MICF- Hannah Gadsby and Nick Cody

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival officially began yesterday and will run until 17 April. I've already booked into a number of shows and tonight were my first two at ACMI down in the Beyond Room. First up was Hannah Gadsby with Dogmatic. Unlike previous shows Hannah promised no woe this year. Loosely inspired by Taylor Swift's 1989 world tour Hannah has changed things up by telling short stories about different events in her life such as renting a cottage from a gay couple in North Carolina who were gun-toting 9/11 deniers, her family's use of boxes of discarded plastic corn cob bags during her childhood, and a dog sitting excursion in New York that went horribly wrong. Just like TayTay's tour we were treated to videos of Hannah and her pet (a dog named Douglas) while she did a few costume changes. The show is very well done as Hannah gradually reveals the truth about her "underdog" muse and the hypocrisy of her "feminist" stance with an epic speech at the end. It's definitely a show not to miss (unless you are a big Taylor Swift fan).

Next was Melbourne comedian Nick Cody and his show Come Get Some. Nick delivered more of a traditional stand up set revolving around a few themes such as his lack of a driver's license at the age of 28, his girlfriend's magical ability to stop him before even he realises he's about to swear at someone, traveling the globe and the unreliability of frequent TripAdvisor reviewers. His material was more blokey in topic matter but did have a couple good threads running throughout the set that tied together well at the end.