Happy Birthday Taylah Whelan review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival The Motley Bauhaus

Taylah Whelan is turning 26. Their mum was pregnant with them at 26, and Whelan is now having something of an existential crisis. Welcome to Happy Birthday Taylah Whelan.

Whelan is surprised to see us all in their house, though they did invite us over to celebrate their birthday, so it’s only natural we’d be there. They are slightly awkward and unsure of what to do, but when they realise the drink they have taken from a friend is called "The drink that makes you reminisce,” there is little left to resist. While they initially fight the urge, it proves futile, and before we, and they, know it, Whelan is on stage, reminiscing.

Blizzard review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Motley Wherehaus

At 2024's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, people would not stop telling me to see Piotr Sikora’s clown show Furiozo: Man Looking For Trouble. Naturally, I missed it. I did eventually catch it later that year at Edinburgh Fringe, and from that point on, Sikora locked himself onto my must-see list. So when I learnt he was bringing a work-in-progress, Blizzard, to this year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival, I was properly excited.

We follow a Polish soldier on a strange, snow-covered journey. There’s a lot of snow. And an orange. And a creature of sorts. For the most part, the work is silent, with fragments of Polish and very little English. But Sikora’s ability to tell a clear, compelling narrative without relying on language is where the magic really sits, everything is communicated through physical comedy, audience play, and a constant (non-verbal) dialogue with the room.