End of Sydney Comedy Festival

End of Festival

Sydney Town Hal Hall

Reviewed on May 18

Reviewed by Ron Lee, CSP

The Sydney Comedy Festival, the best ever staged, is done and dusted for 2019.

It concluded at the Sydney Town Hall and featured 15 comedians.

MC on the night was Tom Ballard who did his fat gay man bit and anti-baby boomer rant, and made sure that the evening flowed smoothly.

Fiona O’Loughlin did her bad mother routine for people who like to hear about children. Then there was Nath Valvo who makes Rhys Nicholson and Richard Simmons seem rugged.

Dave Hughes came north to share his Melbourne-style of humour and American-born Australian Mike Goldstein is sure to make his mark here.

Steph Tisdell told us what it’s like when a large Aboriginal woman dates a ginger, and she came up with possible descriptive names for their inevitable offspring.

An experienced favourite of mine, Luke Heggie, did some material that I haven’t heard before; he keeps coming up with the goods.

A new favourite was Englishman Alfie Brown who did a brilliant bit on vegans. Every exceptional comedian is a deep, analytical thinker who is able to comedically express those thoughts and observations and I ended up looking up some of his other work online.

Closing off the night and the Comedy Festival was the always entertaining Nazeem Hussain.

The Sydney Comedy Festival continues to get bigger, better and more significant, and could become as big as Montreal and Edinburgh. Under current management, and with our geographical and architectural advantages, it could happen sooner rather than later.