Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Maybe it’s the delight of being shortlisted for Melbourne’s best newcomer prize, but Maddy Weeks is full of beans. Annoyingly so, in fact.

At the end of almost every segment, the comic throws back their head and hollers: ‘It’s all good, baby!’, ‘Hell yeah, baby!’,or similar, at ear-splitting volume. It could serve as a rallying cry to perk up an audience, but the relentless use of the technique quickly grates, especially as it – or other sorts of overemphasis – so often come in lieu of real punchlines.

Positivity is Weeks’ brand, mind. The young comic is shedding their anxieties and embracing the mindset of the less fretful members of their generation, that nothing bad will ever happen and that actions have no consequences.

It’s been a journey. Weeks shares some of their less confident moments – such as the frank tale of being afraid to confess to their first period while visiting the Eiffel Tower – and darker stories, such as feeling like an outsider and having a worrying obsession with swords. Then there’s the suicide of a fellow high school pupil, which teachers dealt with in the most jaw-droppingly inappropriate video, shared here. 

Other routines describe their father’s insistence that he’d been ‘hacked’ with the porn on his computer, going out with a clown, and Weeks' parents trying to understand them coming out as non-binary. 

They are engaging stories at heart, although Weeks could be sharper in offering a witty commentary beyond simple reportage. However, the initial charm of the anecdotes is so often shattered with those yee-hah payoffs. Perhaps their newfound confidence could be tempered, just a bit.

Review date: 22 Apr 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival