Melbourne International Comedy Festival review

Robyn Reynolds says she’s a reformed people-pleaser. What she must have been like before her conversion boggles the mind, given how fulsome she is at the top of the show, repeatedly thanking the audience for being here and gushingly praising us for being such a great crowd.

What Doesn't Kill You is her debut – which comes as a surprise given how accomplished an hour this is – and is billed as the effervescent comedian sharing her ‘deepest secrets, dressed as stand-up’.

The tone, however, isn’t dark. Though the first part of the show is devoted to her ‘abusive, alcoholic, narcissist’ of a mother, she’s portrayed as a broad comedy caricature, her bad behaviour shocking and funny in equal measure like something about of Ab Fab. 

Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll surely find a pretty bleak childhood, but Reynolds successful parlays this darkness into outlandish anecdotes, topped with a musical comedy interlude. ‘What doesn’t kill you only makes you weirder’, is her manta

Fleeing from this toxic home life in Britain as soon as she was able, Reynolds emigrated to live with her father  in Australia. However, that didn’t work out too well either, and the issues with her emotionally stunted dad are summed up in another entertaining ditty about his refusal to seek therapy.

Reynolds is a charming, charismatic presence, effusive in her delivery and her physicality, warmly engaging in her carefully rationed interaction with the audience.  Her charm and openness helps navigate the third act, a scary story about medical misogyny that seriously endangered her health.

She plays this less for laughs than the ‘my crazy parents’ routines – though there are still light interludes, as well as moments where she plays up the more visceral imagery for darker ‘too-much-information’ laughs. 

No wonder her comedy style gets grittier as doctor after doctor ignores her serious symptoms, or dismisses them as ‘women’s issues’. It was ultimate her critical need to get proper treatment that taught her to stand up for herself.

Now, she’s brilliantly confident on stage, her persona maturing from those over-enthusiastic, keen-to-be-loved welcomes into something more rounded and  self-assured over the hour, reflecting the personal journey she’s sharing. 

Yet she remains remarkably good-natured despite the multiple issues she’s had to face. She’d be forgiven for turning cynical and bitter, but her tone is instead celebratory of the happy ending that sticking up for herself resulted in. 

Finding her voice in the world also led to finding her voice on stage, it seems, able to handle turn difficult experiences into a classy, funny story with real bite.

Review date: 13 Apr 2025
Reviewed by: S