Talk about a buzzkill. First COVID-19 felled the Melbourne International Comedy Festival barely a week out from its opening and now the knock-on effect has also claimed the Sydney Comedy Festival, which has now also been scrapped.
Events of all kinds have been cancelled or postponed this week, including massive cultural institutions like Vivid Sydney, Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. However, unlike the last great pandemic – the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak – COVID-19 has hit in the 21st century, a time when online streaming services can deliver a universe of entertainment direct to our living rooms, without the need to interact with a single snotty human.
While you won't be able to see them in the flesh for the time being, ten of the biggest names on Australia's stand-up circuit have just dropped comedy specials, streaming via Amazon Prime. The line-up of hilarious luminaries includes Zoë Coombs Marr, Judith Lucy, Celia Pacquola, Anne Edmonds, Tom Walker, Tommy Little, Lano and Woodley, Dilruk Jayasinha, Alice Fraser and Tom Gleeson.
Two specials will be released every week starting Friday, April 10, filmed in Melbourne at Malthouse Theatre. You can pretend they’re performing just for you right here in Sydney without having to run the gauntlet of interstate travel in these crazy coronaviral days. Because goodness knows we need a chuckle or two right now.