Melbourne loves a tradition, especially one that begins with its own capital letter… Moomba, Melbourne Cup and, of course, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) Gala, which took place last night at the Palais in St Kilda, raising money for Oxfam and giving 23 of the stars of the Festival four minutes each to put their best foot forward.
The format is a double-edged sword for both audience and performer. As a viewer you get to witness a wonderful smorgasbord of acts – both old favourites and new discoveries – and if there’s one or two that don’t quite hit the mark for you… well, you only have to wait a few minutes and there’ll be someone else along. The selling point for the performers is that they get to show off a tantalising taster of (presumably) their very finest material and maybe set off a surge for ticket sales on the strength of it.
