MICF- Maria Bamford, Rhys Nicholson and Anne Edmonds

I began my Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows this evening at the Forum with Belinda to see the American comedian Maria Bamford and her show The Irrelevant Redundancy. It's been eight years since she was last in Australia, and this was my first time seeing her live. She spoke openly about her mental health issues, but her main bits were focused on her career and relationships with her family and husband as she took on their voices and worked through different scenarios from each person's point of view. The funniest bit was about her and her husband role playing solutions to problems such as having a living wage and gentrification.

Next I headed to the Victoria Hotel to see Rhys Nicholson's show Nice People Nice Things Nice Situations. In this show he talked about being the non-exciting age of 29 and that transition as you move into adulthood and can't really do things you never got around to doing as a younger person. Many of the stories he told were from his day to day life, such as his relationship with his family and fiance, and encounters with people at the dog park (which happens to be the one next to where I live). He crammed a lot into his hour long show with some very funny and inappropriate lines that were well suited to his core audience.

My final show for the evening was Anne Edmonds' What's Wrong With You? at the Melbourne Town Hall. Last year I saw Anne as her character Helen Bidou, but this year she was just herself with a strong command of the late show crowd. She was quite funny dealing with the audience, particularly a guy at the front who decided to rest his foot on the stage. She spoke about her mental health issues, particularly thinking the nearby freeway was poisoning her and what she did to heal herself. She also had a running thread throughout the show around dealing with males who don't think the rules of society apply to them, whether that be a young boy not listening to his indulging mother at a grocery store, a man with road rage about a turn lane out front of a hospital, or a guy deciding to play a ukulele at the end of a yoga class when no one asked him to.

MICF- Helen Bidou

My final show for the 2018 Melbourne International Comedy Festival was Helen Bidou (aka Anne Edmonds) in Enter the Spinnaker Lounge. Helen Bidou originally appeared as the fashion expert on the spoof morning tv show Get Krack!n. In this show she attempts her own variety hour by interacting with the audience, chatting with guests and singing songs, all while accompanied by her awkward son and wannabe DJ Connor (Sam Campbell).

Helen wore her trademark sarong and was sipping cocktails throughout the show. She tried to keep it together while she occasionally railed against those in her life who had wronged her, including her on again/off again beau Simon. It was a show that kept you laughing but tense as you didn't know what Helen would do next. It wasn't nearly as shocking as I was expecting, although the final number is pretty revealing (and why the show has an 18+ rating).