Ten comedians with Melbourne accolades

Barry Loves You is the name of this year’s show from Barry Ferns, the comic who was one of the driving forces behind the crowdfunded Bill Murray venue in London and who hosts an annual Fringe show atop Arthur’s Seat.

But he doesn’t feature in this list. We’ve just nicked his title, for this collection of comedians who have won awards at the Melbourne Comedy Festival every year. And prime among them is the Barry, for best show, named after Barry Humphries.

Sam Campbell

The winner of this year’s Barry is a proudly dorkish muckabout, jam-packed with ‘wackadoodle’ ideas. Sam Cam deploys dumb props, quirky one-liners, and audio-visual elements to keep the onslaught of stupidity varied, like an awkwardly self-conscious Harry Hill.

He was a last-minute addition to the Fringe programme, which may explain his late timeslot. But maybe it’s probably fitting that someone so offbeat – though never inaccessible – should be offpeak, too. Monkey Barrel, 00:15

Natalie Palamides

This should be something special. This year, US comic Natalie Palmides was nominated for the Barry for Laid, her intense and hilarious physical comedy show about fertility that also won her the Edinburgh Comedy Award for best newcomer.

Well, now she’s back in the guise of Nate, an unreconstructed man struggling to come to terms with the changing expectations of masculinity. It’s ground that Australian comic Zoe Coombs Marr has explored before with her alter-ego Dave, but judging by a barnstorming club set at Melbourne this year, Nate is a tour-de-force all of his own likely to get the festival talking. Pleasance Courtyard, 18:00

Tim Key

Surely no one reading Chortle needs any convincing of how great Tim Key is. Nominated for this year’s Barry, Megadate takes the borderline-depressive-but-trying-to-keep-it-all-together persona behind Key’s prosaic poems and places him a bigger narrative.

It’s set the day after a date that seems to have gone remarkably well in Key’s recollections… but as he retraces his steps to recover his lost hat, the reality appears to be a lot less certain. And do his constant texts to his potential paramour come across as desperate? Of course they do…

Pleasance Courtyard, 23:15, from August 16

Alex Edelman

This sharp-witted Bostonian went to Melbourne this year with a work in progress show, and came back with a Barry nomination, much to his surprise. So who knows what impact an extra four months’ work will have had?

There’s a fantastic, and rather ballsy, story at the heart of Just For Us, as he attends a meeting of Nazis in New York, despite being both a) liberal and b) Jewish. The story has some peril, but also a lot of great jokes from the heightened situation Edelman finds himself in.

Pleasance Courtyard, 20:00

Rhys Nicholson

Nominated for the Barry in 2016, Nicholson has established quite a name for himself down under with his whip-smart, acidic humour. And increasingly over here too, where he has just been signed up to make a half-hour stand-up special as part of the next series of Live At The BBC.

His latest show revolves around the marriage equality vote in Australia… a topic that got this gay comic into the headlines a couple of years ago when he ‘married' lesbian colleague Zoe Coombs Marr to highlight how ridiculous the ban on same-sex weddings was.

Underbelly, Bristo Square, 21:05

Demi Lardner

Demi Lardner literally wouldn’t be in Edinburgh if it wasn’t for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. For she won this year’s Pinder Prize there, which funds a Fringe run for a creative comic who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the trip.

Lardner is no stranger to awards: she came joint first in So You think You’re Funny? in 2013 – having had that trip to Scotland covered by her winning Australia’s similar nationwide Raw competition. She was also nominated for the Barry’s best newcomer in 2016 and won the Directors' Choice Award at Melbourne last year.

Her latest offering, I Love Skeleton, could be a coded reference to the winter sport, given what an exhilarating pace she hits, but it’s actually a more random than that, in keeping with her wildly absurd style. In Melbourne she had a barely-referenced horse skeleton on stage for the duration – which could lead to an interesting chat at customs if she’s importing the same for Edinburgh. In all, the hour is zany… but in a good way.

Assembly George Square, 20:05

Luisa Omielan

A fellow 2016 Barry nominee, some consolation for the injustice of her debut, What Would Beyonce Do?, being previously overlooked by the Edinburgh judges.

After tackling subjects including body image and depression in her shows – but always with an upbeat party vibe to accentuate the positive – in Politics For Bitches, Omielan turns her attention to a subject she has found herself unwillingly embroiled in. A BBC Three series of the same name has also been commissioned.

Gilded Balloon, 21:00

Garry Starr

 Damien Warren-Smith portrays an egotistical actor (for there is no other kind in comedy) dismissed from the Royal Shakespeare Company due to ‘artistic differences’ and keen to prove his critics wrong by performing every genre of theatre in under 60 minutes.

This themed sketch show was nominated for best newcomer in Melbourne this year, and is a special treat for theatre aficionados, although his rambunctious physical performance will appeal to all.

Garry Starr Performs Everything is directed by Cal McCrystal, who has previously worked with The Boosh, Spymonkey and on the physical comedy segments of One Man, Two Guvnors, so fair to say he knows his onions.

Underbelly Cowgate 20:10

Laura Davis

Her inventive, ideas-packed show Ghost Machine won the Golden Gibbo award for the best independent local show in Melbourne in 2015. It’s ostensibly the same dark, surrealist, existential, soul-searching hour that she’s bringing to Edinburgh this year – though Davis also says she has reworked it considerably.

Her brand of intense, alternative comedy offers more questions than answers, as well as a uniquely introspective viewpoint, making her artistically fascinating.

Underbelly Cowgate 17:40

Rose Matafeo

The New Zealander was another Barry nominee this year for Horndog, a title rich with irony given her relative sexual inexperience.

But she's horny for other things, such as  crocheting and K-Pop, which she speaks about with an exuberant, kooky energy. Are these passions a substitute for a relationship? Possibly, because despite her firm insistence that this is not a break-up show, that’s exactly what it is…

Pleasance Courtyard, 18:20

Published: 17 Jul 2018