Liza Treyger in Headliners. Image via Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
If you’re not sure what to see at the ever-expanding Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Headliners – a selection of four American comedians each performing a short stand-up set – is always a good way to hedge your bets. Headliners features two line-ups and this year’s first line-up consists of Ryan Hamilton, Emily Heller, Liza Treyger and Jak Knight.
Ryan Hamilton’s set is a mostly dead-pan walk-through of his life as a guy who looks like he’s from Idaho. He is.
He started off with some merciless piss-taking of Melbourne which was both fair and well-received, but his goofy grin and wide-eyed country boy’s perspective of life in New York is where the gold lies. A hilarious tale of watching a guy smoke crack openly on an NYC subway was great.
Emily Heller was the second comedian up and probably the weakest of the bunch, though still managed to draw some laughs.She kicked off with some Trump-based comedy, which started out funny but soon descended in some good old-fashioned political ranting, some of it missing the funny-bone mark. During a large section of the second half of the set she read out an offensive message she received on online dating platform OK Cupid, which after a few chuckles just felt like it went on too long.
Liza Treyger was by far the highlight of the night, albeit surely one of the filthiest the festival has hosted. But what starts out as a filthy discourse on sex and dating, ascended into a blistering commentary on gender inequality, demonstrated by the differences between male and female expectations in the boudoir. By the end of the set you were in no doubt of her masterful and fiercely intelligent comedy, wrapped in a potty-mouthed package.
The only low point was an ill-placed and badly received holocaust joke. It would be interesting to know if she repeated that particular gag, given how badly it went down with the audience that night. Overall, Treyger is a really talented comedian with an aggressive, take-no-prisoners delivery and hopefully she’ll return to the festival in future with a full-length set.
The final act was the young Nik Knight, who could turn out to be a really great performer with some more experience and finesse. For one thing, he needs to stop mumbling into the mic – some of his one-liners were indecipherable. He went out of the gates strong (‘I call white woman swans because they’re white, majestic and they get upset when I chase them through parks’) but then seemed to lack momentum. There were other high points in his set, but his attempt at local references was a little strange with a throwaway line about ‘you guys killing Aborigines’ which injected a dose of awkwardness and he had to work hard to get the audience back into his corner. Lines about being a young black guy in Trump’s America (‘I’m a young black dude listening to hip and hop and saying ‘leave the CIA alone’) hit home, but were also tremendously funny.
If longer comedy sets aren’t your thing, this is a great way to enjoy bite-sized comedy and this year’s line-up is strong overall with some truly sparkling highlights.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Headliners
Melbourne Town Hall
30 March – 23 April
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
