2023 Comedy Festival

It's been a bumper crop of comedy here in the capital for this year's comedy festival, and we've taken in four excellent performers from the British Isles, plus one winning local act.

Joe Lycett

Springboarding off his telly and internet fame, Lycett delivered a highly entertaining and well-crafted recap of his recent brushes with fame. Opening with scene-setting quips - describing his slightly prison-like striped boiler-suit as 'Guantanamo Gay' - Lycett provided plenty of evidence of his winning career as an impish, versatile multimedia star, including his deadpan riposte to demands that the BBC provide more airtime to conservative voices by simply claiming on Laura Kuenssberg's new BBC politics show that he was 'incredibly right wing', satirising both then-PM Liz Truss and the notion of mandatory balance in current affairs programmes. Plus there was the credulousness of then-minister Nadine Dorries, who took him at his word when he tweeted ironic messages of support to Boris Johnson. His many telly appearances were referenced, including Dancing With The Stars (a self-deprecating pratfall), Sewing Bee, Taskmaster and his own shows. The high-water marks of the show included an extended riff on his absurd and daftly entertaining campaign to get the Mayor of his hometown Birmingham to officially open his new kitchen extension (which she did, inexplicably), and the grand finale in which he detailed an intriguing and ultimately successful self-led five-year social engineering campaign in his local neighbourhood.

Ed Gamble 

A youthful Wellington crowd turned out for Gamble's first proper NZ comedy tour in the peculiar Shed 6 venue, which was ideal for the sadly defunct DCM bookfair but is less than ideal for standup comedy. His broad standup set encompassed a detailed riff on the mysteries of budget hotel continental breakfasts (a travelling comedian's mainstay), staging a solo surprise lockdown hen party for his wife in their house, and the intimidation of performing standup comedy in front of a heavy metal festival crowd who became fixated on his diabetes and demanded to see real, live blood. There was also a detour into the challenge of getting fit in London, with forays into the dynamics of a flawed spin class and how to cope with exercising at an East London 'big boy gym'.

Sara Pascoe   

Possibly Pascoe's first foray into NZ touring, she started her set by pointing out that she does know she's pregnant, thank you, and she would normally reveal that at the end of the performance, but that dramatic flourish was rather redundant now the baby is officially 'showing'. Her endearing and witty set addressed her grandiose teenage dreams of telly fame, a hilariously misjudged attempts to win over both Michael Barrymore and Geri Halliwell with her singing, and the curious nature of life in the entertainment business with a 'fame-adjacent' public profile. The trials of flying a toddler to the other side of the world - which many in the audience could no doubt relate to - rounded out a charming set.

Guy Montgomery

Fresh from his award-winning Australian tour and boosted by his highly amusing and definitely daggy game show, TV3's Guy Mont Spelling Bee, Montgomery's festival contribution was a mix of observational comedy, absurdist rambling and drug-referencing psychedelia. A genial presence throughout, Montgomery was at his best riffing on the guilty pleasures of taking horse tranquilisers (it's quite important to stroke the horses to sleep first so you don't feel guilty) or taking the venerable expression 'what's that got to do with the price of fish' for a lengthy excursion into dramatic theatre. He also shows his sweeter side in his material about his step-daughter and the unexpected joys of being a step-dad, including the self-deprecating lengths he goes to to gain the approval of his beloveds by traipsing through the rain in a chemically-altered state of mind to buy pajamas that he didn't particularly want in the first place.

Dylan Moran

The audience's nerves at what might have been a difficult performance, given what was reported at the previous show in the tour at Christchurch, were immediately dispelled by Moran at the outset, when he discussed the gig and confirmed, as many had suspected, that he was not inebriated at the gig, and the news reporting was completely overblown. Moran proceeded to prove that with a set as good as any of his many previous shows (c.f. my 2006 write-up for Scoop). He has a wonderful knack for slyly devastating putdowns that land with a feather-light touch given the audience knows his bleak worldview lacks all malice - it's equal opportunity lambasting. A detailed examination of the innate foolishness of all age groups, a lengthy riff on the ridiculousness of male genitalia, and the true secret of alcoholism all delighted the crowd. But for me the highlight was the surprising, and surprisingly listenable, foray into moderately-listenable free jazz keyboard playing and atonal jazz vocal performances, which, he related, led one Vienna audience member to howl an anguished 'noooooo...' at the commencement of the second half of his performance.  

See also:

Comedy: James Acaster, 14 May 2016
Comedy: Eddie Izzard, 15 February 2015
Comedy: Josie Long, 6 May 2013
Comedy: Stephen Merchant, Wellington, 17 December 2012
Comedy: Bill Bailey, Wellington, 29 September 2012
Comedy: David O'Doherty, 5 May 2012
Comedy: Ed Byrne / Steve Coogan, 17 May 2009
Comedy: Bill Bailey, 3 July 2008