Review by Steve Bennett at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

A real force-of-nature performer, Tessa Waters promises a ‘high-octane non-stop roller-coaster of LOL sketches’ – and you’d be hard pressed to argue that she doesn’t deliver on that multi-hyphenated promise.

Fully Sik is a show that’s loud, ludicrous and dumb, even when tackling the capital-I Issues that are spelled out in comically over-exaggerated fashion. Like the Fringe Wives Club, of which Waters is also a driving force, feminism can be brought close to the surface – but this is not really ‘about’ anything other than having a good time: an hour of cheerful comedy from a self-confessed ‘carnie from the country’, played big and boisterous rather than intellectualised or preachy.

That she starts with a pillow fight with an audience member to break the ice tells you plenty, and the hour is full of amused giggles at her silliness. Most originate with Waters herself, it’s true, but her easy chuckles are very infectious. This, and her bold physical performance sweep you up in their slipstream, so you’re sure to leave on an elated high, even if you can’t quite remember why.

Sometimes she lets the maelstrom of vivacity subside for less manic moments, such as recreating the awkwardness of getting stuck in a water slide or the time she tripped at a druggy house party and is rendered mesmerised by the size of her hands and confused by who’s who in the room.

Without so much of the supercharged energy of other elements of the show, these scenes don’t quite zing, but the delivery holds you until she resumes the party in this intimate festival room – this time with dopamine being the only drug on offer.

In an interview before the festival, Waters spoke of her work reclaiming ‘the words that we use to disempower women’ such as ‘crazy’ or ‘mad’. There’s nothing disempowering about being crazy in comedy, though, a fact she fully embraces in this unpretentious feelgood romp.

Review date: 19 Apr 2017
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett