MICF- Fern Brady and Alex Edelman

It was Tightarse Tuesday again at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and I booked in to see another two shows tonight featuring comics from overseas. First I made my way down to ACMI for Scottish comedian Fern Brady's show Suffer, Fools! Fern did a set of stand-up and told stories about her life, including her relationships, time at university (including paying for her degree by being a stripper), and jobs as a cook at a halfway house and journalist. It was an honest hour long show with a funny ending.

Next I headed up to the Greek Centre for American comic Alex Edelman's Barry nominated show Just For Us. This is the second time I've seen Alex perform and the main thread of this show is the rise of antisemitism in Trump's America and Alex's decision to attend a white supremacist meeting in an apartment in New York. Alex expertly tells the details of that meeting interwoven with other stories such as working with Stephen Fry, encountering Prince William at the BAFTAs, and his brother competing for Israel in skeleton at the recent Winter Olympics in South Korea. The show is very well written and provides some interesting insights on the rise of intolerance and hatred in today's society.

MICF- Charlie Pickering, Mel Buttle and Alex Edelman

To celebrate Belinda's birthday we decided to once again hit the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for an evening of shows. First up was Charlie Pickering with How To Tame A Wild Squirrel at The Comedy Theatre. As host of The Weekly with Charlie Pickering (sort of an Australian version of The Daily Show) and previous host of The Project, Charlie is known for his sharp and hard hitting observations on politics and current events. This was a looser evening of comedy, with Charlie stating he wanted it to be more of a conversation. At times these audience interactions seemed to derail the show they went on for too long with no real comedic pay off. His bits around Tony Abbott, racism, how the internet has changed the way we live, and instructions on how to tame a wild squirrel to be a pet were more successful.

We then headed to the Melbourne Town Hall to see Mel Buttle in Up To Pussy's Bow. In this year's show Mel has had enough and goes after people who are annoying or rude, including ladies of leisure with small dogs, body corporates, girls playing at a public swimming pool and an annoying American tourist in Hawaii. Mel also included stories about her family, and had a very funny bit about her dad who likes to scavenge around for dumped treasures. In addition, Mel's love for selling things on Gumtree resulted in some unique items on offer for the audience.

Our final show of the night was American comedian Alex Edelman with Everything Handed To You. Raised Orthodox Jew in Boston his show dealt with identity and family. He used a meeting with his twin brother (a bodybuilding, frequent flyer mile runner) and precocious 13 year old brother at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to tell them he's moving to the UK as a jumping off point for different anecdotes throughout the set. The show was very funny and well written, and had me laughing out loud throughout - definitely my highlight of MICF so far.