What I loved 2013: the Best of Melbourne Theatre

I was determined to see more than 100 shows this year and on my rough count I made it to 187. (If I count Life and Times as three shows, I get to 190; and if I count all the short plays, I can bluff a 250+!)

And I still missed too many!

Over December, we've heard what 51 people from Melbourne's theatre community loved in 2013, but here are my What I Loved awards.

There's still nothing shiny to take away.

As always, my criteria is simply what I loved the most; what shows and artists I remembered beyond the final applause.

Some were easy picks, while others were impossible to choose between and there are shows that I can't believe didn't make my own list!

Outstanding Artists 2013

WRITING

Patricia Cornelius for Savages, fortyfivedownstairs

Patricia Cornelius

Special mentions

May Jasper for Not a very good story, La Mama

Lally Katz for Stories I want to tell you in person, Malthouse Theatre, Belvoir

Sarah Hamilton and Justine Campbell for They saw a thylacine, Melbourne Fringe

DESIGN

Sunday in the Park with George

Anna Cordingley for Sunday in the Park with George, Victoria Opera
and
Kate Davis for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

Special mention

Eugyeene Teh, design; Russell Goldsmith, sound;  Rob Sowinski, lighting for Palace of the End, Theatre Works

LIGHTING 

Richard Vabre for night maybe, Stuck Pigs Squealing, Theatre Works

PERFORMANCE

The Sovereign Wife

Hannah Norris for Palace of the End, Theatre Works
and
Mary Helen Sassman for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON
and
Ash Flanders for The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON
and
The cast of Death in the Family, Ward Theatre Company

Special mentions
(or who to watch out for, because wow!)

Peter Paltos
Emily Milledge
Emily Tomlins
Genevieve Giuffre 

DIRECTION 

Palace of the End

Leticia Caceres for Constellations, MTC (and a special mention for The Tall Man, La Mama)
and
Emma Valente for Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

Special mentions

Daniel Clarke for Palace of the End, Theatre Works

Daniel Lammin for Columbine, MUST

Stephen Nicolazzo for Psycho Beach Party

EVERYTHING THEY DO ROCKS

Summertime in the Garden of Eden

Marg Horwell for her astonishing design for Constellations, MTC; By their own hands, The Hayloft Project at NEON; Savages, fortyfivedownstairs; and Summertime in the garden of Eden, Sisters Grimm and Theatre Works.

Marg consistently bring a visual narrative that's far beyond what the writers could ever have imagined, but makes the world look like it could never have been anything else. 

Story of O

and

The Rabble for  Story of O at NEON, and  Room of Regret, Theatre Works at Melbourne Festival.

I've run out of words to describe this company. I love them to pieces. All I know is that there's nothing on a Rabble stage that feels out of place. For a company with such a complex improvisational development process, they let process be process and only bring what's absolutely necessary to the stage.

Outstanding Productions 2012

CABARET

Between the Cracks

Between the Cracks, Yana Alana at Melbourne Cabaret Festival

Special mention

Stranger, Geraldine Quinn at Melbourne Fringe. 

COMMERCIAL SHOW

Constellations, MTC
and
War Horse, National Theatre of Great Britain and Global Creatures in association with Arts Centre Melbourne

MUSICAL

Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story

Sunday in the Park with George, Victorian Opera
and

Flowerchildren: The Mamas and Papas Story, Magnormos

Special mention

Wolf Creek, the Musical, at Melbourne Fringe

COMEDY

Happiness is a bedside table

Happiness is a bedside table, Hannah Gadsby at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Special mentions

Slutmonster and friends

Slutmonster and Friends at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Famoucity!, Lessons with Luis at at Melbourne International Comedy Festival

DANCE

Conversation Piece, Lucy Guerin Inc, Belvoir and Arts House

OPERA

Nixon in China

Nixon in China, Victorian Opera

And the Melbourne Ring Cycle was very cool, even the not-for-review dress rehearsals.

BEST OF THE BEST

The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arts Projects Australia

Einstein on the Beach, Arts Centre Melbourne, Pomegranate Arts

Story of O, The Rabble at NEON

The Sovereign Wife, Sisters Grimm at NEON

Kids Killing Kids, MKA and Q Theatre Company at Melbourne Fringe

MY FAVOURITE SHOW OF 2013

Life and Times: Episodes 1–4, National Theater of Oklahoma at Melbourne Festival

2012 Lovies

2011 Lovies

2010 Lovies

2009 Lovies

2008 Lovies

2007 quickies

What to see at the last day of MICF

It's the last day of MICF! In the middle of the festival, it feels like it'll go on forever and that there's enough time to see every show we want to, but it's over and I'm trying not to think of all the ones I wish I'd seen. OK, I spent the last Saturday of the festival on the couch with some chocolate and a DVD: it was wonderful.

But I know you're all so much more hard core than me, so what MUST you see today?

Great news, you're going to be celebrating amazing, hot, too-funny-for-words women.

And you'd better leave now because it kicks off at 4.30!

First stop is Choir Girl at 4.30 at the Melbourne Town Hall. This show keeps selling selling out, so  they have an extra show on today. Other performers and their artists passes are especially welcome.

Or, the exquisite Hannah Gadsby also has an extra show of Happiness is a Bedside Table at 4.30. This was hands down the best stand up I saw this festival.

Hannah's honesty is heartbreaking and this show is one of the most positive and uplifting pieces of stand up I've seen.  If 4.30 doesn't work for you, her 6.00 show is sold out, but it's always worth trying your luck.

You can have a dinner break now, or, better still, buy a ticket to see someone you've never heard of.

However, at 7.30, you're off to the super gorgeous Tuxedo Cat for Lisa-Skye's Songs My Parents Taught Me.

Lisa-Skye might be sexier than Slutmonster. That's a big call and I don't want to make a choice.

With glitter that celebrates writing degrees, hair colour not found in nature (I felt embarrassed for finally growing my purple out), a retro black lace dress that I want, green tights, blue lippy and an attitude that's more sparklie than the raining glitter, Lisa-Skye's so damn gorgeous, so fucking funny and so delightfully filthy (in the best way possible) that there's no better way to finish off your MICF.

Telling stories about her parents and their friends in the 70s, it's glorious nostalgia for us who remember cheap drugs, driving drunk (and we still thank the universe every day for surviving and not killing anyone) and that the best place for a hetero pick up is a gay night club (at least some things never change).

Lisa's parents told her about inner city Melbourne in the 70s and she finds the parallels with inner city living now, except that we've had to move out a bit, can't afford to buy a house and don't have to wear skinny jeans (unless you want to). With bad advice and stories of her own search for love, lust and the cheapest high, Songs My Parents Taught Me is created and told with so much love that you have to remember that love should always be sparklie, sexy and beautifully dirty.

And, Lisa, give me ten minutes and I can teach to you parallel park.

OR

At 8 pm at The Butterfly Club, there's the just as gorgeous, but slightly less sparklie Karin Danger and her Hot Box.

Quick MICF: Potentially

Sammy J: Potentially
Laughing Stock Productions
11 April 2013
Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre Melbourne
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

I nearly forget that I saw Sammy J's Potentially! What's wrong with me? It's a night of musical comedy stand up that's as close to perfect as it can be – and it had a story about a possum! I love stories about possums.

I've said it before and expect that I'll be saying it for a long time to come: Sammy J is one of the best around who never fails to be fucking hilarious. If you haven't seen him, get yourself a ticket NOW.

He knows how to craft a surprising story, opens up enough to share his most embarrassing moments, sings a fine song and I've joined his fuck crusade. It's a plan to remove the ridiculous fear of the word "fuck" out of our lives. It's fucking brilliant word, but I'm keeping moist in my vocab, if only to describe a good cake.

Quick MICF: The Hedgehog Dilemma

Felicity Ward: The Hedgehog Dilemma
Laughing Stock Productions
16 April 2013
Atheneum
one show only
comedyfestival.com.au

I saw The Hedgehog Dilemma because people I trusted kept telling me to see it. I'd seen Felicity Ward do bits of stand up here and there, but I wasn't convinced about seeing a whole show. Bloody lucky for me that I trust other opinions, otherwise I may have missed one of the sweetest, most honest and I'm-laughing-so-much-because-I've-done-it-myself shows: I loved it.

This one-off was the last time Felicity performed this show in Australia and this ensured her biggest live audience to date in the packed Athaneum  Theatre (all three levels). Some may have even turned up knowing it was being filmed for a DVD.

So instead of encouraging you to see her show, keep an eye out for the DVD (and check out the front row) and buy it for yourself and everyone you know who had a horror break up (or two) in their 20s, went back to live with their parents as a grown up, has sat through therapy with an annoying therapist, or told jokes that they regretted.

I'm forever amazed at stand ups who open their hearts and souls to their audiences, but it's these ones who we love and go back to. If all you're doing is telling jokes, you'll never be a great stand up. I'll be at Felicity's next show, and will buy that DVD.

Quick MICF: Inside

Frank Woodley and Simon Yates: Inside
Token Events
2 April 2013
The Famous Spiegeltent at Arts Centre Melbourne
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

I can't decide if Inside is a work of comic genius or the kind self indulgence that needs a tissue at the end.

Either way, it works.

If you're expecting bumbly sweet Frank Woodley, he's gone. New Frank is joined by circus performer Simon Yates, who, as brothers Viktor and Vissilli, are locked in a prison in somewhere like eastern Europe. With shaved heads, handlebar moustaches, scars, symbolic tats that we don't understand and questionable accents, we don't know what they've done to be there, but it's a pretty nasty place to be.

It's dark without being bleak with a humour that loves the grotesque, but often relies on moments of sweetness to get a laugh. Yates's physical skills complement Woodley's physicality and the two of them make an odd couple like no other.

Quick MICF: A Modern Deception

MICF 2013
A Modern Deception: Live to Air
15 April 2013
Comedy on Collins
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Who wouldn't want to watch a sitcom about three magicians who live together and practice law? Somehow Alex, Luke and Vyom's show gets cancelled, but as luck would have it, the morning TV hosts have died and Magic Mornings is going Live to Air and even I'd consider getting up in the morning to watch a breakfast show hosted by these three.

A Modern Deception have gone through various incarnations in recent years and with director Danny Delahunty on board, they've found the extra magic of story, tightened up their stage characters and created a show that welcomes all ages and doesn't skimp on jokes for grown ups. (I loved the Waleed Aly joke.)

And there's magic. Card tricks, levitating and I-have-no-idea-how-they-do-that magic. It's mind blowingly awesome.

By the nature of magic, magicians have to be obsessive and nerdy as it's an art that should never show the skill it takes to perform it. This sometimes makes magic stage shows a bit odd, but these guys are putting the magic back into the magic of theatre by letting us be genuinely surprised and thrilled by things that our brains tell us shouldn't be real and by making sure that the story around the magic is nearly as good as their tricks (nearly because the tricks are that good).

With only a few more days of MICF left, find time for A Modern Deception's Live to Air. And take a crowd because it's the kind of show that kids are loving it as much as anyone. And karmic intervention has taken them out of noisy pubs into the stained glass glory of the Scots' Church hall in Collins St, where the Clean Comedy program is sparkling with some of the funniest festival shows that welcome everyone without fear of embarrassment.

Quick MICF: Standard Double

Kate McLennan & Wes Snelling: Double Standard

2013 Moosehead Award recipient with the help of the Comedy Channel on Foxtel

3 April 2013

Blackburn Hotel

to 21 April

comedyfestival.com.au

For a while there weren't any seats left for Double Standard because Kate McLennan and Wes Snelling fans know that it's too wrong to even consider missing them perform, but the great news is that they've added two extra performances: Friday 19 April at 10 pm and Saturday 20 April at 5 pm. If you don't book now, you'll have to see something else and miss the show that made me so want to have quick sex and a giant Toblerone in a swish room at the Blackman.

This show lets 20ish people into a top floor room at the Blackman Hotel on St Kilda Road. It's a very nice hotel. The beds are huge, there's Charles Blackman's art everywhere, a bar and a cafe with lots of scrummy cake. But that's the a bonus, as this show would be just as terrific in a dodgy freeway-side joint where you can't lie on the sheets because they are moving.

Double Standard is series of extended sketches about folk who are in the hotel. From staff to guests, there's more story and love than in most joke-based sketch, but not enough to be upset that there's only a few minutes of each character. Some are more memorable than other, but each confirm that Kate and Wes are two of the best comic writers and performers around, and it's guaranteed to make you giggle every time you see a glass table.

It finishes on Saturday, and remember there are now two extra shows.

MICF Review: Hot Box

MICF 2013
Karin Danger: Hot Box
11 April 2013
The Butterfly Club
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Hot Box.  Karin's got one. I've got one. So do you. It's that slightly awkward place where we feel hot enough to blend in with the crowd.

The first great thing about Hot Box is that it's at the new, super cute Butterfly Club. The club's fluttered from South Melbourne to the city, but has brought every knick knack, figurine and couch along to fill up the vast new space, where there's now enough room swing whatever you fancy and still enjoy a drink made from the nicest bar staff in the city. If you've not been to the old or new club, make Hot Box your first visit. It won't be your last.

The next great thing is cabaret performer and composer Karin.  Hot Box is personal and intimate and leaves her no room to hide behind character.  I've glimpsed her passion before, but this is the first time I've seen it fill the stage, which creates a show that's so much more than a handful of funny songs – and they are very funny songs.

As a performer, Karin is faced with the so-boring pressure of looking "right". I'm not sure that I know anyone who really looks right but, as a writer, I can work at home in my underwear growing excessive body hair to keep me warm as you imagine my glamourous amazonian self hand writing reviews in gold ink. Writing is one of the few professions where we can be total slobs and get away with it. Performers aren't so lucky.

Karin's a no make up, flat shoes, jeans and t-shirt woman working in a fake eyelash, Spanx, starved and sequins world. Her show's about her transition from slob to lady and whether it really made any difference to her life.

Sometime after we're born, we lose that ability to be totally comfortable with our selves. Hot Box is about re-finding that comfort and realising out that hotness is never what's "right" and letting the boundaries of your hot box move and change until it's comfortable. Bring all your friends who umm and err in front of the mirror.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

MICF musts: Bron, Telia and Slutmonster

What are you seeing at MICF tonight or Friday?

I mean,

THIS is what you are seeing at MICF tonight or Friday.

You're going to the Northcote Town Hall. There's a tram stop at the door (or it's easy to park) and if you're really lucky, the Taco Truck might be there for some in-between show nosh.

First show is Sweet Child of Mine at 7 pm with Melbourne contemporary artist Bron and her dad, Jim Batten.

I saw it at the 2011 Melbourne Fringe and loved it a lot. Read rave here. It's even better now. I didn't think I could love it more than I did the first time, but I do.

Maybe it's because now that Jim's performed over 20 times in Perth and Adelaide, he's become a total pro; he has some swish new dance moves and is loving the chance to improvise. I'm still not sure if he understands post-structuralism and how the chicken abortion dance speaks to us, though.

Really, I have no idea why this show isn't sold out.

If you're a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, sibling, cousin, friend, neighbour, workmate or vague acquaintance of an artist, you HAVE to see this.

And if your parents etc have ever come to your shows and told you how "special" you are, you need to make sure that they see it.

I tired to get my mum to see it in Adelaide, but no luck. And she doesn't read the blog because, "I don't understand it".

Next it's Poet Laureate Telia Nevile Live on Air at 9 pm.

At the 2012 Melbourne Fringe, I adored her so much that I wrote her a poem and I still stand by every rhyming couplet.

Again, why is this not sold out? My jaw ached from grinning and she's assured that I can't watch The West Wing without sniggering.

Your final show is Slutmonster and Friends at 10 pm

I've had some odd and inappropriate crushes on performers, but I don't know how anyone can resist Slutmonster's charms.

And by charms, I mean get a pump pack of lube, turn off your gag reflex and make sure you have some Ural sachets.

Slutmonster lives in a hand-painted colourful world that looks like a coral reef, but on second glance leaves you thinking you're in a page from of the super-gorgeous Pop-Up Karma Sutra, but it's more beautiful and delicate and so much sluttier – and fluro. Fluro!

It's here that two hero brothers sing gentle songs about being lost in a land where the tit trees bloom and the cock bushes sway in the wind, and they can't go back to the safety of their cave because one of them jizzed it up so much. Maybe an encounter with the local monster can save them?

With removeable teeth, blue skin, pink fur, cupcake tits and the cuddliest giant fluffy cock, Slutmonster wins libidos in an instant. I've never been so in lust with a monster – and I had a crush on Grover for a long time.

The show's a bit like Sesame Street doing porn with Annie Sprinkle, but so divinely filthy and wrong that it makes Avenue Q look like Disney on Ice and leaves most artistic commentary on gender relations and sexuality feeling as bland as the The Sound of Music.

Slutmonster and Friends is as wrong and depraved as anything can be, but made with an intelligence that leaves it's audiences making sounds that they usually keep hidden. I squeaked at one stage.

If you've never had a multiple laughgasm, this should do it.

PS. Can someone PLEASE go on a first date to this show.

There's a nice version of this on AussieTheatre.com.

And the great news is that Slutmonster runs until 20 April, but there's only two more chances to see this threesome.

MICF review: Nicholas J Johnson

Nicholas J Johnson: Today Tonight, Tomorrow the World
Australia's Honest Con Man Entertainment
2 April 2003
Comedy on Collins
to 20 April (the web site lies, if you're trying to go tonight, 21 April)
comedyfestival.com.au

My unexpected hit of MICF (so far) is Nicholas J Johnson's Today Tonight, Tomorrow the World.

It's about his experience of being invited to appear on channel 7's 6.30 pm muckhole Today Tonight. This is easily the worst show on Australian television for its fear mongering, exploitation and outright lying. At its best, it's embarrassing and at its usual, it exploits more than the exploiters it tries to exposes. But what really upsets me is that people watch it and believe it.

As a magician who exposes cons as Australia's Honest Con Man, Nicholas was invited onto the program to show how easy it is to be conned.  He took the nice cheque and was flown to Sydney to make a segment.

Is Today Tonight as maggot-ridden as it seems or is it run by uber-intelligent folk who know how to reach a certain audience?

The story behind the story is so much better than I imagined – and by better I mean so bad that it should be compulsory viewing for anyone who has ever watched the program or any show claiming to be current affairs.

It's always fun to see behind the scenes, but what makes this terrific story an utter delight is Nicholas's sharing of his own story about how a nerdy kid from Canberra ended up on national tv. And the twist ending? As if I'd even consider giving it away! But it's great.

And you get to hang out at Comedy On Collins, where Candlelight Productions have selected a program of comedy shows for adults that don't rely on the cheap shock of language. Not only is in the gorgeous Scots' Church Assembly Hall, but has the loveliest FOH staff – who ignored my use of words-that-are-not-used in any of their shows as we talked about program and what a great idea it was.

Today Tonight, Tomorrow the World is one of the small shows that could drown in the choice or sell out because everyone who sees it will recommend it to someone else. I'm recommending. It's a 9.30 start, so easy to add to the end of a night or as a start to a late-night festival binge.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

Live AFL commentary at the Comedy Festival

MICF 2013
Footycouch
Pugg Mahones
12 and 20 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Face it, if you live in this wonderful town and don't have an AFL team, you should just leave now.

I'd say go to Sydney, but you won't even be able to avoid it there when the Swans have a home game.

Seriously, if you like theatre and haven't been to the G for a game, what are you doing? Thousands of overly passionate people watching a story where no one knows the ending. If all stage stories were as tension-filled and dramatic as a good match, theatres would be full every night.  Or just go to see Collingwood fans in action; just don't get too close. Or there's the nannas who bus over from Adelaide with their hand-knitted Crows scarfs. And I've never seen heartbreak like Saints fans in 2010

My favourite part of the 2012 final was (a) no Collingwood and (b) that HG and Roy were back on the radio calling it for us with brain cells. And I quite like the Swans, so it was a good day.

There's a lot to love and a lot to hate about AFL culture, and the tv commentators are firmly on the hate list. I like to believe they sit in their media box with a couple of sticky notes on the desk that read "State the bleeding obvious" and "Be really dull".

So how great is it that the Footycouch team are back for MICF to commentate four matches. And what a shame that you have to go to a pub to see them live and the match on a big screen.

They have two more night matches this festival season:

Round 3, Fremantle vs Essendon, Friday 12 April
Round 4, West Coast vs Carlton, Saturday 20 April

Booking details are here.

And, I know that there's at least one Perth native in the commentary team, so it's going to be interesting.

MICF review: Lessons With Luis

Lessons with Luis: Famoucity!
2013 Moosehead Award recipient with the help of the Comedy Channel on Foxtel
4 April 2013
Melbourne Town Hall
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

Dear Luis

Cats are so the best pets and the best animal and they are just the best of everything!

I love cats as much as you do and would love to have one of your cat badges; I’d wear it all the time, especially to opening nights.

I also think that your show is the absolute best thing at the Comedy Festival; it's as good as playing with kittens. 

Famoucity! is as close to purrfect as a show can be, but there’s one thing wrong with it. You say that your cat, Catty, is the best cat. I’m sorry, you're wrong because my cat, Molly, is the best cat. She used to be the second best cat until last year …

This is something I don’t want to tell you, but I’m worried that there’s something you don’t really understand about cats. Your song  “Cats R Forever” is the best song ever written (and I want it as my ring tone), but cats are not for ever. You know how your mum wasn’t for ever? Well cats are like that too.

I found that out last year when my cat, Flue (who WAS the best cat in the world – and I won’t hear anyone say anything different), died. She was very old and got very sick and now I have her ashes in my living room. I’m worried that you really think that cats and especially your lovely Catty (who can be the second best cat in the world) will be with you for ever. Cats can last a long time – much longer than goldfish, long life soy milk or Australian Prime Ministers – but they don’t last as long as most people do. And that’s the only bad thing about cats; that they don’t last as long as we do, and when they die, we cry a lot.

I don't want this to upset you or put you off performing or being famous, but maybe you need to change your song to "Cats last a long time, but they don't last forever" so that it's more realistic.

Love and purrs

Anne-Marie

PS. I really do want a cat badge.

Lessons With Luis: Why didn't someone tell me about these guys when they were at the Fringe last year? 

Never has awkward been so brilliant, and I dare any show to have me grinning so inanely. 

Famoucity! is gloriously atrocious as Luis, his dad, Len, and little brother, Luelin, teach us about making movies, the three acting emotions and just how great cats really are. 

Directed by Justin Hamilton, there's so much more going on than just laughs and eyesore 80s jumpers. With no punchlines (ok, there are two punchlines), no self-reflection and no swearing, this is character comedy so perfect that it's almost not funny. Only almost. 

They don't have many shows left and can only squeeze 80 lucky souls in each night. See these three before they are forced into big rooms.

Other MICF shows, if you want to be as good as Luis, Len and Luelin, you need to sing more songs about cats, write more stories about cats and make cat badges.


Here's a picture of Hannah Norris's excellent badge. I'm so jealous.

A version is also on AussieTheatre.com

MICF review: Josh Thomas

MICF 2013
Josh Thomas: Douchebag
Token Events
31 March 1013
Melbourne Town Hall
to 21 April
comedyfestival.com.au

I'm not Josh Thomas's demographic; he's one of those performers who I knew about and have seen bits of, but wasn't compelled to spend an hour with. This changed because I loved Please Like Me, the tv show he wrote that's just finished on the ABC.

I adored it. It's refreshing and funny and full of the kind of heart, honesty and empathy that brings us back each week. And I so loved the generational mix of characters. People don't become dull or grown up as they get older; we just get greyer and flabbier. ABC, please give him a second season.

Live Josh is delightfully affable and sweet, but I don't think that's the adjectives he wants for with his show. It's just that a 25-year-old man not wanting relationship commitment is as unexpected as a young man not wanting a colostomy bag, and being tempted by a hand job is about as shocking as a 25-year-old man being tempted by a piece of pizza. Douchebag has some lovely stories, but they're not about Josh being a douchebag. Like too many stand ups, he does the stock-standard "I wrote my blurb before I wrote my show" bit and it's the only bit that made me think he is a douchebag for not sitting down and really writing a show about being a douchebag.

Josh Thomas is not a douche. Like, Please Like Me, even his worst stories make him likeable. He's a bit self-involved and not brilliant at being a loving partner, but no more than I was at 25 and given the amount of success he's already had, he's moving along much better than many have. I'm sure there are people who want to tell me I'm wrong and that he's the douchiest dude they've ever met – and these are the stories I would have loved to see in the show. Stage Josh is likeable; I want to see him sharing those moments when he's been a total dickhead.

Douchebag is stand up for fans who want to see him in the pale, skinny flesh (hey Josh, no one bought the "I'm fat" bit); and fans won't be disappointed. It's funny and sweet and he swears and talks about penises, but it's missing a wholeness and that extra writing and structure that makes it stand by itself and do something more than share some sweet funny stories.

In the meantime, Please Like Me is still on iview. Give it a go.

This was on AussieTheatre.com.

MICF review: Ruby Wax

MICF 2013

Ruby Wax: Out of Her Mind

MICF

29 March 2013

Forum Theatre

to 5 April 

comedyfestival.com.au

I love Ruby Wax. I love her for every Ruby Wax Meets interview, because she script edited Absolutely Fabulous (great writers need great script editors – and I love script editing), and because she asks if anyone knows how to behave like an adult.

I've been an adult for a long time now and I've still got no idea how to behave. 

Out of Her Mind is Ruby's story about finally being diagnosed with clinical depression and being so ill that she was institutionalised. That's still such a horrible word. I wanted to tone it down with the less-stigmatised "hospitalised", but is isn't the same. Institutionalised implies being shut away for being nuts, bonkers, crazy, mental; that you have a mental illness. That you have a mental illness. Ruby's show stresses how one in four people suffer from mental illness and how far too many in four still don't see mental illness as an illness.

"It's all in your head." Yes it is. It's a chemical imbalance that in Ruby's case was mis-diagnosed as glandular fever and its likes when she was young and caused her to hear abusive voices no matter how happy or successful she was – so she kept running. By running she meant being constantly busy and striving for more regardless of if that more was going to make her feel any different or any better. 

For us who have enjoyed her work, some of that running helped to create some exceptionally good writing and performances, but she doesn't link her creativity to her illness and continues to stress that our genes don't know or care what we do in life. 

Ruby is not the only comedian using an illness (that ultimately made her stop running by taking away her ability to function) to create a show, but Out of Her Mind stands above some others because she's created a balance of "please understand that clinical depression is nothing about how you feel" with a story telling that's honest, open and very funny. She doesn't let her anger and passion about the subject get in the way of telling a good story and makes her self-indulgence a vital part of her telling.

With diagnosis, treatment and medication, Ruby was able to take control of her abusive voices and realise that the voices that shaped her as a child were wrong. But it's still not a happy story as she explains her belief that humans are built for survival, not happiness.

I don't think she means that we really can't be happy, but more that not being happy isn't unusual and that it's not something to be scared of.

I loved Out of Her Mind and I'm really looking forward to see what she writes next because I suspect that now she's stopped running her brain can give her the freedom to create something amazing.

This was on AussieTheatre.com

MICF revisit review: Choir Girl

MICF 2013
Choir Girl
Attic Erratic
1 April 2013
8 and 15 April
comedyfestival.com.au

I saw Choir Girl for the third time on Monday. And I'd consider a fourth visit.

I adore this show and wanted to see how a season at the Adelaide Fringe and performing in a 250+ seat venue has changed it.

Here's my review from last year's Melbourne Fringe. It was my favourite show of that festival.

It's so lovely to be in the head of someone who is as unlikeable as choir girl Susan and the choir is one of the best used choruses since the ancient Greeks thought it a good idea to put society's voice in the arena.

I love seeing how shows develop. One of the advantages of theatre is that you can change the show and fix those things that don't become obvious until an audience points them out to you.

Sarah Collins's writing voice is still as unique and personal as ever (and one that makes me want to write more than reviews), and Sarah and director Celeste Cody have worked to tighten up the story and take away any doubt about what really happened that night at choir practice. The gorgeous choir is also bigger and grander, which lets Susan's story be as grand and important as it is in her head.

If you've ever been in a choir, this is your Comedy Festival show. If you've ever been kicked out of a choir, book to see it twice. I was sitting near women who were in pain because they didn't want to laugh out loud as they recognised the world.

If you haven't been in a choir, don't worry. Choir Girl reaches well beyond the choir world (and, yes, it IS like this) and tells a dark and sad story of loneliness and out-of-reach friendship that touches our hearts because it's told with the kind of love and empathy that never leaves Susan without hope.

Or go because Sarah Collins decided to write the exact kind of show she wanted to perform. And she nails it. I can't imagine anyone else performing one of her shows, but I'd like to see it happen, if only to allow her to see how her writing isn't just for her.

There are two more performances of Choir Girl on Monday 8 and Monday 15 April. As so many shows take Mondays off, it's a brilliant choice of night and you'll still be home in time for QandA.

If this week's performance was anything to go by, you're going to have to book. It's a big room, but was full to bursting on Monday.

There are plenty of terrific international and national performers in town, but don't miss Melbourne's home grown shows and please don't miss Choir Girl.