Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

A digital native comedian in all the best ways, Lou Wall offers a manic attention-deficit mashup of live stand-up and unhinged AV content, unpacking a tough personal year with the same tool they process everything: silly comedy.

Becoming ‘the first lesbian ever to go through a break-up’ proved to be just the tip of a trauma iceberg, some of which is so challenging it requires a trigger warning. Things got so bad that Wall even turned to dating men – and comedy men at that.

So, to cheer themselves up, Wall assembled a list of 853 things they found funny, now whittled down to an hour-friendlier number of, what else?, 69.

These are mostly attacked at breakneck, blink-and-you-miss-it, take-it-or-leave-it pace that barely warrants examination. Sometimes it’s just a word or idea – one of the funniest is a viral video just nicked off the internet – but the idea is that this isit’sonslaught of daft ideas to detract from the serious stuff, and it works.

Wall treats mental health woes flippantly, with jet-black humour behind cutesy euphemisms for the bleakest outlooks. When the comic mentions the grimmest moment of the past 12 months, the cheery atmosphere in the room definitely curdles, but Wall negotiates the discomfort skilfully, giving the audience confidence that all is OK now.

Longer skits include the best Facebook Marketplace anecdote of this festival (and there are many). WallWall’sounter with a woman who expressed an interest in the bed they were giving away for free is comic gold, a real roller-coaster of emotions with incredible turns in almost every turn.

In another routine, they strike a blow for Generation Rent by pranking a cruelly greedy landlord, and elsewhere makes their own NSFW (not safe for ward) make-a-wish for an elderly hospital patient who is suprisingly ungrateful for the experience. Wall does not, it’s fair to say, live a quiet normal life - though their ‘bimbo’ friend is even worse.

Some of the segments have a pointed undertone – or even blatant overtone – about the evils of capitalism or sexism, but true to the idea of using humour to uplift, Wall never labours the issue. 

The PowerPoint slides are occasionally crucial to the comedy, but often just add an extra tag – like an emoticon topping off a punchline – adding to the compelling, frenetic, Gen Z energy of an exuberant and often zany hour.

Review date: 11 Apr 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival