Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

As clowning enjoys another moment in the sun,

Jessica Barton takes a template familiar from many a Gaulier graduate and puts her own irresistible spin on it.

Her delightful alter-ego is the prim and proper  Mary Floppins – no prizes for guessing which magical nanny inspired this character, who skateboards her way on to the stage in a puff of practical positivity.

The Melburnian performer effortlessly charms us into her world of meticulous neatness. Without saying a word, she has the whole room cheering the folding of a pillowcase. That’s how easily she commands our loyalty.

Then it’s audience participation time, as various men are pulled up on stage to help divide the labour on bigger tasks, such as the duvet cover. And as clowning has finally caught up to the idea of consent, Barton offers audience members a safe word get-out should they not want to join in. No one takes her up on it. She seems to have a good eye for who’ll be fun – as well as which bears of men will make inherently funny visuals next to her slight frame.

With her  butter-wouldn’t-melt demeanour, Barton has her volunteers doing her bidding, or the whole room yom-pom-pomming along to a certain movie musical’s score.  Her marks in tonight’s performance were all good sports, but our comedian has the restrained air of a smiling assassin who’d whip any miscreants into shape, as well as a winningly impish glint in her eye that makes it fun.

The looseness and unpredictability of using punters – even ones as cheerfully compliant as they were on this night – contacts to the order and cleanliness Ms Floppins wants to impose on her domestic world.  But there is also a deeper personal reason why Barton has chosen to run with the good housekeeping tropes, with glimpses of her real-life providing an emotive backstory for the fun shenanigans, dealt with lightly buy poignantly and giving the show more heft than you might expect. 

In short, Dirty Work is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

Review date: 7 Apr 2025
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Melbourne International Comedy Festival