In some ways it’s hard to believe that Fiona O Loughlin has been around doing stand-up for 10 years, but it showed in her wonderful relaxed established style and well constructed strong material. She has built up quite a following and was eagerly anticipated as the second half of the double header with Tom Gleeson. Wearing a fetching evening gown and thongs (she couldn’t be stuffed wearing the heels), Fiona was wonderful at giving the tightly packed audience the impression that we were at a party where she was regaling us with all the hilarious family news. In fact Fiona said that her stand-up career grew out of enjoying holding court with her stories at parties, and God help her husband if he interrupted her.
Originally from Adelaide her husband dragged her to Alice Springs, which is as horrible for Fiona as it sounds, though in the end she managed to gain a lot of unique material from the experience, so perhaps it wasn’t all bad. Fiona also talked about coming from a huge Irish family but mostly recounted anecdotes about her own fairly large nuclear family. The structure of her show was to introduce herself, talk about her annoying husband and what a dreadful wife he’s had to put up with and then she dealt with her children one by one and what a crazy mother they have had to put up with. Finally she came back to herself and how she is an embarrassment to herself and others with some excruciatingly funny stories.
As she laughed heartily at herself, I suddenly realised that her style reminded me very much of Phyllis Diller, a worthy pioneering mentor who co-incidentally also had 5 children to rave on about, though Fiona manages superbly without Phyllis’s American-style constant punchlines. Fiona also has the ability to wow a crowd without using any swearwords which, it must be said, gives her a very wide appeal. The Hobart Comedy Festival audience adored Fiona and it was a suitably jubilant finale to the main part of the festival at the Salamanca Arts Centre Venue.