Melbourne comedy festival review by Steve Bennett

When she won the Australia’s biggest open mic competition last weekend, Danielle Walker proved she had all the talent to make it as a professional comedian.

But at her own show, she proved that she has none of the discipline.

Her half of this two-hander was a shoddy, infuriating, self-indulgent pile of twaddle that showed contempt for the paying audience – and not in a good way. 

The 2016 Raw Comedy champion must have done less than five minutes of material in her 25-minute set, otherwise just waffling and giggling variations of ’I don’t know why I said that’ after comment after unprepared comment failed to land. 

As much of her chatter was aimed at her comedian colleague Jay Morrissey, hidden offstage, as it was to the audience, as she commented at how unfocussed she was being.  It felt like the nervous jabberings of a person thrown on stage for the first time without a shred of material.

Perhaps the blame can be laid at the door of the sort of open-mic nights where aspiring comics play to other aspiring comics rather than a real audience – nights that become a social event rather than a performance, where anything as rehearsed as a routine seems a little crass. Whatever the reason, this was a dire performance.

The few glimpses we got of her material showed why she could deserve the title of the dark princess of Melbourne comedy, but it was so scant, it’s hard to tell.

Walker is on the way to being a pro comic, but she won’t get there until she starts behaving like one. Asking for people’s money and time in a crowded festival requires more than blethering to your mates… she hasn’t earned that indulgence and doesn’t have the skill to make it funny.

She wasn’t even done when her time was up, frequently interjecting from offstage during Morrissey’s set, again to no great avail. Though there was not much of a set to interrupt.

Morrissey was a Raw national finalist three years ago, and he’s not come on much, either. Demi Lardner won that year and now has a corking festival debut, but Morrissey is still flailing.

His opening gambit was an extended discussion of going for a shit and wiping your arse that was just unpleasant with no comic payoff. Then he joked that Shania Twain isn’t easily impressed, an obvious gag made many times in the 18 years since the song came out.

And he concluded by taking issue with the story of 2013 box-office flop OldBoy, which no one in the audience had seen, requiring a full explanation of the plot, including massive spoiler, all in the service of a comment that would barely be worth saying to a mate who was watching it next to you on the sofa, let alone a paying audience.

The blurb for Illuminati Karate Party lists the achievements of both young comics and trumpets: ’They’re ready to put on a show.’ No, they are not.

Review date: 15 Apr 2016
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett