The best heckles, riskiest jokes and strangest moments from this year’s comedy festival

For the past month, our reviewers have immersed themselves in everything the Melbourne International Comedy Festival has to offer – from a boy band throwing their last concert to slapstick set in space. Here are some of the moments and jokes that stood out the most.

Best joke of the festival

Tom Cashman revealed how absurd our favourite bird-related idioms really are – from “bird’s-eye view” to “as the crow flies” – with his characteristically deadpan logic and a multicoloured PowerPoint to boot. – Guy Webster

Without spoiling the punchline, my pick is Chloe Petts describing the similarities between church and attending footy on the weekend. – Lefa Singleton Norton

It’s a tie between Cassie Workman’s clever wordplay combining two statements of fact about having lived overseas and being a trans woman, and Emma Holland’s Where’s Wally joke due to the sheer scale of misdirection, the immaculately timed punchline and the buffoonery that followed. – Sonia Nair

In Fuccbois: Live in Concert, there is a moment where the band acknowledges the impact of the patriarchy on society. Subverting expectations, they assert that the parties most affected are men. Tongue in cheek, they ask the audience for a moment of silence to acknowledge this. – Vyshnavee Wijekumar

A classic Lou Wall one-liner explaining why gay people are bad at maths (obviously not really, though) makes me chuckle each time I remember it. – Hannah Francis

Eccentric Kiwi comic Abby Howells reading out list of cool things she wrote down when she was young that she wanted to say when she was older, then using them as a quadruple-pronged callback later in her show at the climax of a fight scene. – Mikey Cahill

Late on Easter Saturday night, Sweeney Preston shared with the crowd a text exchange with his mum who had baked two sourdough loaves and sent a pic. Preston saw an impression of a face on the bread. It was Jesus Crust. – Donna Demaio

Sam Nicoresti flipping the script on the current dialogue of trans women participating in sports is sensational. It’s also impossible to pick out a standout moment from Dan Rath or Damien Power’s rapid-fire sets. Laugh-a-minute comedy? No, you’re hit with an immaculate punchline every 10 seconds. – Tyson Wray

Most standout moment in a show

Lara Ricote employing British Sign Language to sign an entire song that she wrote herself in a stunning repudiation of everything she thought she knew about herself as a hard-of-hearing person, and the striking last line of Cassie Workman’s show – a much-needed affirmation of our collective humanity in a time of crises. – Sonia Nair

It should say everything about Dan Tiernan’s delivery that a grown man proselytising so intensely about the benefits of crystals gave me the hardest laugh of the festival. – Hannah Francis

I was brought to tears by Kate Dehnert acting out an absurdly unsexy conversation on Tinder with South Park-style voices that ended up becoming a workshop for a new sex position. Think helicopter-meets-splits-meets-spinning-top. – Guy Webster

Annie Boyle – Australia’s rising queen of dry, deadpan Judith Lucy-esque humour – admits that she’s a romantic. She sets up mood lighting in the room and then asks her tech to play some sensual music, before blasting an entirely unexpected but very familiar tune. – Tyson Wray

The Big FOUR-OH gala, commemorating 40 years of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, gathered some of the world’s greatest comedy minds at The Regent Theatre for countless standout moments. Among the highlights were Glenn Robbins revealing how he came up with Kel Knight’s walk, watching Effie shine in all her uber-confident glory, hearing a Hannah Gadsby tale, and witnessing the timeless ridiculousness of Lano and Woodley. – Donna Demaio

Ian Smith’s blow-by-blow (sorry) description of getting to a fertility clinic with fresh material to see if his boys could or couldn’t swim. The UK funnyman is a natural raconteur with his best years still ahead of him. – Mikey Cahill

In Amuse-Bouche, when Nat Harris’ alter ego, Pussy Willow, endures another untimely death, Harris engages in an excellent bit of physical comedy. – Vyshnavee Wijekumar

Zainab Johnson explaining the cutesy “pew-pew” mentality towards guns in the US hits hard. And now she owns one. – John Bailey

Riskiest joke or performance

Surely, this must go to Laura Davis for the choice to run a month-long protest in place of a regular comedy festival show. This blistering work of activism has rightly been rewarded with a Golden Gibbo nomination. – Lefa Singleton Norton

After noting that Melbourne has a lot of interracial couples, Abby Govindan starts a joke about her personal challenges with dating other cultures. Sensing the nervousness from the crowd, she asks them to stick with her. Thankfully, the bit becomes an enjoyable take on conflicting cultural ideals between races. – Vyshnavee Wijekumar

Frankie McNair’s entire show, firstly because of the sheer horrificness of what she was vulnerably disclosing to successive rooms of strangers, more so because of the tension she was bravely playing with and the punchlines she pursued in the service of humour and catharsis (of which she did with aplomb). – Sonia Nair

Geraldine Hickey’s celebration of her partner, Cath, has long been a cornerstone of her stand-up shows. This year she goes further when she details a risky social media post about Cath’s job. The crowd freezes for a moment, but then Hickey carefully and deftly leads the crowd through the story. Astonishingly well played. – Mikey Cahill

Damien Power basically tore up any future TV contracts in Australia by declaring that local producers create terrible shows because they are taking poor quality cocaine – then doubles down by saying that’s why we can’t compete with overseas creators who come up with ideas when on the purer gear. – Tyson Wray

Reuben Kaye does not mince words. Ostensibly a cabaret show, Hard to Swallow is an in-your-face (literally for the man sitting in the front row straddled by Kaye) dissection of all the world’s woes right now. I assume there’s never been a show with more references to fascists. – Donna Demaio

Prize for most heartwarming moment

The finale to Celia Pacquola’s Gift Horse had multiple callbacks, cackles and a whole lot of heart, all tied up in a neat little bow. – Hannah Francis

Heralded stand-up Laura Davis has been on strike this festival (sort of) in order to protest (kind of) the state of the world (somewhat). Their social media feed has been a torrent of support and kindness from all quarters, however. Kindness is possible. – John Bailey

Seeing the greats – Rusty Berther, Andrew Hansen, Tom Gleeson (on drums!), Sammy J and Steven Gates – do their thing as musical comedy supergroup The Grats (formed for two Melbourne dates only) melts the heart. The coming together of such overwhelming genius was a palpable delight (and provider of non-stop laughs) for those on and off the stage. Fingers crossed they’re already planning a reunion. – Donna Demaio

TikTok king Blake Pavey starts his show by revealing his previously terminal cystic fibrosis has been defeated by the medication he’s on. This means we can enjoy his world-class Dave Hughes impersonation for many more years. – Mikey Cahill

Most interesting example of crowd participation

In a segment of her Break Up Variety Hour show, Ariana and the Rose (real name Ariana Di Lorenzo) asks the crowd to come on stage and share their bad date stories. After a moment of gentle coaxing, she eventually convinces two brave audience members to volunteer an anecdote, generating supportive cheers from the crowd in solidarity. – Vyshnavee Wijekumar

In Mel McGlensey is Not Normal, crowd participation literally shapes the entire show via a choose-your-own adventure series of prompts. Has the mysterious secret ending been triggered yet?! It’s an Easter Egg I’d dearly love to see. Then, The Listies provided every attendee with a projectile to throw at them during the show, creating a giant soft-projectile war that delighted kids of all ages. – Lefa Singleton Norton

Gillian Cosgriff ended her show asking a 79-year-old in the front row and a 14-year-old in the back row to share their advice for living a good life. Their respective answers? “Embrace the dragon”; “the power button for the remote is on the top left.” – Guy Webster

Denise Scott’s fans are devoted masochists, given her slay quotient. Even the most innocent remark can be met with a brutal take-down. Approach with caution. – John Bailey

New Zealand mime Tape Face bases much of his routine on crowd involvement. The spirit with which he convinces people to share the stage is wondrous to behold while the shenanigans that ensue are gleefully silly. It’s little wonder he’s racked up 20 years on stage. – Donna Demaio

Not quite vibing with the crowd, Chloe Petts went on a tangent and offered to hang up an audience member’s coat – on the mic stand. Two more jackets followed, along with a game of “What’s in the pockets?” The audience lapped it up. – Hannah Francis

David Correos’ stunt at the end of his show in a bid to transfer the power of the room to the outside world (it involved us all taking out our phones and clicking on a much-used app) and an audience member improbably doing a very good rendition of “the worm” at Abby Wambaugh’s show. – Sonia Nair

Lloyd Langford engaged with the first three rows of his audience by talking about them. “Pensioners, they are a tricky people”. He included many direct references to the Grey Nomads in attendance without letting the show ever run off the rails. – Mikey Cahill

In Conk’s show Man Sings the Same Song Over and Over Again for an Hour, there’s a moment that involves a camera and an audience member. It’s an extremely bold way of creating content to promote your shows on social media. Considering most of his run has been sold out, it seems to have worked (that and the show is terrific). – Tyson Wray

Strangest (or best) heckle

During Phil Wang’s show, a woman in the front row inexplicably – and passionately – shouted out “Scat Man!” The comedian hadn’t mentioned poo, yet it was clearly on her mind. Or perhaps she was creating some kind of superhero alter-ego for him? Though obviously perplexed, Wang was thankfully able to side-step the outburst rather quickly. – Nell Geraets

“I’ll see you after”, an irate audience member yelled at Tom Cashman after being the butt of a joke one too many times. It was particularly funny considering Cashman had just finished describing being stalked by a man as a teenager. – Guy Webster

Someone throwing a Mars Bar at Chloe Petts, which she handled admirably. – Sonia Nair

“Things are about to get weird”, says Rove McManus. “We like weird,” says an audience member, who drunkenly yells things like “Yes Rove!“, throughout the show. McManus continues to lean into the fan’s avid engagement including, at one point, leaning over for a high five that she misses, to which the crowd laughs. – Vyshnavee Wijekumar

Not a live one, but the story told by Judy Horacek of a man who emailed not once, but three times to demand she answer his accusations that her children’s book, Where is the Green Sheep, was promoting gay sex to children because of its inclusion of illustrations of rainbows. – Lefa Singleton Norton

Best-dressed stand-up Ethan Cavanagh employed a ripper comeback to a brief, unintelligible heckle. Unruffled, Cavanagh stopped the interloper in his tracks with, “You don’t have a line in this bit”. – Donna Demaio

Hannah Gadsby’s The Evening Muse features surprise panellists each night, but Easter Sunday saw one guest ruining their own entrance by repeatedly barking from backstage. The offending canine made good, however, when their eventual appearance included a resurrection bit proving that God and dog are just a matter of perspective. – John Bailey

I’m calling this a reverse heckle: When Mel McGlensey’s insane clown posse failed to win the audience’s vote after a round of the Festival Club’s lip sync battle … she literally sent in the clowns. – Hannah Francis

And here is a round-up of performers and acts whose work didn’t fit neatly into an existing category – so our reviewers have made some up especially:

Best bonus content

Quite a few comedians used QR codes to link to bonus material from their shows this year. Meg Jäger’s link to an unhinged, unsolicited email from a man with critiques and suggestions of material she should include in her show was my favourite, closely followed by Sofie Hagen who had news articles and Wikipedia entries providing more context about the larger-than-life (criminal) mayor of her childhood town who featured heavily in her show. – Lefa Singleton Norton

Best choreography

Two men in space suits. Two aerosol cans to propel them as they dance an outer-space ballet to The Blue Danube. In Lano & Woodley’s battle between AI and DIY, this ingenious bit of low-fi stagecraft triumphs. – Hannah Francis

Award for best performance without having a show of your own

Josh Spyro is so fresh to the scene he doesn’t even have a full show at the festival. He was a droll, mildly ranty, chaotically hilarious apparition among guest comics at The Late Nite PowerPoint Comedy Showcase at The Westin. He did a seven-minute set entitled: “Reasons I should not be here right now and this is not going to go well.” Definitely one to watch. – Donna Demaio

Best use of technology in a show

Con Coutis is in a whole other league when it comes to sound design. A joke told in 360-degree audio? Incredible stuff. – Tyson Wray

The shouldn’t-work-but-somehow-nails-it award

Rhiannon McCall’s Nosferatu Looking For Love sees an antediluvian vampyr hitting the local dating scene. It’s utterly silly and perfectly executed, in a heart-meets-stake way. – John Bailey

If the cost-of-living crisis means you’ve only got the cash for one show in the final week

I say this every year, but make it the annual Moosehead Benefit gala on the final Sunday of the festival. A secret line-up of the biggest internationals, local heavyweights and those that the comedy cognoscenti have determined as the next wave of rising stars. Think of it as the Oxfam Gala, but when all of the comics have finished the most stressful month of their year and let loose. Have you been too caught up with the world and just realised you’ve missed most of the festival and want to make up for it like so many others? This is the ticket to alleviate your FOMO. All money from ticket sales also goes toward funding ambitious shows at next year’s festival. Only $69. It’s a no-brainer. – Tyson Wray

The Age is a Melbourne International Comedy Festival partner.

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