a hoarder husband some of her best. On the other side of the latte line Sallie J Don makes light work of the upper-middle echelons of Australia. Hey, it’s not easy coming from a white, well-off family in Australia – as Don points out, her education at a girls' Christian school meant her sex education was extremely lacking (perhaps asking about ‘which hole it goes into’ during geography probably didn’t help). Life’s not all pino

Why is Des Bishop's show called Egorithm? What's an 'egorithm' anyway? Comedians at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival have to name their shows seven months out, at which point they haven't written any material for their new shows. Bishop figured he would do some things about computer algorithms and data privacy, some bits about ego and everyone's 15 minutes of fame (hence 'egorithm'), some bits about generation gaps (Bishop is now 42, but he has plenty of fans under 20) and then a bit about men's defensiveness around feminism. And then #metoo happened, and all of a sudden maybe the straight, male comedian shouldn't do a set about feminism and men's reaction to it. "It's not my time! It's always been my time, for all of human history it's been my time. I'm a straight, white, good-looking man. But now it's not my time anymore." But Bishop uses a neat bit of apophasis to do a screamingly funny bit about sex, consent, harassment and why the word 'moist' makes people uncomfortable (hint: it's not the 'oi').  Bishop has been a mainstay of the Irish comedy scene for decades – he was 14 when his parents sent him from his native New York to Ireland, and although his accent is pure New York, he does excellent (and frequent) Irish brogues, to the delight of his mostly Irish audience. But even though he's been performing for 21 years, this material is fresh, energetic, very up-to-the-moment and heaps of fun. 

Betty Grumble zips up her pants and says how it’s funny what some people think is indecent. Some people think women’s bodies are indecent, especially women’s naked bodies – and don’t get them started on those bodies shamelessly feeling and giving pleasure. If clowns help us to accept or challenge life’s absurdities, Betty wears neon and gold make up to encourage us to act. Her recent Sex Clown Saves the World was about healing through ecosexual love – thank you, Annie Sprinkle – and trashing ridiculous concepts of beauty. Love and Anger is a more personal call to radical action. Betty and her creator, Emma Maye Gibson, consult a 1968 call for women to join together to fix the world’s problems: Valerie Solanas’s S.C.U.M Manifesto. Fifty years later, it’s still time to be radical. As no one really wants to reinstate the Society for Cutting Up Men, Betty calls on us to embrace a more radical act. Pleasure is a radical act. Who hasn’t criticised themselves for indulging in pleasure? Loving ourselves and the imperfect people in our lives is so radical that it’s sometimes called indecent. Not in Betty’s world. In a physical tour-de-force, she confronts the absurdity that naked is something women need to protect or withhold. #YoniPride is radical. There is nudity – you will see the beautiful skin tag on her vulva – and bodily functions and what is legally defined as a sex act. But there’s not a moment of indecency. Love & Anger is humane, life affirming and important.

I didn’t write any words down in the Spinnaker Lounge – the fictional late-night bar in which fictional late-night outrage Helen Bidou performs a cabaret-infomercial. This is for two reasons. First, there is laughter so physical it destroys all motor control. Second, a show like this can never be evoked in words. What do you say when you’ve been pissing yourself for an hour? That this show is wonderful. That this show is gross. That this show may not appeal to persons who prefer comedy built on an intellectual foundation. It will appeal to those who can happily commit to stupidity. Anne Edmonds’ Bidou is, by no means, the product of stupidity. She’s an elaborate hysteric whose suburban origin story feels as complete as Dame Edna’s, far better charted than that of either Kath or Kim. Her language is borrowed from morning television, discount vouchers and the sort of ballads sung by X-Factor contestants. Her identity, like Edna’s, is borrowed from delusion. She is a proud Australian who bakes in Bali, an entrepreneur who trades in stolen goods. She’s an ingenue with an adult son, played by Sam Campbell. Who must be commended for his first-rate Oedipal anxiety. To date, all published reviews have praised this 18+ show, but do so for its seeming sloppiness or spontaneity. The Bidou persona may be chaotic, but I don’t think we can say that of the Bidou conception. I’m pretty certain all cues are triggered and all sarongs fall down at the precise moment of their planning. I’m p

Nazeem Hussain is due to become a father any day now. So to ensure he doesn’t miss the birth of his first child, he’s performing every show at the Comedy Festival with his phone on a stool next to him. If it rings and his wife is in labour, we can all agree the show should stop and he should rush to her side, right? Hussain’s impending parenthood provides a good launchpad for the comedian to take a closer look at Australia and the wider world he’s bringing a child into. He’s a brown Muslim in predominantly white spaces, and that inevitably informs a great deal of his comedy. He’s recently spent time in the most racist town in America – Harrison, Arkansas, home of the Ku Klux Klan – on assignment for Netflix’s Bill Nye Saves The World. But the things he experienced in America’s south mightn’t be quite what you expect. Hussain, who gained prominence on the stand-up circuit as one half of Fear of a Brown Planet, continues to be politically provocative and in total command for his hour-long set. There are no lags, even when he’s on a familiar topic – Pauline Hanson jokes might be a dime a dozen by this point, but they still pack a punch when Hussain gets on one of his rants about her “facts”. There are a few bits this time around that he’s done in previous shows, including a story about dealing with internet trolls by convincing them to block you. These parts may feel a little bit safe, but they’re all tried and tested and work brilliantly well. And can you ever really accuse

Cindy Salmon is determined to change the world. Almost since her immaculate conception, she’s been high kicking glass ceilings, hat stands’ windpipes and anything that stops women from controlling their own lives. Hat stands are men. She’s not one of those women who dislikes hat stands – the hat stands in her audience will shout her name from the rooftops – but, for once, hat stands can deal with being described as something generic. When she and her creator Hayley Tantau received a Moosehead (Melbourne’s Moosehead Awards have supported original and innovative comedians since 1987), she put on one of her favourite hot-pink power blazers and asked to book a sports arena for her Empowerful “salmonar”. However, she’s making do with the smaller Games Room at ACMI, and her audiences know how lucky they are to get some small-school time. She demonstrates how to do daily tasks in an empowering way, how to reject the rejection of the likes of John West and how to face any fear that’s holding you back. Or holding your only friend above a fast-flowing river. Cindy makes everyone feel like they are her favourite people and are ready to overcome anything. With her genuine love and encouragement, audience fears are revealed and… some fears are universal and powerful and hard to high kick in the windpipe. Tantau explores how even our most enthusiastic role models sometimes need a bit of help and how women – and hat stands – can help each other to smash the patriarchy, swim upstream and

Gillian Cosgriff is one of those talents who I can hardly believe isn’t a bigger deal. Since breaking through in 2011 with her first show of comedy and original songs, Waitressing… And Other Things I Do Well, Cosgriff has proven herself to be one of the most original voices in Australian comedy and cabaret. There are few comedians who manage to capture the tiny details and ennui of contemporary life with such joy and skill. Cosgriff has a knack for comedic rhymes to stand alongside Tim Minchin and an ear for a catchy indie pop melody not too dissimilar to Kate Miller-Heidke. For this year’s festival, Cosgriff is taking a look back at her minor legacy, with a greatest hits package of sorts. It’s both an excellent introduction for new audiences and a thrill for existing fans. There’s her ode to procrastination, a more realistic pop number about clubbing than we’ve come to expect from American hitmakers, and a surprisingly touching song composed for her 16-year-old self. But you needn’t worry that a greatest hits show means no new material – each night Cosgriff is choosing an audience member and writing a new song about that person on the spot. She had a particularly tough challenge on the night that I attended: a man called Brad who was a big fan of Shangela from RuPaul’s Drag Race (only a handful of audience members had seen the show) and worked as an environmental scientist. They mightn’t be the most complementary of subjects, but Cosgriff’s mind can draw connections and ly

It’s been 12 years since Colin Lane and Frank Woodley last performed together as the wildly popular comedy act Lano and Woodley. They split up back in 2006 after two decades to ensure that their real-life friendship wouldn’t suffer from spending every waking second working together. It seems the time apart has served them very well: not only is there a new freshness and energy to their act, but their split has also given them a very funny premise that plays directly into their dynamic. Col has agreed to the reunion on very strict conditions: firstly, he doesn’t want to appear on stage with Frank at any time. He doesn’t want the stress that comes with dealing with Frank’s nonsense, so he’s decided that they must tag-team the show. More significantly, he doesn’t want to do comedy anymore, but a serious play about the Wright brothers inventing the first successful aircraft. As you can imagine, things don’t quite go to plan as Col’s priggishness again comes into conflict with Frank’s childish wonderment (which is still innocent and joyful, even though he’s now 50 years old). The physical comedy is just as thrilling as it’s ever been – there’s a great bit with an electric shock collar – and they manage to make the 900-seat Playhouse at Arts Centre Melbourne feel very intimate. Fly is an impressive feat and a wonderfully constructed show. This is no mere cash-grab reunion tour – although I’m sure it will make plenty of money – but a superb and silly showcase for two comedians

Suren Jayemanne is an uncommonly talented writer and performer who has, as they say, what it takes. Unhappily for me, him and those others who will view his good-but-not-great hour Surenity Now, he’s not currently taking what he has anywhere so special. Not, at least, in this moment. I forgive him and trust he will soon offer more. And hey, there are plenty of reasons a young comic might find growth difficult. These include time, money and the problems of money and time. As if material survival within the unprofitable context of small comedy rooms is not challenging enough, cultural survival cannot be easy in this nation for a comic of colour. Local comedy may be no longer entirely performed by white people, but a white sensibility continues its dominance nonetheless. Just as once white female comics were critically diminished to pure identity before speaking – “she’ll only talk about tampons” – brown comics now face a comparable reduction. How dare you talk about who you are, demand critics, as if this were not the work of every comic. Jayemanne, a person fluent in two cultures, addressed this critical bigotry and dispensed with it promptly in 2015’s Eat Praline, Love. This was a bright, savvy and, I’d say, meticulously written show that made the sensation of “race” as briefly felt in the minds of a largely white audience as it is stubbornly felt in the Australian lives of those who are not white. A very good hour like this makes a coin drop, at least until the curtain

There are works that address a broad audience. There are works that address an audience familiar with the language of that work’s form. Then, there are works that address an audience so tiny and specific, one wonders if they wouldn’t be better staged at a hobby convention. Yours Sincerely is a show by, for and about the comedian. And not just any comedian, but the Melbourne comedian approaching or enduring midlife. Probably one working the circuit for a minimum of a decade. Certainly, one familiar with the personal fortunes of other comedians in that circle. What Bob Franklin, a stand-up and actor of sustained and obvious talent, offers here is his depiction of another Melbourne comedian. That character may bear the name of Bob Franklin, but biographical details divulged soon make it clear that Franklin is playing somebody else. The cuckolding narcissist he has created, who has squandered talent, opportunity and intimacy for decades to fuel the stuff of his fragile, sordid self, is surely not Franklin. Within this monologue, he recounts monstrous misdeeds and defends them as though they were his own. This jeremiad takes place on a stage mostly bare, save for prop merchandise the monster comic has prepared – books about his false redemption, mostly. Let’s be generous and say that the figure portrayed by Franklin is not a portrayal of any individual; that this creation is a sort of stand-up Frankenstein intended to paint the darkness required to bring forth the light of co