The juggernaut that is Melbourne International Comedy Festival rolls inexorably towards us. Running from 25 March to 19 April 2026 and featuring almost 800 shows in its expansive program, MICF celebrates its 40th anniversary this year – no mean feat in Australia’s uncertain festival landscape.
One of MICF’s many activities is artist development, delivered through long-running initiatives such as First Nations program Deadly Funny, the secondary school-focused Class Clowns and Australia’s biggest open mic comedy program, Raw Comedy.
This year’s program features established Australian comedians like Wil Anderson, Hannah Gadsby, Denise Scott, Celia Pacquola, Kitty Flanagan and Lano & Woodley alongside up-and-comers and emerging talents, MICF features some of the hottest new names in comedy internationally – including two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee Ian Smith (UK), Douglas Lim (Singapore), Fadzri Rashid (Singapore), Schalk Bezuidenhout (South Africa), Sofie Hagen (Denmark), Takashi Wakasugi (Japan) and Zainab Johnson (US).
For audience members seeking new favourites, the festival’s Pilot program showcases two different up-and-coming young Australian comedians each week of the festival at the work-friendly time of 5.20pm (4.20pm on Sundays). The MICF Festival Club is a great place to catch routines and highlights from a wide range of guest comedians.
Deciding who to see in so large a festival can be overwhelming. To help you, ArtsHub’s Performing Arts Editor Richard Watts presents the 12 shows that caught his eye in the lead-up to MICF this year.
What to see at MICF 2026 – quick links
Alex Hines & Sarah Stafford: Birds
Winner of the Best Comedy and Queensland Touring Awards at the 2025 Melbourne Fringe, Birds is a gleefully grotesque, character-driven comedy about climate change – and the funniest show I saw at Melbourne Fringe last year. You’ll laugh, you’ll shriek, you’ll groan in disgust as Hines and Stafford play a pair of ‘ladies who lunch’ on a cocktail-swilling beach holiday while their children drown and the world burns.
Birds is at The Malthouse, Beckett Theatre from 7 to 19 April.
Anisa Nandaula: No Small Talk
Ugandan-born and Queensland-raised comedian and poet Anisa Nandaula returns to MICF after last year saw her described as ‘one to watch, for sure’ by Chortle, and also nominated for MICF’s Best Newcomer award. Nandaula’s new show promises ‘No filters, no small talk – just big laughs’.
No Small Talk is at The Westin and fortyfivedownstairs from 26 March to 19 April.
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Casey Filips: What a Character
If you’re a fan of character comedy, the latest hour from Melbourne-based, Greek-Australian actor and Gaulier-trained clown Casey Filips comes with strong credentials. His 2024 Melbourne Fringe show, Virtuoso, was described as ‘absurdist mayhem’ in a 5-star review in The Age. Earlier this month, InDaily also praised the recent Adelaide Fringe season of What a Character in a 4-star review: ‘Casey Filips doesn’t just play characters, he shapeshifts through them and makes you forget it’s the same person on stage.’
What a Character is at the Trades Hall from 6 to 19 April.
Cassie Workman: You Are Here
Multi-award-winning comic Cassie Workman – whose ‘charmingly whimsical one moment, wry and direct the next’ production Giantess was one of my 2019 highlights – returns from the US with You Are Here, billed as ‘a surreal elegy for New Jersey’s West Valley Mall’. Given Workman’s skills in stand up, storytelling and the spoken word, I can’t wait to see how her work has evolved – doubtless she’ll also have a pithy joke or two about the bonfire that is contemporary US politics, too!
You Are Here is at Melbourne Town Hall from 26 March to 19 April.
Elf Lyons: Swan
If you’ve ever wanted to see someone mercilessly and hilariously mock ballet, especially Swan Lake, this is the show for you. ‘Along the way are sly digs at gender roles within dance, questions about what kind of body types get to enjoy it and a take-down of contemporary dance that is both exceptionally funny and very much en pointe,’ Adelaide’s InDaily noted in a recent 5-star review of Swan‘s Adelaide Fringe run. I caught a chaotic preview performance in Adelaide and shrieked with laughter frequently – to the point where Lyons commented on my singular laugh and earned another laugh from me with her seemingly-impromptu quip. Gleefully recommended.
Swan is at The Malthouse from 26 March to 19 April.
Garry Starr: Classic Penguins
Last year, Garry Starr: Classic Penguins won the Best Comedy awards at Perth’s Fringe World and Adelaide Fringe, as well as Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s award for Most Outstanding Show. I awarded it a coveted 5 stars, proclaiming it ‘flawless and unmissable’ at its Adelaide and Melbourne seasons. Now it’s back, in a 70-minute extended edition directed by Cal McCrystal. With 10 minutes added to its run time – meaning additional Penguin Classics titles can be recreated through Garry Starr’s ‘world-class clowning’ – it’s all the more reason to see Classic Penguins again, or for the first time if you’ve managed to miss it before!
Classic Penguins is at The Malthouse from 26 March to 19 April.
James Barr: Sorry I Hurt Your Son (Said My Ex to My Mum)
Intimate partner violence isn’t funny but apparently this show is, according to several industry colleagues who’ve urged me to see it – so I’m sharing their recommendation with you. ArtsHub’s review of its 2024 Edinburgh Fringe season says, ‘Barr explains that he’s chosen to tell his story of abuse because silence is traumatising and he hopes that, in telling his story, he can help others speak out if they too are suffering domestic abuse in silence’, adding that ‘it’s exciting to witness an artist take risks at Fringe, and fascinating to watch someone break the rules of their chosen craft – and succeed’. See you there!
Sorry I Hurt Your Son (Said My Ex to My Mum) is at the Trades Hall from 26 March to 5 April.
Maitreyi Karanth: Maitriarchy
Billed as ‘the matriarch of Hong Kong comedy’, philanthropist and TEDx presenter Maitreyi Karanth is making her MICF debut after previously performing at Sydney Fringe in 2025 and also recently selling out 10 shows at Hong Kong’s TakeOut Comedy Club. Matriarchy blends anecdotes from a midlife crisis, a round-the-world tour and glimpses of marital life. ‘Since it’s a brand-new audience, I will have the freedom to dig into all of my old and new material and change it up when I want to in these two weeks,’ Karanth recently told The Beat-Asia when describing the show.
Maitriarchy is at Ballers Clubhouse from 7 to 19 April.
Nat Harris: Amuse-Bouche
Consistently delivering some of the sharpest and funniest character comedy I’ve seen in years, Nat Harris returns to MICF with Amuse-Bouche, a new show focused on her ‘low-key iconic character, Pussy Willow’, to quote The Age. The MICF website tells us to ‘expect characters, stories, recipes and meltdowns as big as a chef coming down in a commercial kitchen. She’s got all four burners on high and she’s flying by the seat of her pants. What could possibly go wrong?’
Amuse-Bouche is at the Victoria Hotel from 25 March to 5 April.
Robyn Reynolds & Chris Nguyen: Romantic Comedy
After being nominated for the festival’s Best Newcomer award last year, Robyn Reynolds has taken a perhaps-surprising tack this year: instead of putting on the usual second solo comedy show, she’s partnered with her, well, partner – fellow comedian Chris Nguyen – to tell stories about falling in love at open mic nights. Romantic Comedy is billed as ‘a comedy date with Chris and Robyn’. Given that awkward dates and one’s partner’s foibles are usually staples of stand-up, it will be interesting to see how Reynolds and Nguyen respond to one another’s jokes when they’re standing beside one another on stage.
Romantic Comedy is at the Trades Hall from 26 March to 19 April.
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Sam Nicoresti: Baby Doomer
Winner of the Don and Eleanor Taffner Best Comedy Show award at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe, Sam Nicoresti’s Baby Doomer is ‘an ebullient hour of comedy’ according to The Guardian, while UK comedy bible Chortle described it thus: ‘Who knew a show about finding the perfect two-piece skirt suit would be so uproariously funny, life-affirming, angry, dumb, insightful and political all at once?’ It’s at the top of my list of new comedians to see this year (unless that list is written alphabetically by first name, obviously).
Baby Doomer is at The Westin from 26 March to 19 April.
Sammy J: Hero Complex
It’s not like Sammy J needs ArtsHub’s assistance with moving tickets – after a five-year stint as a breakfast presenter at 774 Melbourne, he has a large and loyal audience behind him – but Hero Complex is one of the most memorable comedy shows I’ve ever seen, so it should definitely be on your radar. Our 5-star review of its 2017 season called this show about Sammy J’s life-long obsession with the comic strip character The Phantom, ‘a heart-warming hour of constant grinning, chuckling and laughing, punctuated with revelations that may just blow your mind’. Given that Hero Complex has since been updated with ‘bonus content and fresh surprises’, I can’t wait to see it for a third time.
Hero Complex is at the Athenaeum Theatre from 14 to 19 April.
