Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) has once again hit the road for its annual Roadshow around the country.
The Roadshow showcases the finest talents from the 2024 MICF, delivering doses of laughter to doorsteps all over.
It's an opportunity to get pals together for a well-deserved blast of LOLs, featuring a line-up made from beloved comedy royalty and fresh Festival sensations.
Joining the fun of the MICF Roadshow is performer, writer, artist and comedian Zoë Coombs Marr.
Zoë grew up in Grafton and has performed stand-up comedy extensively in Australia, the UK, and the US. She's been recognised through nominations for things like Best Show at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Victorian Premier's Literacy Award for Drama, and wins for the likes of the Philip Parsons Young Playwright Award, Green Room Awards, and the Golden Gibbo at Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
We sat down with Zoë to chat about her involvement in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow, and what she's bringing to audiences.
This is a showcase of, quote, 'beloved comedy royalty alongside the freshest sensations from the festival'. How does it feel to be included in something like this?!
I don’t know about royalty, or where I sit in that… I suppose I’ll have to wait for the crowning ceremony, which is a pretty elaborate ritual that takes place under a full moon. Regardless, it’s a cracker line-up, and it's always nice to be included, isn’t it? Remember when you were in primary school there was that game where kids would go “let’s run away from (insert name of whichever kid had been chosen for the hazing that day)” and then everyone would run away from them. I guess it feels like the opposite of that?
How did you find out you were going to be a part of it?
I believe it was email. Possibly a phone call. I can’t remember exactly but it was something electronic, I bet! (I tell ya, we’re living in the future!) Anyway, my manager called me, or emailed me, and I bolted straight out of my chair, clapped my hand to my forehead and knocked my hat right off. I didn’t even notice because at that point, my eyes were bursting out of my head on stalks, my jaw dropped to the floor and my teeth clean popped right out of my mouth and chattered away, like a 'Looney Tunes'. While they were running off down the hall, I picked up my acme phone and through my now toothless mouth I said “Queensland Roadshow?! SIGN ME UP!”. . . And here we are!
The laughs have hit the road already. How have the shows gone so far?!
They’ve been great! Fun shows, good people, lots of laughs. It’s delightful to get out of the cities and muck around on different stages. And I love the kooky country venues we’ve been in – backstage you get to see signed flyers for 'Puppetry Of The Penis' tours alongside really old framed posters for regional productions of 'Kiss Me Kate'. And you get to pass the occasional big thing on the road, or volunteer run museums. I was just in Western Australia and we went to the Carnarvon Space Museum, highly recommend. We missed the Sewing Machine Museum though. Next time.
Focusing a little bit more on your offering. . . What are you bringing Roadshow attendees this year?
Mainly jokes. Initially I had planned on doing my one-woman play chronicling the life of Helen Keller, but I was informed that was both inappropriate and too long. It does run for three hours, and I refuse to cut a minute! So I’ve pivoted to some relatable gear about my dog, my life, growing up in Grafton, with a few puns and callbacks thrown in. Probably a couple of pull back reveals. A touch of naughty stuff, a pinch of gross-out humour. A few observations about the minutiae and absurdities of life and human behaviour, you know what I mean?! It’s no epic play but it works.
What’s your process when it comes to crafting a set that fits among a line-up of other comics?
First I go up to each of them, one at a time, look deep in their eyes, like really into the soul, and I stage whisper straight into their face “you better not be doing any Helen Keller gear, that is MY turf”, and then it pretty much goes organically from there. Things just fall into place.
Zoë Coombs Marr plays as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roadshow at The Tivoli (Brisbane) on 22 June. She also plays Empire Theatre (Toowoomba) 20 June and The Events Centre (Caloundra) 21 June.
