Melbourne International Comedy Festival review by Steve Bennett

Susie Youssef is a promising comedy actress, able to covey something like the dawning realisation that something is amiss with her eyes alone. Given the right script, she could have an impressive show.

Sadly, her debut, Sketchual Chocolate is most definitely not the right script.

Woolly, repetitive and rather amateurish, this is a character/stand-up hybrid in desperate need of a director to trim the substantial fat – even though this would leave it very short on running time.

Most of her tricks are over-used, even if they have impact the first time around. The comedy ‘sexy’ dance must have been deployed half a dozen times, sometimes involving hapless audience patsies, with no extra returns each time. Another a bit of audience banter is interrupted with an excellent sound cue, but then she repeats the gag twice more, with no further enhancement or deviation, so we know exactly what’s coming.

The Lebanese comic’s stand-up sections are waffly, too. There’s a bit, for example, about a racist cab driver she encountered on a trip to Cork, which has a funny payoff, but is surrounded by a sea of conversational detritus. We learn exactly why she was in Ireland and the names of all the people in the car, none of which has any bearing on the punchline. Stand-up should be heavily distilled to make it more potent than everyday banter, and this isn’t. Likewise a period drama sketch involves interminable padding for a cheap double entendre about a ‘long sword’, while a fantasy involving a notebook is unfocussed and waffly.

It’s a shame as she seems a charismatic and able performer, but her show is undercooked. Despite having performed a run at the Sydney Fringe last year and her experience as an improv act, it feels like she’s taken the plunge into solo work too early, or with not enough guidance on keeping thing focussed.

Review date: 3 Apr 2014
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett