Comedy Fest review: Ivan Brackenbury's Hospital Radio Roadshow

IVAN BRACKENBURY'S HOSPITAL RADIO ROADSHOW

I almost didn't make it to this one – it was 9.45pm on a Monday night and I'd already seen two shows and godammit is it too much to ask for one early night? Yes, yes it is. If this show is anything to go by, anyway. You can sleep when you're dead. So even though I'm starting to feel the physical and mental results of too much comedy, I'm not going to whinge about it here because I know what you're thinking.

Let's press on. Ivan Brackenbury may well be the rightful heir to a long tradition of British comedy that includes Benny Hill, Kenny Everett, The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, Big Train and the Fast Show. It's hyperbolic character stuff, a wee bit panto, at times off-colour, sometimes worthy of a groan. In the form of Brackenbury, it's fucking funny.

Comedy Fest review: DeAnne Smith - Ballsy

DEANNE SMITH – BALLSY

DeAnne Smith arguably has the most interesting haircut of the festival – it's really sharp and angular with nice flowy bits and weird confronting jagged bits and even a bit of her fringe that goes under her glasses and reappears over one cheek. Most of that is a good description for her comedy, too (except the fringe bit). I found her evil pixie presence uncannily reminiscent of Tina Fey, if Tina Fey were a blonde lesbian from Canada who plays the ukulele.

This is a pretty slight hour in terms of material and some of the jokes are capped off with bits about midgets or Chinese people or whatever that come over as cheap. These are in contrast to the sparkling moments when she plays off her audience directly, and her impro work is ten times more entertaining than her actual stuff. I'd pay to see her work a club night with a big audience, and hopefully she'll get some spots in the festival club or somewhere similar.

Comedy Fest review: Hannah Gadsby - The Cliff Young Shuffle

HANNAH GADSBY – THE CLIFF YOUNG SHUFFLE

You can't read a review of Hannah Gadsby that doesn't contain the words 'dry', 'droll' and/or 'deadpan'. These are fair enough descriptors but they don't really do her justice, bringing to mind as they do a Speak 'N' Spell intoning “AM I RIGHT OR AM I RIGHT” or just Elliot Goblet. Gadsby's actually a generous and engaging performer, and for evidence I put forward nothing less than the strong fanbase of genteel white-haired folk who make up a sizeable chunk of her audience. See, despite her fresh-faced visage she's a bit like your favourite auntie who can always be guaranteed to punctuate any family gathering with a stream of ironic lines that highlight the absurdities underlying our conversation and hint at the insane contradictions that form the fundament of civilised existence. You also like her because she gets away with swearing in front of the grandparents.

Comedy Fest review: Jamie Kilstein - Revenge of the Serfs

JAMIE KILSTEIN – REVENGE OF THE SERFS

US comic Jamie Kilstein probably won't be appearing on Good News Week. Or The 7pm Project. Or anything approaching a commercial radio show. It's not particulary revelatory to suggest that the stuff we see on TV or hear on radio is quite astoundingly reactionary, and that Australian comedy is perhaps the most conservative of art forms we have. Kilstein is pretty much the opposite of all that.

Comedy Fest review: Asher Treleaven - Secret Door

ASHER TRELEAVEN – SECRET DOOR

I felt some kind of mental wall crumble halfway through Asher Treleaven's latest show. Having seen around 40 shows every Comedy Festival for the past half decade, I hadn't realised how this barrier had gradually accreted. I found it increasingly easy to predict punchlines and spot reversals; I saw the same faces and heard the same topics raised and watched the same stock situations again and again. It wasn't that I didn't find things funny, but the fact is that I didn't laugh that much. I recognised the humour without really feeling it.

Treleaven broke the breakwater. I was wiping away tears and convulsing with that kind of laughter you generally only get with friends – not in that crack-a-joke-over-a-beer kind of mate's laugh, but the dense, uncontrollable guffawing that takes half an hour of conversation to build up in strength.

You don't need to know anything else about this show. Some people won't dig it (it's ridiculously filthy and utterly eccentric) but for the simple fact that I can laugh again, this is one of the finest hours of comedy I can recall.

Comedy Fest review: The Pajama Men - The Last Stand to Reason

THE PAJAMA MEN – THE LAST STAND TO REASON

On a dollar-per-laugh basis these guys have to be the best value comedy act around. My OpenOffice spreadsheet calculations suggest that at $33 a pop you're paying about $0.04 per funny and are guaranteed a giggle mean of .7-1 per 30 seconds. That's statistics, people, and you can't argue with them because they won't listen. Statistics don't even have ears. It is OpenOffice though so the figures might be a bit out of whack.

Comedy Fest review: Cardinal Burns

CARDINAL BURNS

I feel a bit like the comedy version of Scrooge when I dismiss this likeable UK pair's inaugural Melbourne outing. It does remind me of Tiny Tim, though: short and lame. Unlike Tiny Tim there's no crutch here, which might be part of the problem – this is just a series of sketches with no sense of coherence and, in many cases, no internal motivation, either.