Pillows xxxx review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Bronwyn Kuss is ready to get straight to the point. There's no time for niceties or pleasantries with her stand-up show Pillows xxxx as she jumps right in and lets us know about the English teacher she had in high school, as well as other musings and anecdotes from her life.

Kuss has a very dry delivery where rather than getting loud and animated, she finds a great pace to work with and plays with pauses to emphasise points and highlight punchlines. The call-backs to previously mentioned stories and the thread she maintains between them results in a wonderful payoff in the final moments of the show, but completely in line with the tone of Kuss' performance and image.

Apart from her high school episodes, Kuss also shares her adventures with therapy and her relationship with her father, working at a sexual health clinic, and the financial joys that come with looking after pets. Even if it's nothing you've personally gone through, Kuss is somehow able to keep it all relatable and give the impression that this could easily happen to us, which makes her material that much more engaging.

On stage with Kuss is a television screen that has you wondering what she will be displaying on it. The longer the show goes, the more curious you become until she tells us what we are about to see, and it's pretty much a guarantee that no one will a) expect what she is going to put on view for us and b) know exactly how this visual is going to be presented. But oh how we laughed.

Even with a cynical, matter of fact persona, Kuss presents a highly entertaining evening of laughs with Pillows xxxx, offering a different but rewarding experience for comedy goers.

SHOW DETAILS

Venue: Melbourne Town Hall, 100 Swanston St, Melbourne
Season: until 21 April | Tues - Sat 9pm, Sun 8pm
Duration: 60 minutes
Tickets: $29 - $32 Full | $27 Conc and Tightarse Tuesday
Bookings: Melbourne International Comedy Festival