Ben Elton live @ Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Authentic Stupidity Tour, 1 April 2025
Thirty years post- The Man From Auntie, Ben Elton remains a stand-up comedic force of nature: irreverent, fast-talking and provocative, conjuring hyperbolic waves to surf to the shores of taboo—uproariously dumping (himself) on society’s fads, foibles, affectations and bona fide horse-fuckery.
Dylan Moran: What It Is
(Live in Sydney, 2009)
Moran appears more inclined to make a point than in previous recordings, and consequently less able to do so (his off-the-cuff artillery ceding ground to encroaching vagueness and derailments of thought). When in flow, still a waspishly beleaguered, bildungs-roaming, man-child philosophiser nonpareil.
Dylan Moran: like, totally…
(Live in London, 2006)
Dylan Moran takes to the stage like a recently slimmed, cuddly teddy bear possessed on a whim to explain life’s ineffabilities while at the same time swatting them away and distracting himself with enraptured visions of honey. At his best when extemporising.
Dylan Moran: Monster
(Live in Dublin, April 2004)
Moran is an unprepossessing, boyishly unkempt presence on stage, at once sardonically amused at life and yet vaguely irritated by it, flailing after observational threads and, when sufficiently piqued, latching on to sublimely absurd stream-of-consciousness exemplars, caught and released with rapid-fire insouciance.
Jeff Green: Back to my Roots
Live @ the Elephant and Wheelbarrow (Melbourne Comedy Festival, 11 April 2023)
Jeff Green is very much a veteran of the stand-up comedy circuit. Performing to a dinner party–sized crowd upstairs at the Elephant and Wheelbarrow, he looked and sounded his age. The humour, however, was still there—consummate, practised, with freewheeling anecdotes.
David O’Doherty: Tiny Piano Man
Live @ the Forum (Melbourne Comedy Festival, 11 April 2023)
David O’Doherty presents as an everyday man, albeit one who likes to sing-speak much of his stand-up routine while sitting down and playing a bite-sized keyboard. His humour, also, is of the everyday, and is joyously funny in both content and delivery.
Sammy J: Good Hustle
Live @ the Forum (Melbourne Comedy Festival, 9 April 2023)
Sammy J played to an appreciative audience and was as uninhibited as ever in laying down the political and social satire. At his best when singing, or performing sans his various personas (although the ‘change the date’ swagman poem was a highlight).
Dylan Moran: Dr Cosmos
Queensland Performing Arts Centre (5 December 2019)
Irish comedian Dylan Moran was in fine, free-flowing form last night, gilding his societal observations with intelligent and rapid-fire absurdist exemplars while expounding on the generation gap, growing up in Ireland, accepting middle age, and the inherent failings of the male gender.
Sammy J’s Major Party National Tour
live at the Brisbane Powerhouse, 19 July 2019
A shortish but well-constructed comedy show with limited audience participation and a topical (albeit slightly predictable) political bent. Sammy J is quick on his feet, but his true strength lies in musical humour. His songs—political or otherwise—are witty and wonderful.
Stephen Fry Live at the Sydney Opera House
(ABC, 2010)
Even while speaking more or less off the cuff, Stephen Fry remains engaging; yet precious few of the stories told at this performance won’t already be familiar to those who have read his three autobiographies (of which only one postdates the DVD).