As part of ArtsHub‘s partnership with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF 2025) this year, we will again be sharing round-ups of some of the best reviews from the 2025 Funny Tonners. If you’re unaware of this component of the Festival, here’s how MICF itself describes it:
“Since 2005, Melbourne International Comedy Festival has challenged die-hard fans of funny to dive deep into the Festival program and pen engaging and enthusiastic show reviews. Armed with a pen and a coveted Festival VIP pass, Funny Tonners review shows right across the Fest. Reviews are posted on the Festival website, as our Funny Tonners battle it out to be crowned this year’s winner with the best review!”
As we did in 2024, this year the ArtsHub team will be judging that best review, as well as publishing selected entries here. So welcome to the three Funny Tonners for 2025, Jade Smith, Anna Stewart and Ben Lamb and here’s the first batch of reviews from them:
Noah Szto: Med School
Med School is a dazzling cabaret that sets out to answer the question: why did Noah Szto (MD) go to med school? Regardless of the answer: we should be glad he did, since this show is the product of that journey. Szto is an impressive performer and his musical chops are evident. Med School is full of catchy musical numbers that, while playing across a range of different styles, stay mostly anchored in a smoky, blues-driven sound.
Szto shines in his ability to draw comedy from introspection: this show isn’t afraid to get deep. In some cases, quite literally. I won’t spoil the bit, but just know that this has to be one of the best on-stage uses of an endoscopy camera ever.
The audience on the night I attended were low-energy, and it was a shame. There were plenty of jokes that deserved more than scattered chuckles. Med School is riotously fun, and surely worth every cent of HECs debt and mental anguish that allowed it to be born.
Reviewed by Jade Smith
Grace Jarvis: Just Because I’m Crying Doesn’t Mean I’m Not Having a Nice Time
Watching Grace Jarvis do stand-up is like catching up with an old friend after a long time apart – it’s laidback, conversational – and there’s a lot to catch up on. Importantly, this particular old friend has spent the last year living overseas, falling in love for the first time, and working in a sex shop – so that last bit really can’t be overstated.
As an autistic person, Jarvis describes her ability to remain unfazed in unusual situations as one of her strengths, and it’s a skill that extends to her storytelling. Her unflappable composure is so infectious that she breezes through anecdotes of increasing bizarreness without you even batting an eyelid. It’s only when the show concludes that you start to wonder how the same person could possibly have had so many strange things happen to them.
Reviewed by Anna Stewart
Steen Raskopoulos: Steen Improvises With Friends
This is improv at its finest. Comedian and Improviser Steen Raskopoulos is a master at the form, and in this performance he led an ad-libbed adventure alongside Tom Cardy, Abby Howells, Broden Kelly, Ben Russell, Brynley Stent and Amanda Buckley.
The cast was in fine form for a Monday night, there wasn’t a weak link among them, each commanding the stage like they’d been in an improv troupe for decades. While the work of Tom, Abby, Broden, Steen, Brynley and Amanda was stellar and can’t be ignored, special mention needs to be given to Ben Russell. He managed the perfect balance of heightening scenes while giving space for other performers – we all got to witness an expert at work.
With so many improvised scenes coming so fast, it was a delight to see no momentum drop, thanks to the quick thinking of the group, new scenes were brought to the stage before any others stuck around too long.
It’s a fun night out, and is definitely one that can’t be ignored this festival.
Reviewed by Ben Lamb
The Burton Brothers: Fortune Seekers
Fortune Seekers is the latest sketch show by comedy duo The Burton Brothers. Loosely, it follows a crotchety old billionaire who invites four contenders to his mansion. Whoever succeeds in bringing him joy will inherit his fortune.
Like all Burton Brothers shows, the premise isn’t held too tightly. This is a series of sketches which, while all related in some way, also aren’t afraid to go off the rails. And off the rails is maybe the best way to describe this show. It’s absolutely, brilliantly, completely silly. The characters they create are so vivid and distinct, and so invariably hilarious.
Fortune Seekers is inherently loose: there are moments where the performers almost break at their own jokes, and there are meta references to jokes they forgot to write. And that’s part of the charm. It’s impossible to do justice to just how funny The Burton Brothers are. If you’ve never seen one of their shows: remedy that right away.
Fortune Seekers is further proof that the Burton Brothers never miss.
Reviewed by Jade Smith
Hannah Camilleri: What I’m Going For
Within the first five minutes of What I’m Going For, Hannah Camilleri has fully dealt with the elephant in the room: the rampant success of her Most Outstanding Show-nominated and Pinder prize-winning show Lolly Bag (2023).
So how can she live up to the hype?! How can she address the – inaccurate – suggestion that Lolly Bag was overhyped (too strange, too reliant on audience participation, too prone to breaking the fourth wall)?!
Camilleri confronts all these queries through a clever conceit which, for the sake of enjoyment, best be kept secret. Suffice it to say, she has the audience in fits of incredulous and hysterical laughter from the off. To her usual cast of sketch characters, Camilleri has added a new persona of unusual realism, whose grounded nature only exaggerates the hilarity of the demands she makes of the audience members she interacts with. Lolly Bag diehards will be thrilled to know that Camilleri also revives certain moustache-toting, baseball cap-toting mechanics.
Camilleri and her director Dylan Murphy have achieved something very special with this show!
Reviewed by Anna Stewart
Randy Aneva: Killa from Manila
It’s often said that the best jokes will take you by surprise. Randy Aneva’s Killa From Manilla is exactly that, an hour of jokes coming from places you’d never expect. It’s only here you’d get an Al Pacino impression, a rendition of ‘Lovesick Blues’ by Hank Williams (aka the viral yodel kid song) and a rap performance about his heritage all in one. The hour moves in so many ways, but its through line is Randy wanting to be an actor, specifically the first Asian James Bond. Other engaging performance pieces break this up, a highlight comes with a sketch featuring Randy getting broken up with, followed by a post break-up press conference, filled with solid jokes and an unparalleled commitment to the bit. It’s an equally silly and warm show, but arguably, Killa From Manilla is one of the most fun hours you can spend at the Comedy Festival this year.
Reviewed by Ben Lamb
