Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

With the internet giving more platforms to more voices – and movements such as MeToo shining more disinfecting light into shady practices – the corrosive conventions that have traditionally lain behind the stand-up scene have increasingly been exposed. Aspiring stand-ups who would previously have had to put up or shut up for fear that speaking out would jeopardise their career have been a bit more willing to go public.

But only to an extent. The scrutiny hasn’t quite had the all-cleansing effect many would have hoped, and shady characters and systemic prejudices have proved harder to topple.

In Going Up, Sara Schaefer puts all that she sees as wrong with the industry into one pointed hour. She presents comedy as a cross between a dodgy pyramid scheme and a Scientology-like sect that rewards devotion to unquestionable principles.

Presented as a seminar, this is our induction to the cult as she outlines what the faithful must do to slowly advance up the ladder from open-miker to legend-like stadium-filler, negotiating shifty characters and the random prejudices of gatekeepers, all called Jeff.

Her experience of this is clearly hard-won, and a harsh cynicism underpins the jokes and bitter observations about backstage bro-dominated culture where hanging out, projecting likability and taking a roasting are all more vital to career advancement than being funny. And where freedom of speech is cherished above all else, but only if it’s the right sort of freedom of speech.

Those in the know will already be aware of concepts such as ‘clapter’ – when a stand-up gets a round of applause of approval rather than laughs – or be familiar with comics who deploy all manner of pseudoscientific excuses to blame the audience for their own failings. Whether those who are not comedy nerds would be interested in the minutiae of this world is moot.

Schaefer brings some amusing techniques to explain all that’s going on, from a miniature comedy-club set to a puppet version of herself, voicing every insecurity as it sits on her shoulder. And the very concept of comedy as a pyramid con is insightful and accurate.

But expanding this idea to an hour is a stretch. The idea of giving everything an abbreviation to make it sound technical – a notion lifted from Scientology – quickly tires. And her segment explaining all the  genres of stand-up is endless, and not especially enlightening. Nor does Schaefer have the evangelical zeal needed to fully sell the cult concept, as she’s too dry a performer to be convincing as a full-on motivational speaker.

The merely irritating parts of the comedy world are highlighted along with the more worrying, misogynistic aspects. She makes an occasional troubling dark aside that points to first-hand experience of the very worst consequences of the closed-shop, tribal nature of the comedy. All of which deserves to be brought out into the open.

• Sara Schaefer: Going Up is at Melbourne Town Hall at 7.50pm (6.50pm Sundays, no show Mondays) until April 23.

Review date: 7 Apr 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival