Jessi Ryan

The beloved Melbourne International Comedy Festival is well and truly in full swing, with more than 680 shows lighting up venues across the city. Phew, our abs are hurting already! With so many comedians to see and not enough time, we have sent out a batch of reviewers to dig deep and suss out the best of the fest this year. Whether it's a weird and wonderful show, a national treasure or a rising star, check out our reviews and see what tickles your fancy.  Want to review the show over a drink? Check out the best late-night bars in Melbourne.  

Humans 2.0 is a tight 70-minute circus show comprising ten highly skilled performers and presented by Circa at Arts Centre Melbourne. Directed by Yaron Lifschitz, the performance takes place on a bare stage marked only by a white circle with banks of lighting around the outer periphery.  Choosing to see this work on a Saturday matinee away from the hullabaloo of opening night – surrounded by families and children – it's clear that Circa has created a real crowd-pleaser. Yes, the physicality is impressive and the stunts are jaw-dropping, but whether or not it reaches the lofty heights of “examining the human condition” remains in question. Part of this problem lies in the fact that as audiences, we are bearing witness to performers who are nothing short of superhuman. These ten bodies create towering structures and tableaux, each successive passage of movement like waves of varying intensities coming along to wipe the slate clean. As a genre circus is often a tricky wheel to re-invent. It’s bound by the parameters of different acts and tricks, such as acrobatics and aerial, and further complicating any attempts to do so are the time and training it takes to undertake such feats.  Humans 2.0 is at its best when leaning further into its choreographic language, which is a signature of this company. In these briefest of moments we come closest as an audience to an examination of the human condition. Without these passages all that remains is a very lean show consisting solely of a