Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Deadpan’s one thing, but Nick Schuller is lifeless to the point of monotone. With zero energy in his performance, his debut hour becomes a slog – which is shame as there are some decent jokes within it. However the momentum-free delivery is very unforgiving of those gags which fall short.

He clearly knows his comedy onions, and sets out this show as a nerdy deconstruction of how fellow stand-ups put together their hours with contrived structure, manipulative music and all-too convenient callbacks. For Firebrand, he applies all those tricks – plus on expertly applied example of foreshadowing –  by imaging a walk through his house before it was lost to the 2019 bush fires, with each item triggering a short routine.

But for a comic who mocks others for using well-worn trickery, he’s not above an actual ‘…and that was just the professor’ pullback, or some unironically cheesy old jokes, such as hearing ‘euthanasia’ as ‘youth in Asia’.

On the more positive side he has witty recurring jokes about pedantry in pronunciation which speaks to his nerdy side that sees absurdity in some obscure topics.

Given his introverted delivery, it’s no surprise that his limited attempts at crowd work fall instantly flat. And in the latter half of the show he makes some attempt to liven up the monologue with filmed skits turning Bible stories into adverts, which start mildly amusing but suffer diminishing returns.

And with the soporific style working so hard against him, he needs more of the good stuff to fill an hour, as any weaker material fails hard.

Review date: 21 Apr 2023
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival