Lobster in a Glass review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

Every now and again, life decides to absolutely wreck your plans, your ambitions, and your carefully curated sense of self. In Lobster in a Glass, Jenna Suffern dives headfirst into those moments, drawing comedy from the chaos when things go slightly or spectacularly wrong. Across the hour, she revisits a series of derailments, shaping them into sharp, engaging anecdotes.



From a career-ending sports injury in school to realising she was gay and later non-binary, Suffern’s life has been stopped in its tracks more than once, requiring several realignments along the way. Through it all, she mines these disruptions for humour, turning detours into stories that are recognisable and somewhat absurd.

Articulate review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

There’s nothing like a board game to bring out the best - or worst - in people. In Articulate, two share houses come together for their annual tradition: a fierce game night where the stakes are simple but brutal. The losing team must display a photo of the winners on their fridge - a daily reminder of their defeat and inability to guess even the simplest words.

In one corner we have the reigning champions: Tilly, Nadia and Jules: confident, composed, and fully expecting to take out the title once again. On the other are Lilo, Ben and Rommy, who are more than prepared. Warmed up and ready, they’re determined to prove they have what it takes to claim victory this year. The way each household is seen preparing for the evening is well directed and executed by the cast. 

Mrs Lovett’s Famous Meat Pies Grand Reopening Extravaganza review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Spielhaus

Having survived being thrown into an oven, along with a few other mishaps across the decades (and centuries), Mrs Lovett is back and ready for her grand reopening. Her ethically sourced human meat pie shop has set up in the heart of Melbourne at Queen Victoria Market, and this is no quiet return. With a handful of celebrity friends, including Jamie Oliver, lending a hand, Mrs Lovett invites her audience into a live pie-making demonstration that quickly spirals into something far more chaotic. And it all begins with a tuba. Yes, really.

Created and performed by Elliot Wood, Mrs Lovett’s Famous Meat Pies Grand Reopening Extravaganza is an unhinged, wild ride comedy that wastes no time finding its rhythm. When a performer starts at an energy level of 11 and somehow escalates to 15, with the audience happily swept up in this madness, you know you are in good hands.

Gossip review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Bauhaus

Don’t tell anyone I told you, but … it’s a phrase many of us have uttered - or at least been told. That tantalising morsel of someone else’s business that gives us a strange, guilty pleasure. But why? In Gossip, Abigail Banister-Jones sets out to investigate whether gossip makes us a better person, and why it feels so good.

Banister-Jones brings a great energy to the stage, with playful banter that draws the audience in. She bounces off a wide range of sources like the Bible, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Gossip Girl, creating a mix of perspectives and cultural touchstones that keeps the exploration lively and relatable.

The Ex Files: A Comedy True Crime Tour review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival

Hell hath no fury like a gay man scorned. What starts with sweet dates and musical theatre singalongs descends into something far more sinister. In The Ex Files: A Comedy True Crime Tour, Matt Bell blurs the line between true crime and total fabrication in his 'investigation', guiding audiences around the Melbourne CBD to uncover the evidence behind a crime that may or may not exist.

With each audience member armed with a pair of Bluetooth headphones, Bell guides us through a series of locations tied to the relationship at the centre of the story. We move from the bar where the first date occurred, to a cinema shaped by a wicked lie, to a restaurant that ends in heartbreak on the most romantic night of the year. Bell has clearly put thought into the structure, and standing at each location as he reminisces, makes the experience immersive, like we're re-living it ourselves.

Sugar Bits clean up the trash with their feminist chaos | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Bauhaus

Sugar Bits are back with their riotous sketch show, Feminist Trash, and they are ready to wreak hilarious havoc on Melbourne once more. Nicola Pohl, Tessa Luminati, and Stephanie Beza are the three brains behind the operation - so perfectly in sync it’s almost unfair to the rest of us. Unsurprisingly, when asked to do an interview, they answered as a single, terrifyingly witty entity.

Both the group name and the show title are boldly chosen, feeling playful, ironic, and a little provocative, teasing out how the group’s identity is reflected in - or upended by - these names. "It genuinely comes from very shallow beginnings: Sugar tits, but because we’re sketch comedy, we do Bits! Sugar Bits! Whereas Feminist Trash was born from a tagline when flyering for our first show, Hit n Hope, where we would say to people 'this show is feminist trash'," they tell me. "It just caught on and became an idea we wanted to make a show about. Feminist Trash subverts the name Sugar Bits because the name is ultra-femme, but the way Feminist Trash is grotesque, stupid, and dark, can be seen as unfeminine or ugly, which happens to be the way we like to be femme!"

Beyond The Neck review | Theatre Works

In Beyond the Neck, Tom Holloway’s raw and unflinching script brings four strangers together in the shadow of tragedy, each carrying their own pain. As their paths cross, the play quietly unravels how trauma lingers, how memory presses in, and how people navigate the fragile spaces between loss and connection. Set in the aftermath of the Port Arthur massacre, one of Australia’s darkest tragedies, the play traces how the echoes of violence ripple through ordinary lives, shaping the way people remember, mourn, and try to move forward.

The characters are all coping with grief in different, haunting ways. The Boy embodies disturbing tendencies; The Teenage Girl channels fear into obsession and speculation; The Young Mother and Wife carries memories she can’t let go; and The Old Man, a survivor of the massacre, bears the lingering impact of what he witnessed, giving the audience an intimate view of loss.