Smash It! review | Circus Oz | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Arts Centre Melbourne

Smash It! is the newest show by Circus Oz, a company that has been running since 1978 and considered a leader in the circus arts in Australia. In Smash It!, seven multi-generational performers undertake flips, jumps and tumbles to a live band in a stripped-back production with nowhere to hide.

Ranging in age from early twenties to mid-sixties, each performer (Angelique Ross, Celso March, Debra Batton, Leo Pentland, Mozes Heawood, Sharon Gruenert and Spenser Inwood) is given plenty of opportunities to be the star and to fall into the background and support their fellow artist. The highlight is a rope act that sees Heawood spun around at incredible speeds with a captivating lighting design by Gina Gascoigne.

M is for Melbourne: The World’s Mostly* Liveable City review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | DoubleTree by Hilton

Julian O'Shea has been telling fascinating stories about design, cities and Melbourne for a number of years but this has predominantly been through YouTube and other forms of online media. But this year, O'Shea has brought his unique knowledge to the Comedy Festival with M is for Melbourne: The World’s Mostly* Liveable City.

As O'Shea implies in the opening minutes of the show, this is not a comedy with someone standing on stage and cracking jokes. While there are many funny moments here, O'Shea gives little known facts about Melbourne, like why we have no inflatable tube guys and just how useful the Collins Street bike lane is (which I never even knew existed!), as well as focusing on some celebrated Melbourne monuments, like the Montague Street Bridge.

The Platonic Human Centipede review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | The Toff in Town

There is no greater gesture to prove your love and loyalty to your bestie, your partner-in-crime, your wingperson, your right-hand man, than by surgically attaching your mouth to their anus. Right? In The Platonic Human Centipede, the sensational duo of Mel & Sam explore the unsung duos of the world and the lengths they would go to, to always allow nothing but the best for each other.

Through an hour of original songs and dance, Mel & Sam search high and low to honour duos that we would expect and some that are quite surprising. There are so many highlights in this show, but the two that are absolutely hysterical are Robert and Bindi Irwin singing to their late father (but with some ulterior motives) and a Willy Wonka and Charlie Bucket reunion years after that fateful Chocolate Factory encounter.

Write-Off review | Melbourne International Comedy Festival | Charles Dickens Tavern

Sean Collier is a 26-year-old white, straight man from New Zealand and he has plenty to say. This is mainly about how screwed up his life is and how equally screwed up society is. Equipped with a microphone, a beer and a backwards cap, Write-Off is an opportunity for Collier to get a lot of things of his chest in an irreverent and brazen but highly entertaining stand-up routine.

Collier talks about growing up in New Zealand in a town where there were not many prospects and built on violence and racism. But he manages to bring these things together that remains honest to his experiences and concerns while providing a great deal of laughter. Drug use and addiction, prison, homelessness and even rimming are not exactly ground-breaking topics, but what makes Write-Off refreshing is the structure and punchlines and how dark Collier goes with his material.

Mozart-182 review (Melbourne International Comedy Festival)

Do opposites really attract? That's something that Callum Straford is testing with his experimental stand-up, clown and musical comedy concerto (that's a mouthful!), Mozart-182. Through various sketches and songs, Straford attempts to highlight how quickly life can get messy and there's nothing we can do but embrace it, with arms wide open.

Straford has an affable nature to him and you can't not like him, and if this is what you would judge a comedy show on, then he would get two thumbs up, but the structure doesn’t reach the same level of likability. The conceit of the show is a comparison and contrast of Austrian composer Mozart to American rock band Blink-182, but apart from the obvious of coming from different centuries and musical genres, there's no eye-opening or unexpected link between the two.