According to the comedy festival scuttlebutt, Australian women are really kicking arse this year. Fiona O’Loughlin, Celia Pacquola, Mel Buttle, and so on. Whilst hers is not a flawless show, Geraldine Hickey is certainly up there. This show is piss funny. I can’t overstate that. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Geraldine perform, and in the interim she has come up with some jokes that are mercilessly, arse rippingly funny.
I’ve already sworn three times in this review (two arses and a piss), and that’s just in the intro . But I don’t think Geraldine would mind. In fact she starts her show with the familial greeting ‘sup fuckers?. She is so proper Aussie.
Geraldine’s show is about adventures in the dating world, roughly structured around her hatred of the film He’s Just Not That Into You. When I use the word ‘dating’ I know a whole group of readers are going to sigh and say, oh, another comedy chick doing stuff about dating. But those are people who’ve never encountered Geraldine. She is, simply put, not “another” anything. She is unique, and the way she tackles this subject is miles away from the bland dating hijinks you might expect. This is a show about making nuts on nuts action happen, corn on the cob as a birthday present and the hazards of loft bed habitation.
There was a persistent heckler in the audience for this performance who was friendly enough, but fucking annoying, constantly interrupting the flow of the show. Geraldine handled this as well as could be expected, regularly working to get the show back on track whilst remaining reasonably polite towards our deluded “helper”, thus keeping the mood in the room in a positive flow.
The one criticism I will make is that the structural elements, particularly the references to He’s Just Not That Into You seem a bit contrived and only implanted in the show to give it a story-like profile. Geraldine is such a good stand up, and this is such a fun show, that these structural elements need not be there. This show could exist so easily as just an hour of topical stand up that the structural segues feel a little awkward and shoved in.
That said, Geraldine has made me laugh harder than anyone else yet this festival. Recommended.
For full booking details go to the Melbourne Comedy Festival website